Sporty Spice

My niece Ellie made this for me as a housewarming present, and my sister told me it took her a few days to use her hands to create the mermaid, let various parts dry, and then finish the fine details. I took a picture of it to show Ellie who then said "I really like seeing my work."

I'm going down to South Florida to see everyone for Easter next weekend but yesterday Ellie turned 8, and it sounds like she had a pretty good birthday week!

Ellie tends to operate at two speeds only - awake and asleep - and has that great kid quality in being very present in all aspects of her life. When I'm in Florida I can't tell you the amount of times I am just starting to wake up when I hazily see Ellie staring at me who then demands immediately "Can you tell us a magic dolphin rider story?" The magic dolphin riders are stories that involve the inflatable dolphins which the kids play on up in Nova Scotia, though of course they end up having lots of adventures that involve pirates, buried treasure, rescuing someone, sometimes flying to New York, Florida or California, and most often escaping the clutches of the nasty sea witch (typically yours truly).

Here's a picture of the magic dolphin riders and the sea witch herself in the midst of a tale. Ellie is the one saying Charge! -- which is very much the type of little girl she is. Her big sister Katy often sends very thoughtful emails, asking questions, sharing a thought or two, wanting to know how I am doing; Ellie's tend to have flashing crabs, have one funny line, and she likes to call me on Skype repeatedly when I'm in the next room in Florida. She seemed to love the Christmas video I made for them the most, playing the song about 10 times in a row until we were all really sick of hearing it.

My sister has said before to me several times "Ellie will gray me" as Ellie has the energy of a little puppy, loves to practice soccer in the house, likes to keep all sorts of little treasures in her room (my sister keeps a very neat house). It wasn't a big surprise to any of us that she was the first cousin to break a bone. She's had a cast on her wrist for a month though it didn't deter the big pirate birthday party, where there was a found map and buried treasure discovered on the beach.

Ellie is the one in the tropical looking pirate hat and blue board shorts. My brother in law is in the boat telling the crew of little girls what to do next.

Big sister Katy (distancing herself a bit from the 7 and 8 year olds) is carrying the shovel.

While buried treasure was found, the biggest treat was yesterday when Ellie got her cast off right before school - just in time for spring break next week.

While Ellie is high on action, low on downtime, one thing she's always liked to do is "I love you" game. You might say to her, "Okay Ellie, gotta go, talk to you later, I love you." She will then say immediately "I love you MORE." This will go on repeatedly until you tire of it...but who tires of that?

The great thing about little kids is that they just say it.