"6 or something"

Stella came home from soccer camp yesterday with a huge grin that revealed a gaping hole where her left front tooth had been just hours before.

“I can’t believe it! You’re such a big girl!” I gave her a crushing hug and demanded the story.

She reenacted the biting of a baby carrot and the way her tooth “fell right out.” She left out the parts about how she was covered in blood and she cried and cried, but D filled me in on that later.

Every fifteen minutes for the rest of the afternoon, she would jump up and run to the mirror to check the gap in her teeth. “I look like a real big girl,” she said proudly. “People are going to think I’m six or something!” Her eyes widened and she shrugged. “I just look like the biggest girl ever!”

She has seemed like such a big girl to me lately. Last week, she spent mornings at art camp and this week she’s at soccer camp. (Monday, she wore her new cleats, shin guards, bright red socks, and the Boca Juniors uniform that her uncle brought back for her from Argentina. I braided her long hair into two braids, and she looked so grown-up!)

She wasn’t too keen on art camp at first, and even told me in the car that “it just isn’t that interesting” because they were only drawing things, they weren’t getting to “make things.” But that changed mid-week, when they each made a magic bird. And by the end of the week, she had made a sparkly magic wand and a fairy house. (Camp ended up being interesting after all.)

Part of her seeming grown up is her decidedly teenage attitude, which rears its ugly head now and again. (She even said, “duh” to me the other day. I’m so sure.) This sort of thing makes me cringe and think I’ll have to grow much thicker skin in the next decade to prepare for the real teenage years.

But she is also incredibly sweet and verbal, and she loves being a big sister. She makes Zoë laugh and laugh by jumping and twirling across the living room, and she rocks and sings to Zoë when Zoë is fussy. And always, my heart breaks a little when she says, “You’re the best mama in the whole world and daddy is the best daddy and Zoë is the best baby!”

The other day her cousin Espen, who is two and a half, was over, and the two of them were sitting at the small table in the dining room, eating chicken nuggets. I walked out of the room, and I heard Espen say, “Ste-lla? Do you think I’m cute?”

“Of course you’re cute, Espen,” she replied quickly, almost indignantly. Then they both started to giggle.

I’m so proud of her. I don’t think I would have been brave enough to go off to soccer and art camps when I was not yet five. Of course, she didn’t have much of a choice, but still, I’m proud of her for going and learning new things and meeting new people all by herself. I love my big, big girl.