When searching for the words to describe this girl who just exploded into our lives 8 years ago, I thought of that song in The Sound of Music called "How do you solve a problem like Maria?". How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?, might be an appropriate question to ask when assessing how to help her to channel her energy. Once again, and this seems to be a frequent occurrence, she forgot to bring home her homework today or to write down her homework in her planner. Sometimes I wonder if we expect too much of our 8 year olds but still we keep trying to institutionalize them.
If left to herself Leia would spend all day inventing alternate universes in which she is either a mad scientist or a magician. I asked her the other day what her favorite thing about school was and she said that it was Science, particularly doing experiments. She was truly captivated by the Planetarium event they had at school. It led to several conversations about Mars and aliens which led to a bad dream last night and a few hours of fitful sleep for me as she ended up in our bed.
If she is not writing spells on every random piece of paper she can lay her hands on she is rescuing frogs and mice from the window wells. From what I have just written you might assume she is a total tomboy but on Sunday she wrote a story about Princess Leia who meets her handsome Prince and lives happily ever after. She alternates between reading Princess Stories and Roald Dahl, and listening to Hannah Montana and Michael Jackson.
When I saw this picture it brought home to me how fast she is growing up. On one hand it's exciting for me as she is such a fun person to spend time with. I can share things with her that are important to me and I can feel that we will always be friends as she gets older. Probably not, I can hear some of you saying but then she has the open, trusting and forgiving personality that Gary has.
(Sidenote: I just glanced over to the table where she is supposed to be doing Spanish vocabulary and she is searching the internet for pictures of planets it looks like. She just told me she is looking at Neptune pictures which are "really cool".)
I'm sure you can tell how much I love this girl that is not a lot like me. As much as watching her grow is an adventure, I feel sadness that she is no longer a baby. But she'll always be my will o the wisp, my flibbertigibbet and my clown!
Leia, our Monarch Butterfly
Nathan, our spotty dog.
Spencer, our Wolverine.
All ready to go.
Off to a strong start.
They were racing from house to house. Candy helps with the energy levels.
Our friend had hot chocolate and marshmallows to roast on his fire. Nathan preferred to add his marshmallow to his pumpkin.
Updating me on his stash.
Our friend's beautiful dog.
Nathan ran out of steam early. I brought him home and all the way he kept saying he wanted to drink root beer before bed. I kept telling him we didn't have any and he said it was in his pumpkin. Sure enough he had a can of A&W in his pumpkin. A great way to end the evening. He was SO tired and fell asleep immediately after!
