Sadie

Sadie can disappear outside with friends all day.  She will forget about lunch or anything else, and just immerse herself in whatever make-believe game they are doing.  When it’s just her and Kaden, they are forever entertained.  It’s quite sad that she is at school all day now so Kaden doesn’t have her to entertain him.

Along with all her creative play, comes big messes.  Massive.  And she is really not great at cleaning up.  Usually you have to ask her twenty times.  And even if she is moving towards the work, she’s moving slower than a snail’s pace.  It’s really frustrating.  Believe me, we are trying to figure out the right form of motivation or punishment to get her to work.  The only time she works well is when she’s trying to earn a little money to buy a pack of gum from me.

First grade has been fine so far.  The early mornings are not easy for Sadie (or any of us, really).  Sadie is a slow mover in the mornings (even slower than normal) and she likes to sleep in.  And she is never hungry so I have to beg her to eat something.  And she screams when I brush her hair.  Are you getting a picture of our mornings yet?

But besides that, she’s doing great in first grade.  She reads really well, which always helps a lot.  Her teacher hasn’t given TOO much homework quite yet, but we just started on spelling words so that’s annoying.  She knows them, but she’s still supposed to practice once a night with one of the activities given.  And she has to read for 20 minutes every day, which shouldn’t be a problem except I can’t depend on her reading at night like my other kids, and I try to spend time reading with her to help her or just to help her get engrossed in the books I’m offering her.  So I make her do that before she plays with friends, so she’s usually not happy about it.  School work has mostly been just fine, though.

Sadie started piano and voice this year.  She had said she wanted to take voice like Kylee but I told her she was too young still.  When I mentioned that to Heather, Kylee’s teacher, she told me she was thinking about doing a group lesson for a few younger girls.  So Sadie got to join that group.  I’m not sure if she will perform at the recitals or not, but she sure enjoys it!

The first day of piano, Sadie loved it!  We went home and practiced.  She learned the songs.  Their teacher Vicki had to take the next week off for a trip so we went two weeks without a lesson and Sadie was disappointed and really wanted to show her teacher how she knew the songs.  We even went ahead a little since she was doing well.

The next week didn’t go as well…  When I sat down to practice with her, she got super frustrated and started crying.  It was very irrational, and the song was not hard.  I can only imagine she was overly tired and worn out just from all that September has brought.  Soccer, all-day school, piano, dance, etc.  She loved doing the theory book.  But trying to get her to play the songs was a big struggle.  I told her teacher at the next lesson, thinking maybe three books were too much for her to work out of.  And also that if she doesn’t do better after this month, I will have to pull her out.  Well, she played just fine for her teacher.  She tried and didn’t get frustrated, or at least not enough to cry.  Sadie told me she just didn’t want to cry in front of her teacher.  But whatever.  She sometimes tells me she doesn’t want to do piano or dance.  And sometimes she tells me that she LOVES it.  She’s very confusing and bipolar (just kidding).

She told me she didn’t want to do gymnastics, but would rather do dance.  I wasn’t thrilled about that.  She said ballet.  I was even less thrilled.  Ballet is boring!  I thought about trying to find a class for her but I was dragging my feet.  Then our neighbor said she had her daughter in the hip-hop class.  I thought that sounded great.  Fun dancing, and friends (aka carpool).  So we signed up!  Then another friend decided to join us last minute, and we ran into another neighbor there on the first day.  So we have a carpool and a handful of friends.  Yet, she said she doesn’t like it.  So I told her to finish the month and decide then.  When she came back the second day she said, “I LOVE IT!”  You see what I mean?  We will plan to stick with it.  I can’t wait for the recital.

She has a couple friends on her soccer team too.  Yay for friends!  She’s done well at soccer, scored a few times.  I love her intensity.  This last week she was way out of it at her game and didn’t really want to play saying her leg hurt (or something like that).  It was so out of character.  Well, she came down with a fever an hour later and went to sleep super early.  Poor thing!  I wish I had known and hadn’t tried to push her to play.  She’s good at soccer and I know she enjoys it, but she’s super excited about basketball season!!  Starting this week!  Well, practice starts now.  The first game isn’t for a couple weeks still. 

Sadie is a sweetheart.  She’s my most emotional child, and most affectionate.  She’s the most empathetic when someone gets hurt or is sick.  She’s another fast learner (how did I get so lucky with all my kids so far?) which makes school and piano easy (assuming she tries).  She’s super fun-loving, imaginative, social, loving, and gives great hugs.