First Daughter's Birthday Post - Turning Seven!

First Daughter turned seven a few weeks ago. I remember how we called her "Baby Girl" until long after Second Daughter was born. And now she's seven.

She loves to talk. Kansas Dad was telling me about how she wanted to sit next to him on the bed and read while he worked but she just couldn't keep herself from commenting on everything in her book, in the room, on her mind. I imagine some day we'll wish desperately to know what she's thinking, but we have almost the opposite problem now.

She loves playing make-believe with her brother. They dash from one end of the living room to the other saying things like, "Now I jump up to hit you with my sword but I miss and fall down instead!" and "You're trying to convince me to team up with you against the bad guys but I'm not sure I trust you."

She had a Hello Kitty birthday party, but her favorite present was this huge Ninjago set with a dragon.

She also loves to play with Playmobil figures with her sister. They have elaborate plots involving school (both in a classroom and homeschooling), mermaids, princesses, and many many babies.

First Daughter loves to bake and cook. I try to include her when I bake something, but she'd be in the kitchen all day long if I had enough patience. She's just getting proficient enough to read recipes, but often she still likes me to read them for her. Mostly she likes to make dessert, of course.I keep telling myself I should give her the responsibility for our bread in the bread machine.

She has recently decided she prefers egg whites for breakfast, so Kansas Dad cooks them up just for her.

She begs for more lessons, every day, though she's just as likely to decide she's more interested in something else than coming to work with me when it's time. She's easily moving through second grade math. She's a natural narrator (see the paragraph on talking above). She seems to particularly enjoy Clare's Costly Cookie, asking regularly if I will read another chapter or let her read ahead. She also loves our family read-aloud books. She finished her official reading lessons a few days after her birthday and has finished reading nearly all of the Ramona books on her own. She begged me to start spelling, so we did. I threaten almost every day to set it aside for the year when she complains that she doesn't know how to spell the words.

Both First Daughter and First Son are practicing their typing every day. They'd happily play typing games all day long, but I limit them to two, after they finish their typing course and XtraMath for the day. She also loves to pull out a book or Wii game box and copy from it onto a "blank sheet of paper" on Google Docs.

at the State Fair

Inspired by a friend in Boston, we recently started offering Certificates of Deposit from our "family bank" to the children with an insanely high interest rate and short terms. First Son wasn't willing to constrict himself by buying one, but she was thrilled with the rate of return and bought one immediately. Then she asked me at least five times a day for five days when it would mature. (It's just a few days after her birthday; it worked out well for her because we don't generally allow the children to buy much around their birthdays anyway because they're too likely to purchase something someone wants to give as a gift.)

She asked for a Hello Kitty party. It's a shame to plan a birthday around a brand, but birthdays are meant to be indulged and it did make it easy to decorate. A dear friend of mine made her birthday cake so I could concentrate on...well, everything else. Her parties are always nice affairs with a few girls and relative quiet. (She would love a tea party...she just needs to learn to love drinking tea.)

She loves popsicles, yogurt, smoothies, guacamole, enchiladas, lightly seasoned poultry and meats (as opposed to anything in casseroles or doused with a sauce), white rice, pasta, and bread. She loves the crusty bread I make, though sometimes leaves the crust. She especially loves bread that's still warm from the oven or bread machine. Of course she loves getting frozen yogurt with all the toppings at our favorite restaurant. She likes to choose three flavors and mix them up together, and those three flavors are never anything I'd mix. She really likes the pineapple flavor. Her favorite candy might be Skittles but she still has her Pez collection.

She loves to dress in skirts and dresses. She was even willing to practice riding her bike in a dress, until we told her she needed to change. She and First Son each received new (and first) bikes a week or so after her birthday. She's learning to ride without training wheels and doing a great job. She loves the bike and would ride every day but she has to learn on a smoother service than our gravel driveway before she can ride much at home. Her bike helmet is pink, of course, and her pads are Hello Kitty, thanks to a generous aunt and uncle.

birthday girl, with a pancake bigger than her head

 She loves going places and being out and about. She's the only one who signed up for soccer this year and she adores it. A friend of mine commented that she's always smiling on the field, and it's true. Sometimes she scores, but she always smiles.

For All Saint's Day she wants to dress as her favorite saint, who remains St. Therese of the Child Jesus. Her feast day, October 1st, is also First Daughter's baptism anniversary, so they share a special bond. She and Second Daughter went with me to Goodwill to find cloths and linens to put together all the costumes. She was pretty helpful. (Second Daughter was not.) For Halloween, she hopes to be Hello Kitty, who is pretty different from St. Therese.

on her baptism anniversary

First Daughter was a wonderful help to me this fall amidst Kansas Dad's bountiful tomato harvest. Despite irritation from the juice, she loved to boil the tomatoes, drop them in ice water, and peel the skins off for me. All I had to do was chop them! Of course, she chattered away the whole time and gleefully showed First Son and Second Daughter everything she was doing.

She thinks she knows everything. We often joke she thinks we have three parents in the family, but it is nice when she happily takes on some task like washing the lunch dishes.

 

May God bless you in the coming year, our first and oldest daughter!