Oh, 1st Grader… you turn seven years old today. Part of me wants to freeze time, but the other part of me believes the best is yet to come as you keep growing and changing each year.
You are still by far our most inquisitive child. Your questions range from, “Was your TV black and white when you were a kid?” {No, dear. No, it wasn’t.}… to more philosophical questions like, “Did Jesus lose his baby teeth?” {Yes. I bet he did.}
You need answers and you need them now. It’s how you learn and process all that’s happening in the world around you.
You are shy and sensitive, fun-loving and compassionate. You don’t like to draw attention to yourself, yet your favorite pastime is applying large amounts of hot pink lipstick and teal blue eyeshadow to your face.
You’re quite the mystery.
You’ve already decided you want to have a private ceremony when you get married. And you think you might want to live in the mountains because it snows more often there. You love the snow.
You don’t always mean to be, but you’re very entertaining.
Last week you brought the worksheet below home from school. You’re learning the difference between long and short vowel sounds, which can be pretty tricky.
I think you were going for the word “tight,” but an unfortunate misspelling yielded this:
{I LOVE that the teacher wanted to clarify that “tit” was not one of the word cards they were using at school. I would like to further clarify that it is also NOT one of the words we use at home!}
I had to be very careful not to laugh about this because few things make you madder than feeling like you’re being laughed at, but I promise some day you will think things of this sort are very funny. So, you’ll understand why I have to save this paper.
I wish I could also save your pronunciations of certain words like “mudder” {mother}, “roberts” {robbers}, “fighter-fighters” {firefighters}, and “eye-bob” {eyeball}. But, you’ll just have to trust me on those.
You’ve taken to music this past year and seem to really enjoy piano lessons. Of course, piano recitals are another matter since those are performed on a stage in front of people. But, your teacher says you ask good questions and challenge yourself to get better each week. When you get mad at us you play songs like “Indian Rain Dance” as loud and hard as you can. But, when all is well, you play the Sleeping Beauty theme song very beautifully.
You didn’t have much interest in learning to read at first, but over this past year you’ve taken off with it. Right now you have a few favorites including anything by Mo Williams and, of course, the title pictured below.
You love Rosie despite her penchant for your plastic nativity set, your Barbies and your beloved stuffed dog. It’s been fun to watch you learn to live with a wild animal. You’re good for each other. And, I think she’s happy to share a birth month with you.
So, on this occasion of your seventh birthday, I hope you’ll keep asking questions and learning new things. You keep us on our toes and teach us to be more attentive and sensitive to the world around us.
You are loved. To the moon and back.
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