Dan and I have a lot to be proud of. Sara is doing so well in school and she is such a nice pleasant person to be around. She loves nature, music, animals, and art. She is the perfect little person.
This week, we meet with her Kindergarten teacher for the third time since school started. The teacher said that Sara is always so thoughtful and friendly and polite. She says Sara always gives her hugs and helps the other kids. Sara's reading skills are off the charts, she is reading 2 levels above the level she is supposed to be at right now. She told us that she helped a friend at school read the other day when she was struggling. The girl was upset that she couldn't read something and then Sara said she told her what her Daddy always tells her, that you can do hard things, and then helped her through the book she was reading.
Sara is great and math too and she loves math, they do a math journal at school. She tells us all the time that it's her favorite thing at school. The only thing she struggles with his her writing. She tries to write so fast and she has so many ideas that she does not take time to spell out the words or space them out. We've been working at it at home and we will continue to work at it until she gets better at slowing down and taking the time to do it right.
Sara is complaining that no one will play with her at school. She says it every day when she gets home. We always ask the teacher how Sara is doing socially and the teacher really seems to care. She says that there are several kids that are just loners but we told her that Sara is very social and loves to play with other kids, her whole day revolves around it. The teacher promised to help facilitate some playmates by putting her in certain groups etc. She is also letting Sara bring toys as props to help break the ice with other kids. We'll see how it works out.
I'm not sure this is the whole problem, but it's been freaking me out that more and more most of the kids in her class don't speak to you if you say hi to them. Every day when I drop Sara off or when we see her friends, Sara will always say hi but they never respond and some don't even look up. I'm not sure what's going on but they seem like little zombies, just totally out of it. Random kids do it at the park too, even to Brennan when he says hi to people. Are people so busy here that they don't have time to say hi to other people, or teacher their children basic manners or to acknowledge each other. It really makes me sad when my kids are so excited about being nice and playing with other kids and they consistently get ignored. I find it very very creepy indeed and it's happened so much now, it's hard to just ignore it. The jury is still out as to whether our kids will be happy here. I think we can skate by in Elementary school but the older grades, we might have to find alternatives if it keeps happening.
Sara's piano is going really well. She is really good at her intervals and shell chords, she got that way before anyone else in the class got it. She always practices ever day and we've even gone to practicing 2 x's a day now. She is making fast progress and is learning to discipline herself and do hard things. I feel pretty proud of myself too because it's been hard to find time to practice with her every day and do all her extra piano homework such as the flash cards and the theory. Also, I have to arrange a babysitter every week so she can go. We lost the 2 girls next door as they started track and other activities, so we moved to the 15 year old neighbor beside them and we tried her for the first time this week. I really hope it works out. If not, I'm close to being out of ideas, and Dan said he can't take off work to take her every week. We only need to make it through May, and then hopefully she'll have a different schedule next season.
Sara's skating lessons have been interesting. I can't really tell if she likes it at all or not. She wanted to quit a while ago, but after watching the Olympics she wanted to start up again. I don't mind taking her to skating, so I let her start up again. She skates very very tentatively, she says she's afraid of falling. I don't know if it's her thing or if she will have the confidence to get any better or if it would be good to push her so she gets the confidence eventually. I guess we'll figure it out.
She is super excited to take swimming again. She says it's her very favorite activity. She gets to take swimming for 2 months in April and May. I really wish Spanish Fork had a swim team she could be on so she could swim regularly. We've been taking her to the Provo Rec Center to go swimming, they have an amazing kids play area, with a 2 story slide. She really loves it there, she is a water baby.
I'm hoping to get her in some fun summer camps this summer, there is a science one and an art one that I think she would like, and also a music one at her piano school.
She and her brother are really cute together and for the most part she is really nice to him, he is her best friend and she would really be lonely if he was not there. They do almost everything together.
Sara has also drawn and colored some really great art recently. I'll take pictures of it and post it soon.
Today we went back and watched a bunch of pictures and video of her when she was a baby. It seems like so long ago now and I'm really glad I took all those videos, all of us like looking back at them. It's neat to see everything we've been through and how we got here and how cute and sweet Sara has always been, she still hasn't changed and I hope her core personality never will. She is just a great little person.
