Routines

She has really latched on to the routine at the new house.  She has some specific times that things need to happen and I give her countdowns to those times.  It works really well most days.  Today we were running a couple of minutes late, or the bus was a minute or two early, and we had to separate at the middle of the driveway instead of the end (because I couldn't keep up).

She gives me three kisses and hugs every day when the bus gets here.  One for me, one for Corin and one (with the kiss on my belly) for Thing 3.  Every morning.  It's really sweet.

She has developed more patience and maturity lately.  One day, she asked for a pencil for her backpack so she could start doing her homework on the bus.  She finishes it every afternoon during the 45 minute bus ride.  She was mad at me on Wednesday for picking her up because her homework would have to be done at home.  We compromised and did it in the car in the driveway and she still finished 15 minutes before she would have been home on the bus.

Discussing the experiment to see which was faster was enough to calm her down.  She didn't need to keep fighting because she knew she could prove she was right or be wrong and still come out ahead.

We forgot to do her book report this weekend.  I suggested she take it on the bus this morning and she loved that idea so it's in her backpack.

The level of maturity and responsibility that comes with aging is remarkable to watch unfold.  Now, if I could just get her to clean her room...

Big sister skills

Ryanne was outside playing with Corin and their friend Marshall today.  Corin was swinging a stick at her.  It was 5 or 6 feet long.  One of the times the end hit the ground, she stood on it.  Corin couldn't make her budge.  He was dragging the stick along with her standing on one end.  Eventually, he got frustrated and dropped it.

At that point, Marshall threw a ball in her direction.  She picked it up and threw it off the deck over the railing, away from both boys.  They ran to get it back.

She bought herself 5-10 minutes to stand in the sun and write notes on her pad without starting a single fight.  I think her big sister skills are coming along just fine.

On the other hand...

Math apparently sucks.  She is having such a hard time with the degree of addition and subtraction they are requiring at school.  It has not clicked for her.  She's not seeing the short cuts.  She's not seeing the self-checks.  Tonight there were tears over finishing a worksheet that she didn't get through at school.

I tried to explain that reading wasn't always easy for her, either.  She worked at it and one day it clicked.  I told her math would do that eventually, but she has to keep working on it.

I don't think she believes me.

Reading awe

To top off the school's difficulty in finding her 'perfect book,' she finished the last book of the Harry Potter series a few days ago.  She has now moved on to some of Gail Carson Levine's books.

I am in awe of her desire and ability to read.

Principal's office

She gets in the car on Thursday and I, as usual, ask how her day was.

"I went to the principal's office twice."

Turns out, this is horrifying to hear.  Even when it's rather unceremoniously announced.  It wasn't a big deal to her.  I didn't think it could be for something bad.  At the same time, she wasn't exactly volunteering information.

"...uh...for what?"
"For reading"
"...uh...What were you reading?"
"My perfect book"

At this point, it clicked a little bit.  The teacher had said something about them getting their 'perfect book' this week.  Something that they don't totally understand, but understand most of and can learn from.  They were having her read to find her perfect book.  Apparently this involves the teacher and the principal listening to her read and asking her questions.  I guess it's a nice way to get them comfortable with the principal and take the negative connotation I have out of the principal's office.

She is the only one in her class that she's aware of that had to go twice.  Apparently the first time she understood all of the books they gave her.  The second time, they found one that she didn't completely comprehend.

She wasn't very willing to talk about it (nothing new), but I got bits of information out of her by just continuing to talk about it as we discussed other things.  Chrys wonders if she finally got bored with it.  It doesn't sound like she did.  She is proud that they finally stumped her.  I am *very* curious to see what that means.

Texas policy was that they couldn't test them beyond a maximum for their grade level so I have truly had no idea what level she actually understands.  She has maybe 50 pages to go in book 7 of Harry Potter at this point so it's not that she has trouble reading things.*  She can explain things in the movies based on data from the books when Chrys asks her questions so she seems to grasp most of what she's reading.  Nevertheless, it will be nice to have a better understanding of where we should be pointing her.

*Even if her pronunciation of some of the words is wrong, she understands what they mean.  The best example was 'conjure' which she understood to mean creates, but she pronounced 'con - jhoor'.  It's been impressive to see her progress.