#thursdaythirteen My daughter right now, at nearly 8 years old, in #secondgrade #kids #motherhood

I would need a few days and several pages to tell you everything that's wonderful about my daughter, Emily. So, to keep it short and sweet, I'll just fill you in on a few things about her as she is right now, at nearly eight years old and in second grade.

Thirteen things about Emily:

1. Emily is four foot two inches tall and can now ride everything at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. She likes to tell everyone this little fact! Also, she had to get new shoes recently and is a size 13.

2. She and I recently went on a field trip to Ardenwood Historic Farm and it was the highlight of the last few months for her. She really loves real world application and learning and was thrilled to have a chance to feed the working sheep on the farm. If I felt I would be an asset to her, I'd home school Emily so she could have weekly opportunities to get out and learn in the real world as she really blossoms this way.


3. She loves toys!!! She loves to play, using her imagination to create stories around the toys. Her favorite thing right now is the Aquabot the Easter bunny left for her. She takes it into the bath tub with her where she will spend an hour just quietly playing.


4. Emily really loves to draw, sculpt and create. Her favorite after-school enrichment classes are Pottery and Sculpture. She recently made a jewelry bowl and metal sculpture (pics below). For Easter, she got special window markers and spent all day drawing our backyard landscape on the picture window in the play room. When just hanging out at home or when she has free time at school, she loves to draw birds, hummingbirds specifically. It's really nice to see her expressing herself through art!


 5. Earth Week (not just Earth Day) is a huge event at Emily's school. I Co-Chair the Go Green committee and have for the last 3 years so we all really get into it. This' year's art project was taking black tote bags that had been donated and letting the students create their own bag. Here's the one Emily made. She insisted on carrying it to school the rest of this week with all the things she'd normally have in her backpack in it. She instantly looked so grown up, carrying a tote bag! Emily loves the planet: she always composts her food after meals and loves to take the recyclable cans and bottles to the collection center down the street (we let her keep the money!), she's always reminding us to turn off lights, and hates to waste water so she doesn't allow me to get the tub too full during bath time.


6. Emily is such a great big sister in so many ways. She's so patient when Nolan is stealing our attention or destroying something she's playing with and always stops to help him when he's frustrated. She's never jealous or angry is she's gotten less of us than she needed that day and never complains to do more toddler-friendly things so we can all spend time together. We really lucked out having Emily as the first born!

7. I have to deposit money into Emily's school account every week because she LOVES having hot lunch every day. I don't mind and I'm happy to do what makes her happy! I also like not packing a lunch every evening for the following day. :)

8. Girl Scouts is really important to Emily. She loves our troop leader and all the girls in her troop so much! They meet twice per month and always make the best crafts. Here is the Chia Pet she made last night. It's Taco Man. See the taco in his pocket? haha :)


 9. Speaking of friends, Emily is one of the most social people I've ever met. No surprise there, she is my daughter. When we are on campus, she is calling out to kids in all grades, by name, and waving to them. She loves them and they all seem to love her! I'm so happy she has adjusted to school so well and seems really easy-going and well-liked. School cliques form in Kindergarten which leads to exclusion and feeling left out and I'm so grateful Emily hasn't experienced any of that.

10. Since Emily overcame her fear of learning to swim last summer, she begs to go swimming all the time and was so excited when we enrolled her in swim lessons at Aquatech. She's an EEL and working on breathing techniques to add to all the strokes she already has learned to do well on her own.


11. I really love that Emily really couldn't care less about clothes and I still get to purchase what I think looks cute on her and dress her every day. She will ask to wear certain shoes or her favorite purple scarf on occasion, though. I think she resembles me when I was her age in this photo.


12. Emily never asks us for anything except to go to the park or the beach most weekends. That girl of mine loves to be outside, running around with the sun on her face.

13. Emily is such an easy kid to parent. She's a people-pleaser, has excellent manners and a great memory, and rarely has to be punished. She does what is asked of her and is always joyful, brightening our every day.

Comments

Popular Posts