Elise at 12

 If there's one thing that annoys Elise leading up to her birthday it's celebrating fall before celebrating her. As such, we have something of a family rule that we don't decorate for fall, buy anything pumpkin-spiced, or even talk about fall much before she's aged up. This year, however, she decided that September could be its own season. So it's kind of, almost, okay to talk about fall. [We do remind her, every year, that Grandpa Les has it way worse, with a near-Christmas birthday. This does not seem to change her convictions about her birthday + fall, but Grandpa gets a good dose of sympathy from afar.]

Honestly, I agree. September, gorgeous and lovely, is really neither pure summer nor pure fall. So we celebrated September as the summer-fall shoulder season this year, as well as Elise's 12th. 

Elise is surprisingly low-maintenance when it comes to birthdays. She's happy with anything (as long as there's a party and sweets), and is content to stay within a budget, keep it simple, consider others, etc. She conscientiously drops hints about what she wants to receive, so there's little guesswork, and she'll gladly help with celebration prep. I know she'll have a great day, no matter what.

On her birthday morning, Elise managed to let us sleep in a bit, but still started her day with fanfare and sisters. Having asked for  hinted about a camera (a rather large gift), for months, the rest of her gifts from us weren't gigantic, but she did open a stingray Squishmallow from Naomi and a book and a bioluminescent mushroom kit from Kalina. 

We enjoyed yet another box of Lucky Charms for breakfast (seriously, we call that breakfast?!?), and I baked Elise's cake so we could decorate it later. Then off to church, where Elise was over the moon to see one of her besties, who we don't actually usually cross paths with in church. Her family made a lovely fuss over Elise, and Elise's day was officially made. 

At home, Matt made pancakes (a new tradition for birthday lunch? I kinda hope so!), and we opened a game of Spikeball from Uncle Tom and Aunt Clarissa! :) We tried to play, failed hilariously, and generally enjoyed ourselves so much.

Then Elise decorated her cake to the theme of sleeping under the stars, her highlight of the year, thanks to plenty of fondant. She was putting the finishing touches on when Grandpa and Marianne arrived for lots more fun.

We made the trip to Jason's deli, opened more gifts, and then expertly pogo sticked a whole lot in the driveway (she got a pogo stick from Grandpa and Marianne and mastered it almost immediately, having borrowed one once for a while). 

A week later, Elise had some friends over for some low-key celebratory fun as well. They began with a craft--decorating wood cutouts of their initials. We even allowed glitter (under stringent rules since I was less than confident about some of the girls' ability to manage it responsibly--no offense, Elise's friends), although I regretted it later when I saw that the glitter didn't stick as well when the paint dried. I also regretted a wet paint/dry glitter blow-dry incident that you can still find traces of in the half-bath.

We enjoyed pizza (from two separate places--the cheap place that is the only kind one girl likes, and the gluten/dairy-free pizza for two other guests. Thank you Matt for doing that running around!), and then headed outside.

Earlier in the day, Kalina and Matt had created an awesome orienteering-based treasure hunt that took the girls down the trail a bit. I'm not sure everyone stuck with it, but they definitely all enjoyed roaming the woods, and eventually they made it to the end (which was, ironically, very close to where they'd begun. Even more ironically, they'd almost started digging there at the outset.). 

Next, a campfire and lots of s'mores options: gluten-free Oreos, Rolos, York peppermint patties (which will forever be known as Yonk peppermint patties in our house--a hilarious mispronunciation Elise is officially able to laugh at now), pretzels, fruit-flavored marshmallows, and more. 

And then, quickly, gifts. We'd requested only simple things. We ended up with everything from a lovely plant to a glittery, noisy rubber chicken. Hmm.

______

At 12, Elise continues to amaze us with her good-naturedness (that she seems to be purposefully developing even more), joyfulness, and volume. And curiosity. And occasionally, daring. And strangeness creativity.

She's as emphatic as ever about certain types of scientific knowledge (plankton, etc.), and the outdoors, and baby snapping turtles, and whatever book/craft/pogo sticking/new pet/whatever other hobby she's into. It's fun, really, to be pulled along through all her interests. Most of the time. Other times they hit you a bit like a train.

Elise asks great questions and shows great empathy and thoughtfulness, with a very well-developed sense of social situations. It's not that she acts on that 100% of the time--but if she was annoying adults by chatting too late in the tent with her friends, she will freely admit she needed to have quieted down. She's an encouraging little soul, too, trying to push her friends and family to greater heights. Again, not 100% in the right way, but getting there, and with the right motivations. 

Her pets in the past year have included a baby prairie kingsnake, a couple little turtles (painted, snapping, I think maybe one other), triops, copepods, tadpoles (2 kinds), a preying mantis, probably a couple fish, and of course her frogs and the standard things in our house. And probably more that I'm forgetting.

Elise still loves all things science, reading, writing, and theater. She's currently in Annie and in a show called Puffs, about the Hufflepuffs' experience at Hogwarts, in her theater class. She also continues to enjoy her voice lessons and loved planning and organizing the campout for AHG. Nature Club still continues, although it's been a bit bombarded by neighbors and is maybe not as big of a thing as it used to be, sadly. She's one busy girl!

People frequently mention how fun Elise is to talk to--a neighbor was even happy to drive her to theater classes last semester. She has no problem speaking to people of alllll ages. It's as though age doesn't exist--although she can definitely tell when people aren't acting their age, and she does value a certain level a maturity from kids who are old enough to know better. :)

Her sweet tooth still reigns, but she's just as likely to pop tomatoes into her mouth as chocolate chips (or, almost), and she even wants to try adventurous foods. She still climbs higher than we'd like, but is not afraid to do a lot of other things that we would like (get shots without a fuss, kill the spider, make friends with a new child, etc.).

She likes to tap into her creative side, whether by writing poetry and illustrating it, or, more recently, painting tiny canvases in national park-inspired scenes.

Here's some poetry she wrote in her math book, just like those monks copying manuscripts years ago added their own thoughts to the margins to make life more interesting:

The sunlight shines upon her fur,
So now it seems to glow,
And why she looks so pleased and smug is something I don't know.
The sunlight soothes her worries;
She purrs without restraint.
It's very clear this sunlit cat is perfect, without taint.

And on the next page:

I rub her chin, I pet her tum.
She blinks and smiles and rolls.
It is my job to pamper,
She pays me with her purr. 

And for the final stanza, she changes it up:

She's always, always sleeping,
Unless she's busy licking.
I try to let her rest as best I can.

In order to conserve time so she could write the poetry, she omitted some steps of problems and shortcutted her way to the final answer. Personally, I'm wondering if we should be doing math at all--after all, she could probably make her way in the world just fine with a little cat poetry and a smile. 

Speaking of math, it remains on her list of things she won't do without a fight. Also included: dentistry (still) and grammar. Other things she won't do without a varying level of nagging: clear her dishes at the table, brush her teeth/hair, clean her room, turn out her light and go to sleep (basically anything recurring).

She freely admits that she gets distracted easily and this keeps her from getting schoolwork done and sleeping at night. To the point that I had her take a self-test for ADD (turns out, her answers lined up almost perfectly in the "gifted" column, with almost none in the ADD column, so there's our problem...).

But she maintains enough focus to produce lovely art, hold interesting and in-depth conversations, learn all about microscopic (and non-microscopic) critters, plan an entire campout for AHG, bake amazing key-lime bars, learn a TON of lines for the play she's in, crochet an entire blanket, kayak and hike long (ish) distances, scatter joy around the world, and all the rest. Not bad for a 12-year-old!