Carrie’s skin bronzes in the summer sun. Her hair turns lighter with bright highlights. She is a child of the summer, no doubt about it. Meanwhile, her sisters with their red locks and ivory skin crisp in the sun with anything less than SPF 1,000.

Carrie is a tree climber and a pool jumper and a zip-liner. She sinks her feet into the muddy sand at grandma’s and pulls out worms and rocks and other treasures with glee. She catches small perch in a net and joyfully hoists them into the air.

“Mom! LOOK!”

In so many ways, Carrie is her dad’s daughter. She doesn’t know yet how to enter a room with anything less than full volume. It’s how she was born, truly:

“HELLO FRIENDS! I AM HERE! I AM ALIVE!”

She wants to help cook and help clean. Her big personality is surprisingly humble in many ways. She is fascinating to watch. She is rarely in a bad mood for long, bopping along to her own rhythm.  She has never met a person that was not meant to be a friend.

I look at her in wonder, often. Who is she becoming?

“Mom, when I grow up, I want to live in a house on our street, near you.”

I love that she wants that now, but I would be lying to myself if I believed that would be the outcome. She is a child who could strike out on her own, destined for big things. But man, I would be delighted to have her close by. A mom can dream, can’t she?

Carrie wants to be a “fashion styler” when she grows up. Her fashion choices are fascinating to watch – truly a matter of mood and expression for Carrie. A bright multi-colored tennis skirt and a red Parisian graphic top with blue Alaska-themed socks – she is the only girl I know that can merge the sophistication of the Champs-Elysees and the wonder of the glacial carved mountains of Sitka Alaska.

“Mom. Mom. Mom! Mom.” “Yes, yes, yes, YES!” “Hey. I forgot.”

She takes things in, observes, processes. She’s smart, but she’d rather be funny.

She has my feet, she has her dad’s eyes. She loves to draw her characters with curlicue hair that flows out to impossible lengths.  She’s our resident lefty.

And in the summer, she is in her glory. Bright, bold, a sunbeam dancing into the kitchen, ready for the day ahead.