Nine

 Last year in the single digits for this girl. 

This was the year her reading took off, despite the best efforts of the mandatory AR program at her school, which kneecaps budding readers by forcing them to read at an assigned level and take a test for every book instead of enjoying it. She’s tearing through the Warriors series and blowing AR out of the water. Good riddance.

This was also the year we received some scandalized notes from her teacher because, while normally a well-behaved student in class, she was caught poking a boy with a fork and then threatened to kick the lunch monitor who busted her. Fight the power, kid. But also stop that, because that is not okay.

She hates the sight of blood, the idea of blood, the color of blood, and the word blood (unless she's the one using it), going so far as to plan her entire future around the question “what pays a lot but does not involve any blood?” So far she has narrowed it down to “spa/bakery owner with employees to clean up blood” and “lawyer, but not for murderers”. She'd like to work with animals, but they are full of blood, and that is problematic.

She is smart and funny, affectionate and kind, but also she will shut herself into her room and FUME if you tell her to take out the recycling or pick up her damn toys. Tip: just follow her around saying bloooood until she gets mad and throws the things where they're supposed to be. 

We love her so much, even though she’s good at math.

Happy birthday, Zenny! 

Birthday girl stuffed with corned beef and roast lamb 

The outside of the cake looks terrible because she asked for the slightly squashed cake that Hagrid made for Harry Potter. The inside is three layers of white and dark chocolate mousse. I am not a fancy cake decorator (I misspelled “birthday” and blamed it on Hagrid) but I can bake a tasty cake, dang it.

Tea party lunch with macarons, Gruyère puffs, and cucumber sandwiches