Monday, October 18, 2021

Annual Check-up

Emily had her well-child visit last week. She is now 4'8.5" tall, which puts her in the 34th percentile. She has sprouted up 3 inches in the past year. The doctor referred to her as a "late bloomer," meaning that she has a good chance of gaining quite a few more inches before she finishes growing. He speculated that she may someday end up being taller than Abbie. Wouldn't that be nice! This was also a big visit from a vaccine perspective. She was a trooper and endured two shots in each arm. Of course, the shot that she is really waiting for is the COVID vaccine. Hopefully it won't be long now. We are looking forward to that and Emily is also looking forward to Halloween. In the meantime, she has been keeping herself busy with reading, making a gacha life movie, working on her art, and making plans to add new decorations to her room.

Saturday, October 2, 2021

Daily Routine

Emily has settled into her online school routine really well. She really doesn't like being online, but she is good about getting her work done and staying on top of everything. We have developed a routine in which I drop Abbie off at school and then come home and get Emily for a daily walk around the neighborhood. After our walk, we both get to work. She will often call on me to check over her math with her, but she usually handles language arts, science, and social studies by herself.

Courtesy of Abbie

Around noon we have lunch together and she is usually done with her schoolwork by then, so her afternoons consist of legos, reading, drawing, and violin. Usually around 3:30 her BFF gets home from school and calls her, so the rest of the time between then and dinner is devoted to that. As for reading, she is really enjoying graphic novels, so there have been a lot of those lately. This dovetails with her love of drawing, I suppose. She continues to be interested in anime. Here is one of her recent drawings:

She recently found a website that offers online anime art classes. She has watched a couple of the free lessons and found them useful (I think), so we may end up paying for the additional lessons. She and her BFF have also been busy making an animated movie together. They are planning on hosting a Zoom premier for the other kids from school on October 11th.

Now that it is October, Emily is really getting excited for Halloween - her favorite holiday. We haven't put our decorations out yet, but we have ordered her costume already. In contrast to last year, I expect that she will be able to do real trick-or-treating this year. She has also requested another trip to the cemetery. She really likes cemeteries!

Speaking of outings, she and Abbie had me take them to Lowe's so that they could each buy a plant. It was a lovely day and the garden center is all outside, so it was a good place to wander around. Emily decided to get some purple heart to plant outside. It is supposed to be pretty hardy and should spread, so she is happy about that.