Being eight

Life is good when you're eight. You can do lots of things. You can be dropped off to try new activities, like clay class, or at a birthday party. You don't need your mom and your siblings along to keep you comfortable anymore. You can play soccer. Who knew you, the tiniest member of the team, would be such a powerhouse in goal? You can be a surrogate parent to your 4yo sister. You know how to be a good friend. You can hang out comfortably with your older siblings, and you mostly get their sense of humour. You can entertain adults with your own weird meld of storytelling and partly-informed political satire. You can ride your bike anywhere. You can becalm even the Dog from Hell on a good day, and you are really good with the chicks. You can check their food, water and temperature, take an armload out for some free-range time and are clever and responsible enough to ensure they all end up back in the coop.

You can read music well enough to teach yourself the heinous sixteenth-note section in the Vivaldi a minor Presto without your mom's help. You can join the big kids to perform the Pachelbel Canon. You can learn all the community orchestra pieces. You can build yourself a webSpace without any help. You like math, because it's interesting. Even converting decimals and fractions is kind of neat, and well within your grasp because you genuinely like numbers. You can read anything you want to and sometimes disappear for a day or two because you're deep in some thick novel. You can finish a Sudoko and play a pretty decent game of chess. You can learn Japanese kana and kanji faster than almost anyone in the family -- and retain them better than all of us put together. You can sew and cook and swim. You laugh and play and enjoy imaginary games.

Being eight is lots of fun. And being your mom is pretty great too.