Last year, the Daughter was at least 4’6″; now she’s very close to 4’10” (147 cm). There are some adults she’s practically looking in the eye. I’m only 5’11.5″, but my wife is about 5’10” and her brothers are all about 6’3″, so I can only imagine how tall she’ll get to be.
After performing in the Nutcracker, she seems to have tired of formal ballet lessons, though she’s forever moving about and even choreographing for her cousins and friends.
She discovered soccer in the fall, and I suspect she’ll do that again. She liked doing field hockey in school, and that led her to get her to take her to an Albany Devils’ ice hockey game. What I know about hockey would fit on top of a puck, but she seemed to enjoy the experience.
On TV, she watches figure skating and Dancing with the Stars with her mother, and old Dick van Dyke Show episodes with me. She still likes Wild Kratts, a cartoon about nature.
At least half of the fairy books by Daisy Meadows (a pseudonym for the four writers of the Rainbow Magic books), she’s consumed; for a time, she’d read nothing else. In recent months, though, she’s expanded her reading repertoire.
She continues to be very good at math and spelling. I help her with most of her homework, but her mother practices clarinet with her.
Going to Sunday School seems to be the highlight of the week; she’s getting good at her Bible history. She likes being invited to do special things at church, such as the unveiling of a diorama of our church, or ringing the church bell (tougher than it looks).
Lessee: she continues to surprise me with not just her vocabulary, but her understanding of concepts.
She has well over a dozen dolls. She knows all their names (I don’t), including the new American Girl doll, Sophia, who kinda looks like her. There is actually a floor plan she drew up to determine who sleeps where, with a rotation of who gets to sleep with her.
I suspect that the Newtown, CT shootings have affected her deeply, though she mentions it only in passing.
She’s a good kid who gets along with a variety of people. But I think she NEEDS a number of friends; when she’s with one friend for too long, or too often, the relationship frays a bit.
I guess that’s enough for this year.
Happy birthday, my dear daughter.
