Cassidy started 7th grade on Wednesday. SEVENTH. GRADE. I know, right?
On October 1st, 2003 I wrote about her first homework assignment and mentioned being “put out” by an hour of writing the letter “b” and then some cutting and glueing. I want to punch October 1st, 2003 me in the face.
I get questions about Cassidy a lot. How is she, WHERE is she, why don’t you ever write/tweet about her anymore? So: she’s fine, she’s probably in her room writing in her diary or hanging out with a friend, and becuase she’s asked me not to.
Believe me, there are VOLUMES I could write about this kid but she’s asked me not to mention things here, ALL THE THINGS I WANT TO WRITE ABOUT OF COURSE, and I have to respect that. I don’t have to LIKE it. There are so many funny stories and headdesk moments that you are all missing out on that I want to share and can’t but she’s going to be 12 in a month and we live in the digital age. Her site links to my site and kids are assholes and I don’t ever want to be the cause of any problems with that.
So instead I’ll just leave you with some of my favorite shots of her starting with when she was a sweet innocent little baby to now when I’m pretty sure there’s been a time or to she’s wished that I would spontaniously combust into a ball of flame. Have I mentioned how fun it is to embarrass a tween in public? Because it is.
This is just seconds before she took her first step. She was 13 months old and the only thing she cared about was her Pa and bubbles so that’s all it took to distract her enough to get the first step off. There was no stopping her after that!
Here she is getting the STAR Award in 1st grade. She had been wanting to get it ALL YEAR and it was the LAST MONTH. She cried when she told me she got it. I still tear up when I think about it. It was also a BIG DEAL because she got to wear whatever she wanted to school that day while the rest of the kids had to be in uniform.
This is one of my favorite pictures of her. Taken in July 2005 on my dad’s old boat and I don’t know if it’s the missing teeth, the cheesy grin or what but this is my daughter. 100%.
Here she is later the same night high on s’mores. See, this is pretty much how her face looked fer entire sixth year on earth.
And here is Halloween 2005. She was a vampire and LOVED her makeup. She told me she wanted black hair so I bought that spray and we started in on it and she HATED it all ratted like that. I thought she wanted to be a SCARY vampire. She very much wanted to be a “PRETTY vampire”. This was pre-twilight, by the way. FORESHADOW ANYBODY?
This was January 2006. I started letting her dress herself for school and do her own hair. I figured since she had to wear a uniform it couldn’t be THAT bad. I was wrong. But that was okay because it was also adorable.
Here is another one of my favorite shots of her. We had some face paint pens so played after school. It was taken in May 2006 and had suddenly grown teeth after having no front teeth for almost two years.
July, 2007. We camped out all night to get the last Harry Potter book the day it was released.
1st day of 6th grade.
Two months ago at the beach.
I could add 100 more pictures here but I’ve been working on this post for three days now and at that rate it will never get up!
7th grade.
Help me.