Dreams

M loves animals.  She goes over to my friend's house weekly to sweep bunny poop, change bird bedding, etc... so she can have time with pets.  I love her work ethic.  She does get to play with the animals, and the work gets done. 

I recently realized that there is something called a Veterinarian Technician.  It's a 2 year path to a job working with animals.  I'm a vocationalist.  So I'm always thinking "What can the kids do in a few years that will get them to a job."  I'm not so interested in them going into debt to learn something that they won't necessarily use as a job.  I know that many degrees lead toward opportunities that are nice...  I've just known a few women that graduated with debt, and no job.  And I like being a mom.  I'm grateful that my degree led to a job, and that I didn't have to go into debt for school.  My parents helped pay for school, and I always had scholarships and a part time job.  Getting bad grades was never an option because then I would loose my funding.

M wants to work with animals when she grows up.  So we'll be keeping a look out for volunteer opportunities while she's young.  Maybe someday she can work in a pet store.  And I hope she can study something she loves.  I hope she can also be a mom.  I love being a mom.  Many women work and have kids.  I love being with the kids and teaching them.  I hope M has that opportunity.

the costume that never was

M doesn't decide what she'll be for Halloween.  About a week before the date, she'll suggest something.  Then the day of, she'll change her mind 5 times.  Actually, all this process is spaced even further out from the day.  There are a lot of festivities here for Halloween.  We had a carnival at the Library and trick or treating at the local college on Wednesday.  M dressed up like this on Tuesday.  Then on Wednesday, she wore a horse costume that was too small. 

Friday night we had Trunk-er-treat at church.  M wore a lion costume that is too small. 

Tonight is Halloween.  We're going out in about 30 minutes and she's talking about riding bikes around the block.  Not riding bikes for trick-er-treating.  Just going on a bike ride.

animal lover

M loves animals.  We are not the sort of parents to let her have a pet.  But we try to seek out opportunities for her to be with animals.  This weekend she got to feed a cow named Penny.  On Fridays she goes over to a friends house and cleans cages to get some pet time.  The friend has 10+ bunnies of various ages.  She also has 3 birds, a frog, fish and snake.  My friend has MS, and her 10 and 7 year old boys aren't into cleaning cages.  My friend loves how M says "This is the best day of my week." as she sweeps rabbit poop.

acrobat

M's really enjoying having a strong and healthy body.  She can climb up to the top of the swings at the library playground and terrify all the parents.  She can do 10 pull ups.  She's so able.

Tonight when she used her fingers to get a slice of peach out of a can, that she had opened, she got in trouble.  She rarely gets hurt so she doesn't know that she could have cut her finger severely with that move. 

Piano Money

M's piano teacher is in Germany with her family for a 4 month sabbatical.  We told M that she could keep practicing and learn the songs I chose for her from the hymn book.  In return she could use the $50 a month we pay for piano lessons (a great deal) to have other adventures. 

We started planning the adventures a month before the teacher left.  M has always wanted to do cool things like horse riding, rock climbing etc...  Her greatest wish is to do gymnastics.  Fortunately we did do that for the summer when she turned 5.  But it's so expensive...

So far M's piano money has made it possible for M, G, P, and lP to go to Seaworld.  A BOGO ticket + free teacher ticket + free preschooler ticket.  It was great.

M has also been able to do a 6 week Tae Kwon Do experience through the studio that did free classes at the library.  That is also a prohibitively expensive activity but they had a special and knew we were looking for a short term commitment.  Lucky!

M was able to go rock climbing last week for 2 hours through a homeschool group.  She had a blast.

Today I dropped M off for the choir she is joining for the next year.  I'm very excited for her to have that experience.  She's got some friends in the choir.  She also loves to be little miss independent.  When we pulled into the parking lot, I told her that we were going to walk her in.  She insisted she knew where it was and that it would be hard for all 6 of us to go because of the stairs.  So I gave her my phone and let her go.  "Have fun at college!"  I exclaimed as she walked away.  Then as we pulled away I saw that she was hiding in the corner by the door.  As another group of people went by, she joined them.  Ack!  Why does she have to be so brave?  I'm so glad she is.  But sheesh!  She could have come out and let me know she couldn't get in, or whatever reason she was not going in. 

The problem of homeschooling, among many, is that I've never had to let go because I'm always there.

learning

M is very interested in human development.  She is always choosing books from the non-fiction section at the library.  I'm glad she has so much motivation to learn about things.  There are so many good things you can learn from books.  The subject of human development and sexuality is often just learned from whispered jokes among children and worldly media.  I'm glad M is able to read books and get more accurate information.  But still, the library books don't contain the gospel perspective of temple marriage as the proper context for intimacy.  She's such a smart, beautiful, kind, and funny girl.  I'm looking forward with excitement and dread, to the woman she will become.  Obviously she'll be amazing, but who will cook the pancakes when M grows up?

Baptism!

She's serious about her covenants.  It's very humbling to see.

Reading

M is a super reader this year.  I recently gave her "The Penderwicks of Gardam Street" and she's been busily reading it ever since.  It's so cool to be able to share books with kids.  And music too. 

We give books as birthday presents whenever there is a need.  So we went to Barnes and Nobel today.  M saw some cute little reading time trackers and asked what they were.  I told her that they were for kids that needed to be motivated to read.

Reading

In less than 2 years M has gone from barely reading to reading faster than I do with excellent recall.  Tonight I asked her to read a book silently.  I read along and she finished every page before I did.  Then I surprised her and asked the animal each character brought to the pet show.  She knew all of them.  And her eyes were shining like "Ask me another question!"  She's 7.

Today at the library she picked up the entire wimpy kids series and read them 3 of them in as many hours.

Piano piano piano

M does some amazing things on the piano.  She took the song she learned in her book and transposed it into 3 other keys.  This song has a right hand melody with 1 and 5 chords played rhythmically in the left.  She taught herself to play "Sweet Hour of Prayer" out of the Simplified Hymn Book (not Hymns made Easy).  That song has Soprano and Alto parts with 1 voice in the bass clef. 

I don't know how she does this. 

She just grins and says she is using her ears and her music reading powers.

It really is wonderful for her to have this creative outlet.  She's learning to think in so many directions.  It's great.

criming while 7

B was asleep so I asked M to get some bread from the bakery thrift store.  It's a 1 room store and you park right in front of the store.  So I parked and could see her through the front doors.  I'm a little picky about the bread so I asked her to bring them to the door so I could give her a thumbs up or down.  She brought by a few loaves.  I wondered why she had no idea what kind of bread we buy.  But usually she spends the whole time in the store trying to convince me that we need to buy some sugary snack cakes. 
  So finally she brings a bag that looks like what I want, but I'm not sure.  I give a thumbs up, then a thumbs down and she walks out of the store to give me a better look.  So I dash out of the car and tell her not to shoplift.  Then I leave the kids in the car, to look myself.  There is none of the kind I want so I gave her a loaf of the least yucky kind.  Then I dash out to the car, 10 feet away.  M finishes buying the bread.  We live happily ever after.

I wouldn't let that happen!

M loves grapefruit.  Our neighbor gave us a grocer bag full from her trees.  She also gave us a pomelo.  We peeled it carefully to make a funny hat.  M set to eating it very happily.  She wanted me to come help saying "I can't eat the whole thing myself!" 

I replied "You don't have to."

And she exclaimed "And let it go to waste!?  I won't let that happen."

I let her know that she could save some for another day.  Phew!

helper

I'm not sure what triggered it.  Last night M wiped down the table and cleaned out the car.  Then she contrived with P to make breakfast for us and let me sleep this morning.  What a sweet girl. 

We've also been having fun with a program called Mario Paint Composer.  It lets you write music onto a staff with sounds from the Mario games.  It's pretty awesome.  M loves writing her own crazy stuff.  She's also willing to write out her Suzuki music with crazy sounds.

M also loves this halloween sweater my neighbor gave me.  I love it too.  And I love her so much.