Almost 17 years ago, along came this little girl, the bookend to my eldest, surrounding the two boys. Kepler at that point was not even on the horizon. We had four children for 7 years before he was born. Therefore, SuperGirl was the baby of the family for a long time. I remember noticing how my level of attention toward her changed once Kepler was born, but she was the fourth child and had a high degree of ability to roll with things. We moved here when she was less than a year old and I involved her in all the homeschooling from the beginning. I have a picture of me and the three older kids painting the living room together. Supergirl was holding a bottle in my arms while we painted.

Years later, the eldest three had moved on to other things and we just had her and Kepler here at home. She then assumed the role of a firstborn. For a long time, she served as junior mom to Kepler. She was not in public school at the time, so had time to help me get him on the bus, off the bus, and generally act as my assistant. And she was (and is) fantastic at it.

As she has matured, she has understandably turned from being family-centered to friends-centered. She’s busy with a job, her friends, show choir, drama productions, volunteering, and school work. With all of the attention that goes toward Eli and Kepler, she is now in the role of the middle child, the one who often gets overlooked.

Today she mentioned that she will be singing “Superboy and the Invisible Girl” as her audition song for the fall musical. We chatted about it for awhile, and after a few minutes, it suddenly dawned on me. “Do you feel like the Invisible Girl sometimes?”

And we had a companionable laugh about how I blog about her older brother a lot and her younger brother a lot, but not much about her.

She’s really amazing, actually. Somehow she managed to snag some outgoing genes from the two introverts who created her. She’s an artist, a musician, a thespian, a straight-A student, a good driver, and she has her own style. She’s been a joyful child from the get-go when all 11 pounds 7 ounces began life on the outside at 9am one morning. She’s such a easy child to parent, sometimes I worry that I’m not paying enough attention to her. Turns out, that is a thing. But instead of acting out, she tells me. Amazing.

Perhaps our parenting fit really well with her temperament, too. She is gracious and compassionate. She gives great hugs. She gets herself up at 5 in the morning to get herself to school and hasn’t been late one time. She also recognizes that she is perfectly imperfect, as do I. But she sure is fun to be around.

I’d love to put 20 photos of her on here, but she’s at an age where I want to respect her privacy. So, you’ll just have to trust me when I tell you she is beautiful, inside and out.