Now she is sixteen. She still reads anything she can get her hands on (or even see from a distance), though she has little patience for many of the classics. We get a fair bit of, "Mom, come on, I know there've been books about people who feel like they don't belong published in the last fifty years. I mean, this book is older than you!" With all those teenage italics.
Or more specifically, she will be sixteen at 12:30PM, Pacific Time; she's very precise about these things. I have an alarm set on my phone for that time, with the Victory Theme from Final Fantasy VII as the alarm tone. I surprised her with it when we went to the mall on her... I think it was her tenth(?) birthday, and it has become The Way We Do It.
We've already had a small party, with a splash pad and board games and pizza and an ice cream cake and helium balloons and three of her best friends. Oh, and self-dyed hair; we can't forget that. She did that on Friday - split dye of yellow and pink, and she decided it made her look like a Trufulla Tree (which everyone needs). After the splash park, which is chlorinated, she decided she would do a second coat, as the yellow had faded somewhat. If I get any pix of that, I'll post them later.
Goes nicely with the daisy-flowered black dress, though.
So tonight is Dinner at Grandma's (we have done a family thing for birthdays every year since Abby turned one, so nearly twenty years now), and presents. And the birthday kid's favorite meal, which is pretty basic - bowtie pasta with marinara, and green beans. Usually bread of some sort and a cake or ice cream or something.
