Dear Princess Frostine

I spent yesterday morning in your kindergarten class.  Watching you with your classmates and your teacher never ceases to amaze me.   You are always the first one to raise your hand when the teacher asks a question and you literally skip in and out of the classroom.   It's so unlike me when I was your age.  I never wanted the teacher to call on me and was almost to shy to ask to go the bathroom. 

When you were born, you were so tiny, barely weighing five pounds when we brought you home.  Your dad and I thought you were so fragile.  We had no idea you would grow into such a rough and tumble kid.  You are anything but fragile.  Besides dogs and swimming pools, there are not many things that scare you.  

You are also a child with intense emotions.  When you are happy, you are silly happy and it's infectious.   When you're feelings are hurt or you're angry, everyone knows it.    You are insightful and have an ability to focus that I think is rare among kids your age.   I think your dad is a perfectionist, but you put him to shame.   When we sit down to do your homework, I watch the little wheels turning in your head as you figure something out.   You want so badly for everything on the page to be "correct."   Most of your classmates were good jump ropers at the beginning of the school year, and you worked your buns off practicing jump rope until you were just as good as the rest of them.   I know that no matter what you choose to do in life, you'll give it 110% and you will always finish what you start. 

There is a flip side to your drive to be number one.  I put some candy hearts in your snack bag around Valentine's Day and I overheard you on the playground telling a couple of girls, "I got candy hearts and I'm not sharing with you."   You have a little bit of Lucy in you.

I've witnessed you fall to pieces when your playdate won't play the game you want to play, or when your sister got a solo line in the kindergarten musical and you didn't, or on the soccer field when you weren't the best player.   Many days I'd pick you up from preschool and we'd have to sit in the car while I held you for a while and you cried your heart out because the boy who you wanted to be friends with told you he didn't like you.  

My sweet Frostine, I am so proud of you.  Life is not always fair, you are not always going to be first, and not everyone is going to like you.  I wish there was a way I could shield you from the pain you will feel as you learn this on your own.    I can promise you that I will always be here for you when you don't score a goal, when you don't get invited to the birthday party or when your picture isn't picked for display in the school library.  And I will be the one cheering the loudest when you graduate from college with honors or break the world record for consecutive hours jump roping.  I hope you never lose you determination to succeed and the sparkle in your eye when you've worked hard to accomplish something.   

I love you more than these words can express.

Your Mom