Dear Gwen,
Today, you are ninety-two months old.
It’s been a great month. I’ve had occasion, this month, to
reflect back on the past two seasons – the enormous transition of selling our
house, packing, and moving to a new house – all against the backdrop of your
volatile behaviour. Looking back on that time has reminded me of how much
better things are now – of how much work you have done to improve your
behaviour and your emotional self-regulation. You have really come a long way
in the past three months, especially since school started and you began to find
your new normal in amidst a new classroom, a new teacher, and a new social
hierarchy. I am so immensely proud of you, my girl.
Your report card also shows how hard you’ve been working.
It’s no surprise that you are “Exceeding Expectations” in both Reading and
Science. The whole report card is great, full of positive marks, but what
impressed me the most was the section at the bottom about work habits:
Maintains focus, Works independently, Completes assignments, Follows
directions. You earned a 3 (Meeting Expectations) on ALL of these! That’s
pretty impressive and shows a lot of effort and attention on your part. Way to
go!
Fortunately, this is an easy time of year to fling rewards
your way. We’ve been attending and participating in all kinds of fun seasonal
events, and some of them we’ve specifically told you are because we are so
proud of you and want to celebrate with you. We started off the season with a
Christmas craft – I bought several boxes of clear glass ornaments, and we set
about filling them with either shredded paper or melted crayon bits. I think
this was our most successful Christmas craft effort ever, as we made
twenty-four ornaments in total and you stayed engaged and on task for just
about the entire time. We also made gift tags for them so we could give them to
all the friends and family you’d chosen – including your teacher, piano
teacher, principal, and many others.
We also put up our Christmas tree earlier than usual this year, so that we’d
have somewhere to put all the gifts when we returned with them from English
Family Christmas. Of course, as you have every year since 2008, you were
hoisted on your Dad’s shoulders to place the star on the tree. It was so
special to decorate our tree in our new home!
Just a week later, it was time for your Christmas piano recital.
You were originally planning to play a song from “The Nightmare Before
Christmas”, but just a few weeks before the recital you decided it was the
wrong time of year for that song, and chose to play two Christmas songs
instead: “Jolly Old St. Nicholas” and “Angels We Have Heard on High”. As
parents don’t attend the Christmas recital (it’s just an informal gathering in
the teacher’s home, with pizza dinner afterward) I don’t know how it went, but
your teacher assures me you did great!
There was a sad moment at the recital too, though. When I
picked you up, you told me that “the pizza party was a ‘serve-yourself’ dinner,
and I am TERRIBLE at ‘serve-yourself’ dinners!” I asked you why, and you told
me that “I drop things all the time, and it’s hard to find things, and I always
start at the wrong end of the lineup.” It broke my heart that part of your
self-concept includes “terrible at serve-yourself dinners”. You told me that
instead of getting pizza for yourself, you had found a quiet corner to hide in,
avoiding the dinner hubbub altogether. Fortunately, your teacher came to find
you, and helped you get some food.
After your recital, we headed straight to the Port Theatre
to watch the local dance academy’s production of “Frozen”. I had no idea what
to expect but I was thoroughly impressed with the way the production was put
together and the way the whole school was included. You, who have been no
stranger to live music and theatre events in your seven years of life, have
never been so engaged and enthralled as you were that night. You laughed with
absolute giddy delight when a squad of tap-dancing reindeer performed “Let It
Snow”, which just happens to be your favourite Christmas song currently (and
you have ALWAYS adored tap-dancing). You wept at the climax of the show when
Olaf is melting for Anna, and Anna protects her sister. You have seen me cry at
puh-lenty of shows, so you know it’s okay to have that emotional response; it
wasn’t the same kind of crying that means “I can’t watch this, I’m afraid, make
it stop”, it was the crying that means the art has moved you. We talked later
about how this is exactly what art is supposed to do, and how wonderful it is
that you have a big open heart that is ready to experience all kinds of
emotion!
The next day brought us to the Santa Breakfast at your
school. You enjoyed the pancakes and decorating a sugar cookie, but had no
interest in actually visiting Santa as he received children at the front of the
room. You were content to watch, and told me that “He is a stranger and I don’t
feel like having a conversation with a stranger or answering questions from a
stranger.” How could I argue with that? We watched for a while and then went on
home, where we spent some time preparing for a fun event we had planned for the
afternoon: a spa party for you and three of your friends from your new school.
I thought this would be a good idea to help you cement some of those growing
friendships – it was also really fun for me to meet these lovely girls and get
to know them a bit! We had a delightful time applying glitter tattoos, hair
chalk, and nail polish. I was really glad to see the four of you getting along
so well, and hope that there will be more get-togethers in the future.
Our next outing was to see the Headliners School of
Performing Arts’ production of “Into the Woods”. I admit I had an ulterior
motive here – not only to enjoy yet another artistic outing with my girl, but
also for you to see a musical theatre production starring kids, and see if that
was something you’d be interested in doing yourself! No surprise, you are very
interested. I think musical theatre would be such a cool outlet for you! We do
need to finish out the year at gymnastics first, though – there just aren’t
enough days in the week for more than two extra-curricular activities.
This past weekend, with the beginning of Christmas break, we
had a full day of Christmas adventure. First we went to see the annual panto at
the Bailey Studio – this year, it’s The Emperor’s New Clothes, and it was
thoroughly hilarious. You were somewhat unamused when you met the characters
after the show – as they all seemed to know your name, and you thought that was
pretty weird! Well, your dad and I are pretty much fixtures at the Bailey, and
we talk about you (and post about you on Facebook) and you’re pretty damn
memorable. I hope you weren’t too creeped out by it! After the panto, you got
to watch me and the rest of the group practice for a piece we are performing on
New Year’s Eve – you have seen and heard me practice at home, and wanted to see
the whole thing.
Next, we went out to Boston Pizza for dinner and finished up
the evening at Milner Gardens’ Winter Wonderland. There are always way more
Christmas-related events and activities than we can possibly cram in, but you
specifically asked for us to attend this one. As we walked through the forest
(in the cold, rainy night) we saw a lighted sign pointing the way to Santa – and you
surprised us by saying you wanted to go see Santa, and were even willing to
wait in a fifteen-minute lineup to do so. You wouldn’t sit on Santa’s lap, but
you sat with Mrs. Claus, and the three of you talked for a few minutes while we
snapped some pictures. Afterwards, you told me that you didn’t really enjoy it,
because Santa asked too many questions – “He should already know all the
answers, Mom, if he’s watching me all the time.” I didn’t quite know what to
say to that.
Gwen, I am so glad that we are once again getting reacquainted with the awesome kid that you are. As
this amazing, wonderful, and yes, turbulent year comes to a close, I am ever
grateful that you are my daughter.
Love,
Mom
