I'm not sure which is more difficult to swallow!
Lia is so excited to be "six years old, for real now? Like today I'm six just like that? Cool. I feel different. Do I look different?" So stinking cute.
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| If you haven't heard, these animal ear headbands are all the rage in kindergarten... |
Looking back, I can't believe it has been six years. Six years since Todd I met the little girl that made us a family. Six years since I became a mom and Todd became a dad. It has been a whole new adventure and one that we both cherish with every particle of our beings.
There are things about Lia that were noticed very early on and continue to this day. I read back in her other birthday blog posts and several themes are present that I find to be amazing and hilarious.
At 18 months old: determined, courageous, funny, and sensitive
At 2 years old: curious, very observant, engaging, playful, funny, and joyful. She is sensitive and gets her feelings hurt easily - especially when she isn't included in an activity.
At 3 years old: Lia is a bit of a control freak, or you could say she is a "born leader." She is genuine, loving, caring toward others, sensitive, talkative, sweet, lovable, determined, curious, eager, happy, smart, funny, silly.
At 4 years old: Lia is happy, inquisitive, sensitive, resourceful, great problem solver, and determined. Lia continues to want control over as much as possible.
At 5 years old: She's free spirited, spunky and resourceful, clever, audacious and loving.
Now, at 6 years old, I find that the words we used at 18 months old still are applicable and are some of the best words to describe her. She is persistent, determined, courageous, resourceful, sweet, independent, loving, curious, and spunky. Lia loves to be in charge and thrives on leading games or things with her sisters. Lately they have started to enjoy playing actual board games and also put on little shows for us - Lia is the leader during these things and Erin and Halle happily follow. Lia struggles the most when things don't go the way she wants or if someone is not willing to fall in line under her leadership. We hear "EH-RIN!" and "NO HALLE NO!" very loudly when things start to fall apart.
Kindergarten has been a pretty massive transition for her and has led to some rough mornings and afternoons most days. I think she expends so much emotional energy during the day remembering the rules, learning to be a friend, learning the skills they are teaching, listening to her teacher, etc etc etc that when pick up time comes, she is emotionally spent and has nothing left to give. I get it, but it isn't super fun to pick up a grumpy kid every afternoon. This has gotten marginally better as time has passes, but generally speaking, I can expect her to be a little out of sorts for awhile after school. On the flip side, she seems to be doing very well at school and her teacher has nothing but wonderful things to say!
Lia is so close to being able to read! Such a big deal! She is learning sight words at school and is identifying them in other books, signs as we are driving, etc. She can sound out most simple words and can do simple math problems. She has made some good friends at school and says that going to the computer lab is her favorite part of kindergarten. That, and recess. :)
I'm learning as Lia gets older that I can trust her with more things - she is able to handle more responsibility and can follow complicated directions. She wants to be helpful. When they were younger I was in the habit of just having the kids leave the area rather than deal with the chaos of them "helping." Now, I've realized that Lia is actually helpful... ;) It is pretty great.
Lia's favorite things at the moment are mermaids, unicorns, legos, catching frogs, doing art projects, playing with barbie dolls, and reading books.
Lia-pie, you are one amazing little girl and watching you grow up is a true honor. I love you!
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