My Dearest Sofia,
Ten is a big year! You're at a strange age, not really a little girl, but not a teenager yet, either. You're definitely your own person. You hate doing what everyone else is doing. When you were little, I thought you would be my social butterfly, but you're quite content to play by yourself or just with Timmy and your cousins. You did ask to have a sleepover for your birthday this year with Zola and a few of your friends from school. I wish we would have been able to have it on your birthday, but it's not until next week (blame the hospital schedules). It's all you can talk about right now.
What else can't you stop talking about right now? The fact that you're old enough to do one of the adventure programs at camp this summer. You asked to sign up for one that goes canoeing and rock climbing, so that's what you'll be doing this summer, in addition to spending a week in Miami with Abuelo and a long weekend in Los Angeles with Aunt Addison.
You're my little genius, you got straight A's on your last report card. You've gotten over your statement from a few years ago of not wanting to be a doctor because you don't like blood. I've noticed you sneaking into the OR gallery on more than one occasion to watch on of my surgeries. I don't know if you've watched any of Mommy or Daddy's surgeries, but you seem to enjoy ortho. As much as I would love for you to become a surgeon like your parents, I'd be just as happy with whatever you decide to do with your life, as long as you're happy.
This year, you helped me to learn to take life as it comes and to not try to change it into what I want it to be. Someone at school had been giving you a hard time because you're smaller than the other kids in your class and the fact that you have two moms. You stood up for yourself and when you told Mom and I about it that night, you said "I told him that I'm small because I was born early, but it's okay because it makes me who I am and my moms love me no matter what, just like I love them." That was also the day I stopped worrying about whether or not you were growing up to be a good person. As Mom would say, "we've raised you to be a good man in a storm." Don't ever change that about yourself!
Love,
Madre