My kind of girl

Maia is currently reading an Elephant & Piggie book in the living room, mostly by herself except where Eric supplies sound effects. (Note: why are Dr. Seuss books considered good for learning to read, when they're filled with nonsense words?) She's been working so hard on learning to sound things out, and she's doing it. She's not doing it by recognition yet, except for some sight words, but she's so close and she's doing so well and I'm so proud. Also slightly concerned that I'm going to have to watch what's on my computer screen when she's around, now, too.

What are we going to do with her in kindergarten? I'm genuinely concerned about this. I think she's going to be more polite about being bored than Chloe has been, but I think she's going to be bored. She can add, too, and do very simple subtraction, and she's at least trying to count on (this is where, when a child adds four and four, she stops counting to four on one hand and then adds the other four; she can just start at four and go up from there). We've been kind of assuming she'll follow in Chloe's footsteps (and ours) and go into the accelerated program, but that's not until second grade. I want to go tell the school that she needs to be in first grade next year, not kindergarten. That's not my call, and I don't want to be a pushy parent, but I wonder if it would be the best thing for her. There's an open house for the accelerated program next month, and I'm going to try to ask questions then.

And in the meantime, more books, more workbooks, and more doing math and spelling in the car when the girls ask for it. We went to the library recently, where Chloe got a Minecraft instruction manual that she wouldn't stop reading until we made her and Maia got some chapter books she can't actually read but likes to look at (and I read to her). On the way home they were both uncharacteristically silent in the backseat because they were both intent on their books, and I looked at Eric and said, "I have the family I always wanted."

On being Rarity

Chloe gets up early in the mornings now. For the past few years--ever since she's been able to read a clock--I've enforced wake-up time at 7 AM. But she's been waking up earlier than that most days lately (probably her bedtime could use some moving back, but that would cause problems because Maia needs more sleep and they're in the same bed at the moment) and now I get up at six for work anyway. So, I've allowed her to get up at six. She can do it on the weekends too; but she's still not allowed to wake me until seven.

We got out my beading things recently to make barefoot sandals, because a show they watch, Winx Club, features fairies who wear them and the girls admire the look. In the course of making this and that, Chloe made herself a little bracelet out of some long glass tube beads, and Wednesday she wore it to school. "A lot of people really liked my bracelet," Chloe said yesterday morning, when it was just her and me, "and they want one for themselves. So I'm going to. But I don't have to make them all right now."

"How many are you making?" I asked.

"Some for my friends, and one for the new girl." I thought that was lovely. We took the beading stuff out and sat until Maia woke up, me working, she beading. She made three or four bracelets and brought them to school and passed them out--apparently somewhat on the sly. When I asked her about it, she said, "Well, I gave Fiona's to her when we were in line. And I gave the new girl hers when I was going to the door to go to the bathroom. Because she sits on a line between me and the door."

This morning she sat down to the bead box again. "Lots more people told me they want bracelets," she reported. "Even some boys! Two Davids and two Stevens. Lots of people want them in Seahawks colors. And some people want the exact thing that someone else had."

This last was a grumble--I'm not sure whether it's because she didn't want her creativity stifled or because she couldn't actually remember what the desired pattern was. We have a decent variety of beads, and she mostly wasn't following any easily-remembered patterns as she made her bracelets.

I told her that sometimes people admire things they see and don't think about how they might want it changed for themselves, and she didn't seem discouraged. As she plugged along I had to keep stopping myself from saying, "You don't have to make things for people just because they ask." She wasn't treating this as a drudgery, or something she had to do or fear reprisal; people had told her they liked her work and she wanted to share it with them. It was a beautiful thing. But I kept thinking I should tell her not to do it.

Earlier in the week she made tiny paper fans for everyone in her class, because it had been hot and was going to be hot again, and she thought they would like them. I loved that so much. I might have thought of doing such a thing when I was in school (though I didn't) but I certainly would never have decided to pass them out to everyone. I was too shy. Chloe is not, and that makes me happy. Chloe is a generous girl, too, and that also makes me happy. That's one of the top few things I would like my children to be: compassionate; confident; generous. I have a hard time with it myself, and I don't like that about me. Though I do at least share the desire to share things I've made, but I think that's more connected with my fear that if I don't produce something useful, I'm not useful. I hope that's not what motivates Chloe. I don't think it is.

(I do wonder if that's that motivates Rarity in My Little Pony, though. I find her interesting because she embodies the spirit of generosity, but she also seems to feel the opposite pull a lot of the time, which the others don't. Would you like to discuss characterization and themes in My Little Pony and other kids' shows? I'm your mama.)

She made as many bracelets as she could, asking me to tie each knot. Then she noticed a set of four big blue beads in the box that I distinctly remember buying from the bead shop in U-District when I first got interested in beading, when I was fourteen or so (luckily beads have no expiration date). "I'm going to make matching necklaces for Fiona and Lily and me!" she said, naming her two best friends. "Because those beads are all the same!" And so she made three necklaces, too, and put one on, and scooped the rest of the jewelry she'd made into her hands to put into her backpack for school.

Determination, of various sorts

We went to Silver Lake on Friday. It was warm enough to swim, so the girls went in their bathing suits and life vests, and they had their first real experience of a western Washington lake. This particular one is really a glorified pond, but there was a beach with sand and a roped-off kids' area, and the girls loved wading and splashing around. They went waist-deep, which was as far as the rope went, but decided not to go further, even though I said they could. (I didn't say I would go with them. I had not worn a bathing suit. I was prepared to get wet going after one of them, but I was not excited about it, and maybe they noticed that.)

I noticed the distinctive smell of Washington woodland, a sweet woodsy smell, which now that I think of it probably  comes partly from overripe blackberries. They noticed the sand and how the underwater plants started growing a few yards out, and the freshwater clamshells, and how in this beach there were no waves and no tide. But mostly, Chloë noticed...wait for it...the ducks. There were a dozen or so mallards and wood ducks floating near shore, and she was absolutely charmed by them, especially when they swam right near her. "I've never seen a duck so close before! Look at its webbed feet!" This flock was very tame; they had obviously decided being chased by small children was worth it for the free food. "That boy is feeding the ducks!" she said, pointing to a boy around eight or so who was tossing chips to the waiting birds nearby. "I wish we had brought food."

"We brought animal crackers," I said, and then as her face opened with hope, "but it's not good for the ducks to feed them." She asked why, and I told her (there was also a helpful sign not far from where the boy stood). I could see and hear her reluctance, but she said decidedly, "Then we shouldn't." I was proud.

* * *

We went to the Lynnwood Skate-and-Bowl on Saturday, for the Norwescon kickoff. Chloë has skated three or four times before, but Maia never has. When they got into her skates she had some trouble standing, but she worked at it, and shuffled gamely across the carpet. After some practice she fell down a slight incline--not her first fall, but her first one that hurt. She cried, naturally, and said she didn't want to go on the rink, so Eric took Chloë out, as she was ready to move on. But they hadn't gotten more than a quarter of the way around the rink when Maia said, "I wish we were with Chloë and Daddy," and I said, "We could go out and try to catch them, " and she said, "Okay."

We stepped into the rink. She was mostly shuffling her feet back and forth, and steadfastly ignoring all my attempts to teach her otherwise, but she clung to my hand and managed some forward movement. She fell a couple of times, but she kept getting back up and shuffling some more, and every once in a while she would exclaim, "I'm doing it!"

Meanwhile ahead of us, Eric reported later, Chloë was struggling to get better, and crying, as she too often does, "I can't do it." We've noticed that Maia tends to be better at things that require physical agility--I blame jaundice--but I don't know how much of that is her much more positive attitude. Chloë has shown determination to do a few things--such as guitar; she got one for her birthday and has been surprisingly diligent about asking for "guitar lessons" from me and about working on her fingering, even though she finds it difficult. (We're looking for a place for lessons around here with an actual teacher.) But most of the time if she has any sort of difficulty, she dissolves into tears and won't keep working on the problem without a lot of prompting. Maia has that reaction sometimes, but more often she just goes ahead and tries things. We never quite caught up with Chloë on that trip around the rink (though Eric spotted us and visited), but at our closest point I commented to Maia, "We're halfway across the rink," and she looked back and said, "No, Mama. Not halfway. Look!" I looked back and realized that while I'd meant halfway around the rink, we were all the way across, and she was awed at the distance she'd skated. She wanted to stop after we completed our circuit, and not long after that we traded our skates for bowling shoes, but she was so excited and proud of herself, and so was I.