My fashion designer

I posted about Sophia the other day
and it got me thinking I should brag on my other girls too.

This is Abigail.
She is so super creative.
Which is interesting
because she is even more smart
than she is creative.
I think smart and creative
can be a
dynamic duo
towards an amazing life
full of discovery.

Here is Abigail's
50's outfit
she threw together
for a dress up day
back in Fall.

She is pretty amazing.
She is our go-to girl
for all things
fashion, hair, and make-up.

I so appreciate that she has taken on this role as it's not one that I want. At all. This girl loves clothes and shoes. I took her to a half-off day at the thrift store on Monday and she picked out nothing. I went to check her temperature and she said, "Mom, I really am getting a handle on my shopping addiction." I do take pride that as a mother we have created a family where open communication is not just encouraged but valued above mostly anything else. I want nothing more than real for me and my little family. Sometimes it can be painful to navigate through the real, but anything less would be a life of denial and fake.

This year Abigail took a Tech class at school where she as the only girl learned the beginnings of engineering.
She was really good at it and kept right up with all the male students. Her teacher sang her praises to me. That's my Abigail. She refuses to conform to society's norms. She says she wants to be a surgeon when she grows up. She loves to dissect things. I do believe she can do it. Even though she's not inherently organized she is extremely disciplined when she chooses to be and she is as bright as her hero Einstein.

Abigail is athletic  She lives for soccer. She is a great runner: fast. She is fun to watch on the field as she can always catch any other player even from halfway down the field. She makes a great mid-fielder. She got the PE award at school last year. This may seem kind of funny when you consider how smart this girl is, but it's totally perfect as she loves healthy living. She loves to be active, she will be the first to tell you when she needs to move. Moving helps keep her ADHD in control and so Abigail takes PE at school if she has holes to fill. When Abigail was a toddler her favorite foods were milk and salad. She continues to live in this tradition: eating the healthy choice over the non-healthy 9 times out of 10. LG and I watch her green with envy whenever she eats dessert. She can eat whatever she wants and has to focus on weight gain. No fair!

She also loves music. She loves to sing in choir and she can always be found attached to her iTunes  watching YouTube videos, or plunking away on our piano. She is so much like her dad in the smarts that I forget that she is also a lot like me too. She is teaching herself how to play piano just like I did (she, like me, doesn't have the patience to take lessons.)

She is also a total extrovert. She gets her social side from me. She gets her easy-going from her dad. She is learning to have more meaningful relationships and to be more considerate of others' feelings. In one way the fact that she is wired without an overabundance of emotion is really nice: 1.less drama and 2.she makes her way fine in a man's world, but in another way it has been a challenge as Abigail struggles to understand other people with an overabundance of emotion. She forgets that people have feelings. It is so fun to watch her with her best friend Katie who we love and adore and would adopt if we could. We so appreciate Katie's total acceptance and loyalty to Abigail. It has been the driving force behind Abigail trying to learn to be more kind: she will never admit it but I think she wants to be like Katie in this regard.

Abigail is gorgeous which means that there is always a plethora of boys trying to vie for her attention. She is only 13 1/2 and has been dragged into the world of boys too soon for her own good. She has had two experiences where she has let boys too close and then felt suffocated. From a mother's point of view this is a good thing, but it has also been hard to see Abigail trying to make sense of it all. I guess that is the part that makes letting your kids grow up the hardest: you don't want them to hurt and you don't want your kids to hurt others. It seems though that Abigail has learned a lot about herself from those experiences and that is all a mother can ask for really.

Take it all away. Say Abigail gets into a life-changing accident where she no longer is pretty or athletic or smart, what is she? I have thought about this often. One of Abigail's life challenges is being praised for her abilities, it seems to mess with her sense of worth. She feels a pressure to live up to her picture perfect expectations. In fact this year at school when she had an assignment in choir to go out of  her comfort zone for a week, Abigail chose to wear sweats and no make-up to let go of her perfect image. Thank you to good teachers who really teach the important things in life, this is a project that will stay with Abigail forever. I hope she will learn to be true to herself and her morals and never do anything just for the sake of people pleasing.

Here are some inherent personality traits of Abigail:
curious
open-minded
determined
creative
hands on
energetic
adventurous
fun
funny
detail-oriented
risk-taker
courageous
analytical
observant
spontaneous
capable
durable

I love my Abigail. We adore her. We know she has it hard being the oldest but we so appreciate the example that she sets for her sisters. I am so proud to have such a capable daughter. I know she will be able to accomplish anything she wants to do and I can't wait to see all that her life will hold. I just kind of hope that sometime somewhere down the road her and I will be able to take some cool adventures together. If I have to travel I want Abigail to come with me. She can figure out anything. She's plain awesome.