Ambitious

Despite the bleeding-head incident this morning (Samuel's), I've had a nice quiet day with Sam, just the two of us, because Anna and Aksel are up in the summer house, building a tree house.

We are having a hard time keeping up with Anna.

If she is not starting her own blog or writing her first best-seller, she is wanting to know how to create a computer game she has designed, or star in and direct her own film, or build a two-storey tree house in the garden, or whiz up a fancy three-tier chocolate cake with hand-painted marzipan-twirled roses.

Things with her are never simple. And they usually involve a project.

Don't get me wrong. She is great. And I am truly amazed by her every day. Her creativeness and ingenuity far surpass anything I could come up with. It's just that I feel that I constantly have to dampen her spirits and lower her expectations. Take, for example, having a couple of friends round to play - give Anna any amount of notice about such an event and she will have danced and somersaulted it into a pirate-themed afternoon, complete with hidden treasure, elaborately made treasure maps, boats, and water fights, and costumes. All for a run-of-the-mill play date on a Tuesday afternoon.

Before I know it, I am being roped in to finding cardboard and teabags (to make the map look authentically old), providing treasure (sweets and chocolates, please) and building genuine pirate ships with space for a crew of 7-year-olds.

The thing is, I appreciate her desire to really "do" things. Properly. On a grand scale. It is not about being spoiled or getting everything she desires - because she is really prepared to work at things and also to make do. She is normally happy with the usually far from ideal solutions or suggestions that I come up with to help with her fabulous plans. But it is just that it seems such a shame to keep having to lower her expectations and let her be disappointed by reality.

And I guess that is really the issue. We want to protect her from disappointments and the fact that in real life there is not always enough cardboard or icing sugar. Or time.

So far, she's taking it really well and it hasn't prevented her from coming up with new projects. All. The. Time. We hope this passion will last a lifetime for her. And that she can realise all her dreams.