Fifi

...was Dumpling's attempt at "Sissy" when she was very young--and it stuck.

And "Fifi" is my very favorite "teen." She, like me, is a first-born through and through. She's very forgiving of her inexperienced mom, and alternately bossy and compassionate toward her two younger sisters.

She is a Jesus follower.

She studies the violin and plays the piano, reads Dickens, knits, sketches costumes, writes the occasional play, and likes to administrate things. If there are no "things," she will make them up so that she can write an administrative plan for them. She thinks she doesn't like math, but I think she's wrong. I tell her, "Just wait...you're going to love geometry!"

Some of her favorite "phases" over the years have included Trixie Belden mysteries, Elsie Dinsmore and Millie Keith books, all things Irish, the music of Celtic Women, a fascination with the Titanic, and this summer she is living most of her free time in C.S. Lewis' Narnia, up to her elbows sewing Susan's archery dress--from scratch!--and forming herself the perfect replica of the character's quiver.