8

Today is Katherine's 8th birthday.  One minute that seems perfectly realistic and the next I think how can she possibly be that old? 

Her dinner request was to have a fast food picnic at the park and then to play.  Since it was her warmest birthday ever, we happily agreed.  (It was 64 degrees here, one degree warmer than her birth city of Yangjiang which is on the South China Sea and has a tropical climate!)

The park is one of her favorite places.  At 8, she loves to list her favorite things:  books, American history, sausage, the color turquoise, doing math problems, playing the violin, the Titanic, dogs, sewing with Granny, going to school.

She dreams about living on a farm and raising horses and going to a one-room school.  She can't wait until she is old enough to cook all by herself and do her homework in cursive and play real songs on the violin.

Sometimes she wishes that she had a dozen brothers and sisters.  And sometimes she wishes she was still an only child.  But mostly, she likes being Rachel's big sister. 

I look at Katherine and am continually astonished at who she has become.  And that she is mine.  Sometimes I wonder what ever happened to that sweet, scrawny baby I first held in China.  Then the light catches just so...

...and there she is.  Happy 8th birthday, Katherine Guo Dan.

You are amazing...