And Then She Turned Five

Quinlan turns five this week. And, oh, this one. We still call her Mighty, but she’s more like a sprite. A really, really smart sprite who twirls through rooms on her tiptoes while talking with a vocabulary the likes of which I’m pretty sure I didn’t have until I was in college.

5.29.15. Quinn 5. back head

She still sucks her thumb. She’s still covering us with kisses and hugs, all the time. I mean, all. the. time.

Her favorite shoes are flipflops. She likes to feed the cat, and is way beyond excited to have chores. She’s actually really good at cleaning up her toys when asked, unless her sister’s around, and then she curls up on the couch with her thumb in her mouth while her sister does all the work and yells at her to help.

She still loves butterflies, and horses, and now My Little Pony. She digs the color turquoise (“bluish-greenish”), and baseball, and amusement park swings. Her favorite food is pasta with butter, she helps me bake and cook–always offering to help–and she likes to watch Magic School Bus and Odd Squad and Tinker Bell.

I think she’s beautiful. With the wild hair and the nose and the sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of that nose and her cheekbones, she is just perfect. Of course, all of my kids are perfect. Yours are, too. But, oh, this one.

5.29.15. Quinn 5. Quinn smiling at sister

David and I joke that she’s from another world. She comes up with these questions: “Mom? Are we just toys for giants?” and demands answers. She’s obsessed with cuts and scrapes and blood and how bodies work. She wants to know what happens when we die, how we die, exactly what the process is afterward. She wants to know why I use vanilla extract in muffins, why people have butts, what exactly will happen to that half-dried worm if she picks it up off the ground and pets it. She is unlike any other child I’ve ever known. She gets gross, and yet she’s so…delicate, in a way. Little tiny bird bones that surround this brain like nothing I’ve ever met. She hates going to church, refuses to pray in front of people, and yet talks about God and Jesus and what exactly is happening with this Holy Trinity concept as matter-of-factly as one would talk about picking up an extra gallon of milk for breakfast.

5.29.15. Quinn 5. Quinn riding roller coaster car

I still joke that she’s going to be the one throwing the craziest parties in college. Or spending 2030 touring with some jam band. Or pulling the best senior prank her high school’s ever seen. But I’m half-joking. Because I also see her as the girl who does all of that while wearing a lab coat, drilling out somebody’s dental cavities or mixing up medicines or coming up with the cure for cancer. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was top of her class in medical school. I see her–still our Mighty–saving the world.

5.29.15. Quinn 5. Quinn hands out roller coaster

One party at a time, of course.


  1. Amy Sue Nathan | 29th May 15

    My daughter always reminded me of a pixie sprite, flitting and floating, skipping and galloping, hopping and twirling, she never walked. She started talking with accents at age two, I can only surmise, from seeing the Swedish Chef on Sesame Street.

    You are in for a treat, my friend. My daughter turns 20 this summer. And she is mighty still.

    • Leah Ferguson | 2nd Jun 15

      And now I’m crying. Oh, Amy–Thank you for that. Your daughter is so, so lucky to have such a proud mama as you.

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