Cobwebs around here? Yes, we’ve been busy with the move and a bum foot and other health issues. But I’m going to try to get into the swing of things again!

Celia last month turned five and a half! She is growing and learning so much each of these days. She has literally been growing and is now almost 48″ tall with shoes on, which is great for going to the amusement parks this summer when all the rides let you ride on the big kid and little kid rides if you are exactly 48 inches tall. She is very strong thanks to her weekly gymnastics classes. She spends a lot of her own time cartwheeling and doing handstands around the house, sometimes even in spaces where there is enough room for her to do it safely. She can do a beautiful handstand and has enviable core muscles. In class though, I think her teacher wishes she paid a bit more attention. Celia is frequently found fooling around with her friend Sasha in class and they get separated.

Other than gymnastics Celia has also been doing choir all year and loves to dance around and sing the songs. She had her final performance last weekend and said she ‘wasn’t nervous at all’, she calmed whatever emotions they may have been and sang beautifully. This spring she has also been on a soccer team, which I have had the pleasure of coaching. She’s a firecracker on the team and always scores a few goals at the scrimmage. Through the winter she also did futsol which is an indoor variant of soccer. Now she says she’s ready for a break from soccer which is just fine. We’ll do some swimming this summer and continue gymnastics. We’ve also done a few weeks of t-ball. Last week she was so much quicker than all the other kids that the coach had to tell her to stop getting the ball all the time. I could see from across the field that she was just half a second quicker in her reaction than all the other kids.

Academically Celia is really blossoming. She’s reading beginner books, level 1’s no problem, and level 2’s slowly. She’s very eager to be read to as well, but will also read to me frequently. Math is her preferred subject although she’s not too fond of the drills of adding and subtracting. She has trouble explaining now how she gets her answers often. I will ask her a question, she’ll go off to the corner, and come back with the right answer but isn’t sure how to explain how she got it. So we keep working on that, but she loves patterns and shape play as well. She’s halfway through 1st grade math.

Celia is definitely my most volatile child. Talking to another mom on the soccer field this weekend we may have found that age 5 plus being the middle child seems to be a tough place to be. Celia will go from very happy to extremely mad very quickly over any slight disappointment. We’re working on teaching her to use her words and explain her feelings, Ewan even re-explained that she shouldn’t kick today when they were fighting. She’s got some great aggression to use on the soccer field.

One of her happiest moments lately has been losing her first tooth! You can see it missing in the photo below.

I love seeing her gain more abilities and confidence. Unfortunately she is not fond of displaying those capabilities, such as carrying her shoes or clearing her dishes even though we all know she can manage. She likes to help feed the cats but that’s about all she’s interesting in helping with most days other than cooking. She likes to wash vegetables and cut things with knives. She can also crack and separate an egg.

While she loves to play with Josie, she’s also learning the enjoyment of playing with Ewan and being the bigger kid in the relationship. Now that Ewan can play lots more imaginative games I often find those two out playing with each other, dressing up, building forts and imagining new places.

• Size/weight: 6, 48 lbs, 46″ tall
• Favorite foods: cheese, tomatoes, pasta
• Favorite toy: dress up
• Favorite book: Ramona series
• Favorite activity: bouncing and flipping
• Sleeping: bedtime ~7:45; gets up about 6:30, naps once a week on my demand
• New skill: reading whole books
• Teeth: Lost the first one! Down to 19
• Literacy: comfortably reading the H level books

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 2nd, 2016 at 9:23 pm by Jen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.