A bit of Alice

Alice got her first grown up hair cut last week in preparation for our SugarSnaps photo shoot. Her Aunt Anne said when she saw her, " Alice is.....old". Yes it is true, at seven, with grade one under her belt, she is ready to take on the world. For those that don't get the pleasure of spending a lot of time with her, here is a " a bit of Alice" for you to enjoy.

Alice is sensitive. At seven, she knows that about herself. The last week of school she said to me:

"Mom, when picking us up, if you ever have to be late for one of us, me or Jackie, you should always be late for Jackie and get me on time because even though Jackie is younger than me, I am more emotional than she is.

Even with her sensitivity, there are times when I expect she will cry and she doesn't. Then there are the times when she does and it breaks my heart. We just got back from a family reunion where we stayed in a tent trailer. The girls had SO MUCH FUN with their cousins playing in the trailer. We were supposed to stay two nights, and her favourite cousin Jaylin was going to sleep in the trailer with us that second night. Due to some bad weather and serious lack of sleep, Andrew and I decided that we had better not stay over that second night. Alice took it much better that I expected but she was disappointed. Today, when we were sitting in church I noticed tears in her eyes. I asked her what was the matter " Oh, I was just thinking about Jaylin." Little heart break right there.

At seven, she is independent. She LOVES to make her own microwave oatmeal. She loves that she can read herself stories. She even loves cleaning up the living room all by herself. We all love that she can eat apples now without having them sliced, thanks to those front teeth that have grown in ( now she just needs to grow into them).

She is also independently creative. Every day I hear, " Mom, can I do a craft?" For Alice, life is not worth living if there is no time for crafts. Grade one was tough because there was no painting station and not nearly enough time when she got home to make up for it. Some of the things she has created since school ended include: a puppet show made with drawings on Popsicle sticks, a large robot made from tin cans and boxes, a "chariot" for Eve made out of a decorated cardboard box and rope snd she is currently working on a very large paper doll mosaic. She comes up with these projects all on her own, finds the materials and even cleans up after with minimal help from me. She also doesn't get to attached to the final product ( thank goodness). For Alice, it is about the process of making it.

Development psychology states that seven year olds have a better grasp of time. This is true of Alice and she is constantly trying to explain timelines to Jackie. Alice is obsessed with our vacation schedules and always knows how many days we are going and how long we are staying. Math was her favourite academic subject and she enjoys figuring out how old everyone will be in the future. When I told her that because of the grade 5 - 6 's being moved out of her school she would never get to go to the same school as Evie she said, "Aww...wait a minute, she'll be five by then, so she won't be cute anymore anyway. So that's ok with me."

Alice thinks five is too old to be cute. I think she is still cute, even at the ripe old age of seven.