Eight Things I Love About My 8 Year Old

Minutes old. Angry at
the world.

The Dictator turns eight tomorrow, and I've been thinking about how much I like the person she is becoming. I know I generally tend to be all snarky and sarcastic here, and so maybe I don't paint the most flattering picture of my beloved family members, but the fact is I'm crazy about them. Therefore, I'm going to go and get all sentimental about how much I love the Dictator...in honor of her birthday. And not because I have an easy time writing with any level of sincerity.

8 Things That I Love About My 8 Year Old

The Dictator, at one, shows
musical inclinations.

1. The Dictator is an unabashed nerd. I tend to worry about what her penchant for Magic cards and chess means for her social life, but I really just need to get over it. The Dictator loves these things, and My Little Pony-themed Dungeons and Dragons game, and computer games with wizards. She likes to discuss these things at length and in great detail with perfect strangers who could not care less that the rewards for leveling up her wizard's pet after a battle in round four means an extra two lives and a ring of power. While this horrifies me (because I always assume that it's my job to make everyone like me even if this means compromising who I am--and I totally project that assumption onto my poor children), it doesn't phase the Dictator in the least. And that's awesome. Nerd it up, Dictator. If that means Comicon and cosplay in your college years and rolling a D20 for initiative (whatever that means) in an epic monster-slaying D&D quest on your weekends, good for you. I love that you know who you are and that you refuse to change for anyone.

Two years old...developing
a flair for fashion.

2. The Dictator is an unabashed girly girl. In addition to a laundry list of totally geeky pastimes, the Dictator loves all things girly. Ballet, pink, Paris, romance, sparkly clothes, hair accessories, pop music, Nickelodeon tween shows, kittens, American Girl dolls, glitter. You get the idea. Basically, the Dictator winds up looking and acting like a future popular girl. She doesn't worry deciding between the girly business and the nerdy business. She passionately pursues both and to heck with anyone who tries to make her pick. Yes, her wizard in the computer game has a pink cloak and matching hat, 16 fluffy pets and a well-designed bedroom, but she can also totally defeat the Skeletal Warriors in any battle she enters. My child is a lovely, lovely paradox.

At three, as Arthur the aardvark.
She wore this every day for months.
The Dictator is awesome.

3. The Dictator has a fabulous sense of humor. Sure, she likes the typical elementary school fart jokes, but she also gets subtle wordplay, comic timing, innuendo (not the sexual kind though, never the sexual kind, not even when she's 40), cultural references, irony and the like. The one type of humor she's not into is my favorite kind--self deprecation. I can't tell you how happy I am about that. Her lack of self-deprecation may just correlate with her complete lack of humility, but that's okay. I'd rather let her keep her gigantic, healthy ego than have her turn into a self-loathing neurotic like somebody I know...

Four years old and classy.

4. The Dictator is self-aware. This is crucial, because I've recently discovered that I really appreciate people who are self-aware (isn't that self-aware of me to realize that about myself?), and it's important to be able to appreciate your children. She knows what she likes and why she likes it. She knows who she likes and why she likes them. She knows her own flaws and weaknesses, but she's equally aware of her strengths (and is sometimes prone to overestimating them). Also she's into personality typing, which is just really, really cool. She makes up her own personality quizzes and administers them to unwitting victims. I now know that if I were a chipmunk from Alvin and the Chipmunks I would be a cross between Jeanette and Theodore and that if I were a My Little Pony I would be Fluttershy mixed with Twilight Sparkle, which is crucial information if I'm going to become a fully self-actualized human being.

She turned five on the first
day of kindergarten.

5. The Dictator is hungry. She's picky about what she eats, but boy does she appreciate what she does eat. This tendency of hers really satisfies my inner-Italian-grandma (I'm not Italian, so this elderly nonna living inside me is a little disconcerting). "Eat! Eat! You're all skin and bones!" And the Dictator gladly obliges.

Pretty six-year-old
dancing Dictator.

6.The Dictator is creative. And prolific. So prolific. We really need to add an extra room or three onto our house to all of her art/writing projects. We have novels, comics, drawings, plays, musicals, songs, sculptures and architectural projects. The kids a regular Da Vinci. Too bad she's also a hoarder...because that means we never get to throw any of it out. Ever. EVER.

"Fancy" Dictator at seven.

7. The Dictator is strong-willed. You don't get the name "Dictator" by letting other people push you around. She's always very polite about it, but the Dictator gets her way. She has told the swimming instructor how to run her swimming class, her orthodontist how to put in her spacers, me how to parent her (when she was like, 6 months old...she didn't need words...Dictators don't need words), and her sister how to do pretty much everything in existence. Small Central American country with a volatile political climate, you're next. The Dictator is benevolent, but she knows what's best, and questioning her is not in your best interest, I assure you.

My lovely Dictator
is a third grader.

8. The Dictator is sweet. I was a little worried early in life when she was born all angry and suspicious. I was worried when she spent the first eight months of her life wide-awake and screaming infantile profanities at anyone who would listen. I was worried every time she pitched a raging fit when we missed a word in a book at storytime, drew a Yo Gabba Gabba character with the wrong amount of eyelashes, or set dishes out in the wrong order. I was worried when she growled at the Anarchist for the first year or so of the Anarchist's life. But I shouldn't have worried. The Dictator is strong-willed and demanding, but she's also kind, compassionate, sweet and utterly lovely. And I love to watch her grow into an amazing person who is exactly and perfectly herself. Her nerdy, pretty, girly, creative, hungry, dictatorial, self-aware, funny self.


Happy Birthday, dear Dictator. I want to be just like you when I grow up. You're delightful and we're so thankful for you every day of our lives!