speaking of confidence

We are a strict 2 activity at a time family.  I don't have the desire to run my kids everywhere all the time, and I want them to have time to just play.  We've tried to "steer" them to certain activities but they don't really care what I want.  A. still has never tried a team sport no matter how much cajoling and convincing that I've tried.  She has tried swimming,  ice skating, karate, and theater.  She doesn't love anything like she loves singing as loud as she possibly can in front of a crowd.  I have never heard tears like the tears she shed on the way home from a weekend getaway where traffic made us miss play practice.  Not only does my girl have enough confidence to raise her hand in class, she literally steals the show.

Flower #5 had 2 lines.  Each line required her to be directly in front of the microphone.

 

Then, she was to sit back in her spot.  She did each line with such excitement that some people had to duck their heads or cover their ears.  I don't think she really needed the microphone hehe.

 The songs however, she did not have to be by the microphone for those.  In fact, some of them, she wasn't even supposed to dance.  For example, the "weeds" did a nice rap.  The bunny, lettuce, carrots, and all the other flowers were still.  Not my A.  Nope, she danced in the back row the entire time.  No need to waste perfectly good dancing time with standing in the back.

 There were some songs where the entire cast came down off of the risers.  A. being a bit of a tall girl, was supposed to be in the back row.  That is not a good plan for A.  She moved from the back to the front. Then, she adjusted the microphone to her mouth.  

No back row for this girl

 Then, she belted out the song for everyone to hear.  We cringed a few times, but mostly, I beamed with as I listened to the lady behind me talk about the confident girl up front.  Yep, she was loving what she was doing.

confidence

It took me until graduate school to raise my hand in class.  It took me until I was 26 years old to be comfortable in the front row trying to learn.  Regardless, if there is one thing about my girl, she is comfortable in what she knows.  It may always be that B. tells her, "know what you don't know."  It may be because she is too young to wonder if other people find her bothersome or think her questions are stupid.  Whatever, she is totally comfortable asking other people questions.  At home, it's about 400 questions a day.  "Mommy, what are you doing?"  "Mommy, why are peaches yellow?"  "Mommy, whats for dinner?"  "Mommy, what are we doing next?"  "Can we stop to do something special?"  etc. etc. etc.

At church, children's time does not pass by without some comment or question from A.  Today, she let the entire church know that her morning chores are to wipe the table, brush her teeth, get herself dressed, pack her snack, and put her lunch in her back pack.  I'm sure one chore would have sufficed.

On her class field trip, I was amazed at the number of times she raised her hand.  I took only a few pictures that day.  Each one, she happened to be raising her hand to ask or answer a question.

Keep going A!  I think it's awesome.  I will admit that I wanted to push your hand down a few times.  But, I didn't.  I smiled instead because I am so proud of you.  I hope you are always this confident!

love/hate

Kindergarten is coming to a close.  In writing this blog, I was trying to think about all the ways that A. has changed.  Honestly, I really can't say that she is very different.  Sure, there are some specific book learning that she is more knowledgeable about; she is reading some simple books, she can tell me the types of clouds, she can do some simple math, her art is more detailed... yada... yada.. yada.  I don't really know what I expected, but it still seems that her natural strengths are still the same and that we are still struggling with the things she struggled with in preschool.

1. She is a leader, she likes to be in charge. As long as she is playing with kiddos that accept that, things are fine.  If not, it's a battle from the start.
2. If someone else has an idea and she is not a part of it, she thinks she is being left out.  Her feelings get sooo hurt.
3. She likes to have a "go to" friend.  Really, who doesn't?  We all like to feel comfortable and have that one person near us that ALWAYS accepts us.  In class this year, she didn't really have 1 friend.  Her teacher said that she played with lots of kids, but never one close friend.  So, I don't think she ever felt really comfortable.  She does best when she has a plan, when she knows what is going to happen.  I think not knowing who to play with everyday made it really hard for her.

Putting these 3 things together, we had some drama.  We went though Dec. through April where she would come home everyday telling me who was mean to her.  She would focus on one girl, also a leader.  A's day was either good or bad based on whether she was allowed to play in centers with this other girl.  I tried everything from role playing, telling her to play with 5 other people before this little girl, telling her to invite the other girl to play with her.  It was soo frustrating.  Well, then her mom and I chatted.  I don't know why we didn't do it in Dec... It was awesome.  It seems like this little girl had no idea of the effect that she was having on A.  The day after our chat, the little girl walked up and hugged A.  Sine then, I haven't heard one word about it.    

 I think that this particular issue passed, but I think this will always be a struggle for A.  I feel like I just got a glimpse of the drama that will be year after year.  Thank goodness for other mom's to chat it out with.... and for wine:)