Letters from Pemberley

Susie Q turned six this week, and I haven’t been able to figure out why I’m getting error messages when I try to upload pictures.  Suddenly this afternoon, it’s working again!

Six books for a six year old!

Since Derek was out of town and Wednesdays are our crazy through-the-canyon-for-activities days, we kept the birthday celebrations low-key.  Pumpkin pancakes for breakfast, opening presents, then our babysitter Julia came to play with the kids while I went to physical therapy.  She made the kids box mac and cheese for lunch per Susie’s request and brought cupcakes for dessert.  Good thing, because I’m still recovering from the lamb cake (which was awesome again this year) and never got around to making a birthday cake.  After lunch, we headed to French class (where we sang to Susie), art class (where she drew birthday balloons), Lizzie’s ballet class, and then out to eat for dinner!  If you told me a decade ago that I would ever take four children out to Cheesecake Factory for dinner by myself, I would have scoffed at you.  Fortunately, it went okay.  We got nutella cheesecake and carrot cake cheesecake, so don’t feel too sorry for the girl for not getting an official birthday cake!

Susie Q certainly marches to the beat of her own drummer.  She definitely has the academic genes but is resistant to doing things she doesn’t want to learn.  She loves doing fun school activities with the big kids and has decided that her calling is to be Mommy’s Sous-Chef, but she’s not super motivated to learn to read herself with two siblings to read to her!  We took a long break from phonics over the winter since she was regressing and confusing letters and generally getting frustrated, but it has clicked again, and we’re slowly finishing up consonant digraphs and working up to long vowel sounds.  We also stepped back from 1st grade math for a few months in there (because why push her when she is just in kindergarten?), but she’s started taking off with math and is doing simple addition and subtraction and counting with dimes and pennies.  This came in handy since she started getting allowance this week!  A dollar a week is super exciting, even after taking off the dime for tithe and for savings.  Legally, we didn’t have to do any formal school this year, so I really have embraced all the informal learning we do.  Over spring break, we painted, did crafts, baked, read a ton of books, went to the library, and just had tons of free time (when they often listened to audiobooks and played imaginatively).  I think it was a richer academic week than our normal school weeks!  I do think that despite the occasional power struggles, we’re having a really strong kindergarten year.  We’ll see what it looks like in 1st grade when the legal requirements kick in…

While Susanna’s strong will can be a challenge in the homeschool realm, I can already see that it’s a strength in relationships.  She simply doesn’t succumb to peer pressure.  She is generally sweet but with an edge, and she’s attracted to similar personalities.  Her best buddy on the pad, Nicholas, is a sweet, strong-willed daydreamer, and their imaginative play makes Ida and me so happy! She likes to cuddle with me and snuggle in bed with her sisters, but on her own terms.  Sometimes she goes and sleeps in the guest room just to have her own space.  Sometimes she’s curled up next to Elizabeth all night long.  She plays well with both sisters on their own but often has classic middle child syndrome when the three of them are playing together.

While she does not worry about what people think, I’ve realized this year that she really blossoms under sweet, nurturing teachers.  Miss Sharon at CBS is a former homeschool mom who is the perfect kindergarten teacher, and Susie always runs in and gives her a hug and acts like a sweet little angel in her core group.  She also loves our Pepperdine student piano teacher, Annaleise, and has clicked with her even better than the big two kids in her half hour long piano lessons (not always so great during practice time, but then, I am not exactly the nurturing kindergarten teacher type).  She clearly inherited Grandpa Willett’s musical talent.  She loved art class at first, then when the teacher switched from an encouraging girl to a sarcastic guy, her interest in art waned.  One class, she literally just sat there for an hour and a half and refused to do anything.  She’s been enjoying art more these past couple of weeks with a sweet substitute, and I’ll be thinking specifically about personality next time I sign her up for extracurriculars.  She didn’t meld well with Lisa, our tough-love ballet teacher who inspires Elizabeth to push herself, but she does fine with Mele, the Pepperdine student who gives them swim lessons, because Mele is tough on the big kids but sweet with Susie.  It’s so interesting to see her personality play out in different situations as she gets older.

This spring, Susie has learned to ride without training wheels, started learning to roller blade with her sister’s skates (so a pair of her own were a great birthday gift), learned her doubles addition facts, moved into size 5 clothes (!), and played through her whole first piano book.  She says she wants to be a nurse when she grows up.  She says “I’m really good at playing.”  This summer, she wants to garden.  With helping me so much in the kitchen, her appetite has picked up quite a bit.  She often has seconds on dinner!  She has so much energy for being such a slender little person.  She is such a little ham, and when we went around at dinner on her birthday sharing our favorite thing about Susie, the kids all mentioned how silly she is and how she can make anyone laugh.

Q is the child who stretches me the most as a mother, but I also agree with Elizabeth’s reflection on Wednesday: “Mommy, I just can’t imagine life without Susie!”