Me And Madeleine

Madeleine wears a dress for the first time in a year. There are plenty of tears but finally she succumbs. I promise her that if she gets the dress dirty with a good rip or two, she won't have to wear it again. This psyches her up.

One of my favorite things about Madeleine is her energy - she is a slow starter in the morning but once she is revved up, there is no slowing her down (Auntie Katie is a night-owl and I wonder: how did Katie survive those 6:30AM workouts when we were growing up?). On the week ends I find Madeleine red cheeked from running or biking or doing some outdoor activity often wearing long pants despite the summer's heat (recall she ran the five-mile fun run in her jeans). She shows great compassion of little creatures and spends hours trying to understand bugs and backyard critters. Our poor dear was devastated when one of our frogs died and we agreed the best way forward to release the remaining 49 tadpoles into the pond - she checks every day to see how they are doing (though they seem to have disappeared - oh, dear). Last week she found an injured dragon fly and gently nursed it to life in a plastic bin with green leaves and a few bugs to eat, never you mind that one critter's life might cost another's. Madeleine's enthusiasm brings me and others along with her and, more than her brother, she owns a Californian spirit: rules are there but they are also meant to be broken. Could she be a future entrepreneur? I would not bet against it.