Abby

Abby is LOVING school.  She's been ready for years.  Beka bought her a backpack this summer and Abby immediately packed it with snacks, books, coloring books, pencils etc.  She started reading since the summer, but she's gotten a lot better since starting school. She told her teacher the other day that she knows how to read.  Her teacher replied, "We're all learning how to read."  Her teacher definitely doesn't believe her. 

I'm not going to be able to get away with tricking her for much longer.  She didn't want to eat her raisins so I told her she needed to eat 15.  Her counter offer was 12.  I told her she could eat 12 but then had to eat 3 more.  She quickly agreed and started eating her raisins.  A few minutes later I see her counting on her fingers.  Then she looks up at me with a sassy look of "did I really just fall for that" on her face and yelled "HEY!"

Found her like this when we got home one night...Cousin It?

We were driving to church and passed a river.  Abby asked how rivers were made.  I explained to her that a long time ago glaciers used to cover New England...blah, blah, blah.  This lead to a conversation about how dinosaurs lived on the Earth before people did. She was summarizing what we had talked about.  "First there were dinosaurs.  Then there were people.  And once all the people die there will be fairies."  Perfectly logical.

Another favorite lately is Littlest Pet Shop.  She is going to be Penny Ling for Halloween.  My apologies if you know who that is.  She always sings along with the theme song when she watches the show.  She's started to get self-conscious so I had to be sneaky and leave my phone recording face down to get this.  This isn't as good as it usually is but she would be mortified if she knew I had it...never mind that I let other people listen.  Hopefully she'll forgive me some day.

When I asked her how picture day at school went she told me she was disappointed that she didn't get to pick her own pose.  I should have known we needed to talk about poses before going in for picture day. 

A pirate ship she drew during kindergarten open house.

There aren't many things that doesn't say correctly.  There are so few of them now I don't want to correct her.  She built a Lego car by herself and told me "I followed the constructions."  My brother and his wife took her mini-golfing and she came home super excited because she got a "holy-in-one!"  She was hypothesizing about why the snack called Pirate's Booty...her conclusion "because pirates eat it and shake their booty."

a princess fairy bird

Abby wants to be a ninja and save the world when she grows up.  She is constantly "sneaking" around the house and doing her ninja moves.  She's not very sneaky.  When she tells people she's growing to be a ninja (like at story time) it's usually accompanied by "and live in Chinese" or "and live in Japan."  I'm pretty sure she thinks everyone in China and Japan are ninjas.  This misconception was only made worse since my brother got her a ninja outfit and nunchucks that are actually from Japan.  When she was trying to pick an extra-curricular for the fall she had narrowed it down to gymnastics and martial arts.  She told me "I can do Kung Fu so I'll do gymnastics. I'll do Kung Fu next year."  She was even saying the prayer in her class at church and her teacher told me part of the prayer was "Thank you for ninjas.  Just kidding."  She's obsessed. 

She made this in her Primary class at church.  The picture is a Minecraft character (another of her obsessions.)

On the days she doesn't want to be a ninja,  Abby wants to have a daycare when she grows up because she's "good at telling kids what to do."  Ain't that the truth.  Recently she told me that I "would be a good daycare lady because I yell at her all the time and make her cry and I would be good at yelling at other kids."  Wonderful.

A unicorn (on the rainbow) Luke, a friend from school and Princess Abby.

Abby has always been a bad sleeper but this summer was especially tough.  One night she was sleeping with me and woke up around 4:30 and the birds were chirping.  She told me, "why are the birds chirping?  It's the middle of the night." I think my reply was something like, "Then why are you up? Go back to sleep."  I do NOT do well when I'm woken up. 

It's still a little hard for her when she doesn't get as much attention as she would like.  On one of these occasions she  told me, "I need someone to pay attention to me...like a hamster or a stepdad."  Good to know those things are equal in her mind. 

A picture of her favorite things.  The purple people are her and Luke.  When I asked who the pink person was she told me it was me then quickly changed her mind and said it was her sister...that's news to me.

Beka did something Abby didn't like and Abby told her "you're not as awesome as I thought you were." 

Abby gives some great prayers when she actually thinks about what she is saying.  They can be quite long.  She was asked to say the prayer her Primary class at church.  After a long list of thank yous, someone tried to help her by telling her to end.  Abby told them "I'm not done yet."  Part of another one of Abby's prayers..."Thank you for my family: my mom, my dad, my brother and best of all me!"

She told me she was sleeping.