Elise, a teenager

 Sometimes Elise gets really cool birthdays. For instance, this year we were traveling in Virginia and arrived home the day before her 13th. Not one to waste an opportunity, she decided that our beach day in Virginia would be an ideal time to pre-celebrate her birthday. And why not? I wrapped up a new beach aquarium to bring along as a gift, and off we went. (Note: this is her second time receiving a new beach aquarium on a beach vacation as an early birthday gift. It just works.)

The beach aquarium, on
vacation.

Amazing trip aside, a birthday at the beach is pretty ideal. She filled her aquarium with critters and then shells, swam until she was too battered to stay out anymore, and enjoyed a Twinkie which, apparently, at least one of my children never remembered having, ever (bad mom? Or good mom? You decide...). Back at the condo/timeshare, we celebrated with ice-cream. 

But her real birthday, over a month ago now, was also a lovely day. Coinciding with the first full day back from our trip meant that it was an easy decision to cancel school for Elise, Naomi (except math), and, well, not really for Kalina--sorry, Hon. 

Making chocolate raspberry
cheesecake in her new
shirt from Kalina!

Elise further made things easy by making her own birthday cheesecakes while I worked on unpacking and laundry. Bless you, Elise! What a great way to spend your 13th! Naomi helped wherever she could, making sure Elise was happy, doing her own laundry, and self-entertaining. Kalina did school, poor girl.

And of course there were presents! The day before, Elise had voiced sweet, mild, considerate, polite, carefully worded Elise-like concern that before we left on our trip, the present table had looked a little scarce (but it did have a few gifts ready to go!!! In my defense!). Would she have a big birthday just like her sisters?

Even if it killed us.

Naomi likes to do elaborate
bows. Using cat figurines, for
instance. 

A quick trip to the grocery store after arriving home Sunday evening, a decorating session later that evening, efficient present-wrapping techniques, a little scooting of still-unpacked bags around corners and out of sight, and by bedtime it totally looked like a birthday. A 13th one, in fact.

And fortunately, Elise seems to bring her own party wherever she goes at times. So never mind that the rest of us were all running a little lower than usual on party spirit, Elise had  delightful day.

Her first gift was a shirt from Kalina (see photo), that ironically we'd purchased even before Elise started her crayfish census of the stream. For a win!

Naomi gave her a cat treat cookbook that she's already dug into, producing lovely little muffins that the cats, of course, ignored. But we'll try again!

She also unwrapped a game or two, and a couple books throughout the day (a textbook dedicated to plankton! She might finally get her questions answered--or, more likely, come up with new ones), in addition to a digital microscope and an actually warm, nice sleeping bag. See, Child? We didn't forget you! Later Elise declared she got good presents--maybe one of her best birthdays ever. 

That evening, Grandpa and Marianne helped us celebrate with a trip to IHOP. The girls and I split a few things, and it turns out that with all those fancy pancakes, we totally didn't need the cheesecake.

But we tried it anyway, and each ate our requisite two bites. An even bigger challenge was lighting all the candles--which spelled Happy Birthday (see how there are exactly 13? Perfect!), but were so tiny that by the time the last one was lit, the first one had burned all the way through. To make it even more fun, they scattered wax when blown. Lots of laughs!

And so Elise celebrated turning 13. Yay!

But wait... we weren't going to let her 13th go by without a big bash with her friends! Before the trip she'd spelled out a few things she wanted to do at her party (namely campfire, treats, and friends), and she was content to wait until an undisclosed date to celebrate since we had not only our big trip, but also our AHG camping trip and an AHG sleep-under-the-stars astronomy night to keep us busy and replete with campfires/treats.

And then the best thing happened--Elise, so busy planning the AHG campout as part of her leadership position--seemed to have forgotten that we hadn't planned her party yet! 

A new planktology
textbook, tor the girl who
thought she knew
everything.

Which meant we were in the ideal situation to surprise her. And so we did. ALL of her friends planned to come, including a few sisters of friends that she enjoys too. Kalina had the brilliant idea of planning minute-to-win-it games, which Elise loves, and she prepared the materials. I planned the food (pizza + s'mores) and made sure the house was ready for guests, and Naomi helped me shop for decorations and prizes for the games. Matt chopped wood and ferried Elise away an hour before her guests were to arrive. 

Which was a good thing, because I was about ready to burst with the secret, having had to constantly remind myself, "Nope, can't say that," over and over again. Elise, for her part, seemed antsy all day, asking to make brownies and for a trip to a not-so-local state park on Saturday.

Despite my slicing myself with a letter opener looking through a drawer for batteries, Naomi, Kalina, and I were just putting on the finishing touches when the guests started arriving. Eventually, we shoed everyone outside and into hiding places almost in time for Elise to arrive home. 

As it was, even though our "surprise!" was a bit less coordinated than it could've been, she was super surprised and super overjoyed to see all her friends in her yard, ready for an evening of fun. We did it!

Matt rushed off to get pizza (which was delayed 15 minutes) while everyone chatted and caught up--a few of her friends hadn't seen each other in a while. We ate, started a fire, and then tried to keep everyone out of the fire while we played games.

As it turns out, the games were crazy, but I suppose I should've expected nothing less from a group of 13-ish-year-olds. They moved Oreos from their foreheads to their mouths, using nothing but facial movements, they moved cotton balls using only the Vaseline we put on their noses, they ate graham crackers hanging from strings, they guessed the number of items in boxes without looking, and they threw cheese puffs at teammates wearing shaving-creamed garbage bags to see who could get the most to stick. It was epic. It was a bit terrifying. It was just perfect.

The prizes were spot-on (yay, I picked prizes for teens!), the s'mores were delicious, if rushed, and no one got hurt, just a bit scared once. Elise opened her gifts, most of which showed lots of personality, and the parents arrived. And our girl glowed.

To be clear, Naomi and Kalina both commented that they would not like a surprise party, but they both really enjoyed helping with Elise's. We should do this every year, right?

Maybe not. But we're all glad that Elise was completely celebrated at 13!

___________________________________________________________

Elise at 13 is growing into a lovely, discerning, tuned-in, and conscientious girl. In fact, she's about as discerning and conscientious as you can be while continuing to be and have a lot of fun.  There might be times when she leans more toward one side than the other, but overall she makes it work.

She's learned the value of asking the words, "How can I help?" during stressful times, and has proven herself very helpful indeed (see cheesecake statement above). She enjoys the challenge of relieving burdens, and aims to be trusted and relied upon.

Continuing in her love of the outdoors, Elise planned our AHG campout, and still tries to sneak outside between school subjects so she can check for baby snapping turtles in the stream. Sometimes you just can't turn that off. She caught quite a few turtles last spring, and released them, only to find some of them again later. One hung around for quite a while, and she found him almost daily for a week or two. Later, she found a small population of crayfish in the stream and spent time recording their measurements and taking a census. She will make a very smooth transition to adult life as long as she becomes a marine-animal biologist in the field, and part-time pastry chef.

As such, Elise also loves baking and, to a lesser extent, cooking. She's becoming a more adventurous eater as well (broccoli, occasionally!), and willingly tries to find healthy snacks if pressed (it's complicated). Her new favorite thing to make is energy balls, but she'll pretty much make anything that tastes good. 

She strives to make good decisions and it stresses her out when other people don't... however she's not so grown up that she doesn't also make decisions to cover herself with mud in the stream, with friends. But at least she knows for a fact it's a dumb thing to do and doesn't pretend it's anything else as she carefully heads upstairs to shower.

Elise is still enchanted by pretty beads, and enjoys making the occasional jewelry (but not wearing much, as her ears still aren't ready to accept lots of changes of earrings). She also likes painting, and is taking a watercolor class.

And she loves reading, specifically books about people overcoming challenges, but also silly stuff or serious stuff. She enjoys her voice lessons (especially one particular song right now), continues to inch along on guitar, and is improving her acting skills.

Now that Elise has embarked on 7th-grade pre-algebra, she no longer complains about math and sometimes I have to stop her and make her do things like use a calculator instead of pencil/paper, stop complaining about the easy problems, or move to something else. I actually did kind of think this might happen, and it's been amazing not to have that particular "disagreement" every day this year. 

She's flying through writing, learning some real French, enjoying digging in to ancient Egypt, and not fussing as much about grammar, either. Our Elise is growing up! New this year: tests and grades. After a slightly rocky start brought on in overconfidence in our general science knowledge (i.e., she declined to study much because she figured she knew everything), she's found herself more than able to achieve the A's she wants. For the sake of her own pride if nothing else.

Elise loves to volunteer, and has been helping with the younger classes at church (along with her sisters), plus she helped with a special needs VBS over the summer, being a buddy for an attendee. She looks for chances to help out other places as well. 

She strives to use good communication to solve problems--and often succeeds. And she's trying to build her courage by doing things that (reasonably) scare her. A few firsts this year included leveling up to her coveted Pioneer level of AHG (more lock-ins! Planning their own badges! More challenging badgework! Yay!), jumping off a diving board, acquiring an email address, making a day's worth of meals for the family, sewing her own water bottle carrier, getting along with the strange teenagers at theater, organizing our garage sale (okay, I helped), and babysitting for some neighbor kids.

In fact, on her first job, she even had to feed the kids all dinner and put the 3-year-old to bed! Not only do the kids (and parents) LOVE her, but she totally maintained her composure and sweet patience when the 3-year-old kept getting out of bed because life was too exciting to be sleeping. Since then, she's babysat them a few other times, usually bringing them to our deck to hold her pet critters and (very mindfully) playing with them in the (ankle-deep) stream. And she earned the money she needed to pay her half of summer camp!

But she's not 100% grown up, either. She's still vocally annoyed she can't climb the maple tree to the top (she totally could--it's just a really tall tree). She adores sweets a little too much (does anyone outgrow that, ever?), loves squishy things, is often too loud, forgets to brush her teeth, neglects to clean the occasional cage unless asked, holds a grudge against the dentist, and sometimes forgets to do what she's told.

But we wouldn't have her any other way, would we?

Happy 13th, sweet girl!