No News is Good News?

A whole month has gone by and there is very little to report. But, I suppose that no news is good news. Everything has been rolling along smoothly here. Emily is doing great in school this semester, really staying on top of her homework and exams. Her acne seems to be coming under control, which is good news and has her very relieved. 

Things have been pretty quiet on the friend front, but I did take her and a few friends to see Night Swim earlier this month. Emily was very excited about it because it is a horror movie, but is rated PG-13, so its not off limits. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 22% on the Tomatometer, so there is that, but it sort of worked to our advantage in that the theater was empty when we were there. LOL. Movie quality aside, the girls seemed to have fun. Also this month, Emily discovered the Scream movie franchise. She devoured all six of them. I have to admit they do get sort of funny toward the end. 

Also this month, the middle school narratives arrived! Her are a few quotes from Emily's teachers:

From History:

I have loved getting to know Emily both in class and in advisory. I love seeing her artistic skills on display, whether it's in project form or in the margins of her notes. Something I especially love about Emily is her ability to incorporate creativity and even humor into her assignments while still making sure that historical content is front and center.

From English:

From the very beginning, Emily demonstrated both her serious work ethic and her love of learning as an English student. No matter what the activity, she is always ready to engage with the day's lesson, and her enthusiasm and insights add greatly to the class culture. In fact, Emily is such a committed English student that she asked to start a club for students with a similar love of reading, writing, and literary discussion. When Emily writes about literature, she also displays an ability to make abstract connections that are beyond her years. 

From French:

Emily's quiet determination is a lovely contrast to the occasional hullabaloo which can exist in this class! I love her individuality and the way she takes care of her work without fuss.

From Science:

Emily is always willing to volunteer and help in class. She is a very hard worker and you can tell that she takes her academics seriously. She has a great personality and makes me feel good when she pretends to laugh at my not so funny science jokes.

Math, Choir, and Drama had nice things to say, as well, but these were the quotes I liked the most. As we head into February, Emily is looking forward to the three-day weekend for Presidents' Day and is getting ready for a Show Choir competition at the end of the month!

Winter Break

Annual School Photo

Emily has been having a good winter break, but it is going too quickly. She can hardly believe there is less than a week left before school starts again. She is definitely not ready to go back. She did get those two bottom teeth extracted, and has slowly adapted to chewing with even fewer teeth in her mouth. Other than that, there hasn't been too much excitement to report. Her face rash cleared up but she is still struggling with lots of acne. I suppose it comes with the territory when one is 13. 

Christmas Day

I think she had a good Christmas this year. It was a bit different without Santa, but again, that comes with the territory at this age. The elf didn't appear right away, but apparently she didn't want to see Frisbee anyway. Poor Frisbee. She also wasn't particularly interested in watching Christmas movies, complaining, "I have seen this so many times." LOL. She got lots of good bedroom decor this year, which I think she was happy about, and also received the above-photographed Moose mug, just like in Christmas vacation. Abbie received one, too. I think Chad and I thought it was funnier than either of the girls did, though. 

As for New Year's Eve, I think we are planning on a rather quiet night. Abbie will likely be out with friends, so it will be up to me and Emily to pick a movie. I have had such a hard time convincing her to try good movies lately. I practically had to beg her to watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off earlier this week. She ended up enjoying it, but it was a miracle that she even tried it. Yesterday I tried to convince her to watch Uncle Buck, but no luck. Instead, we settled on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which is good, too.

Thelma and Louise

Other than movies, Emily has been entertaining herself by playing with the kittens - Thelma and Louise - that we got in November, doing daily workouts with her friend Morgan, having the occasional sleepover, reading a little bit, and drawing. She continues to be a pretty big homebody. I often invite her to accompany me to the store or out to eat, but she usually declines. Fair enough. There will be plenty of running around when school starts up again.

Holidaze

Trick-or-treating

All of the Halloween festivities feel like a lifetime ago. Emily had the two sleepovers - one at our house and one at a friend's house - and did her trick-or-treating. She didn't get much for candy, but it was fun to run around with a friend.

Sleepover

Perhaps needless to say, two weeks in a row of no-sleep activities left her pretty tired. Then, she and Abbie went to Minnesota for Thanksgiving, which made for a busier break than she would have had otherwise. 

Now, we are in the final push before Christmas break. She had her winter show choir concert last night and will have her winter theater production on the 13th. There will also be final exams to contend with. I am sure that the break will be a welcome relief when it finally arrives. She has been struggling with a mysterious rash on her face, likely an allergic reaction, which has been making it tough to sleep. And, her teachers seem to be piling on the homework and projects. So, as you can imagine, she is walking around in a bit of a daze, trying to keep up with everything.

So far, the only thing scheduled for the Christmas break, other than the holiday itself, is a tooth extraction. Yes, she needs to have two more baby teeth pulled to make room for some adult teeth. That is scheduled for the 19th and sounds to me like the perfect excuse for some much needed R&R!

Halloween Sleepover

Let the Halloween whirlwind begin! Today, the middle schoolers are wearing their costumes to school. Emily is going as Alice in Wonderland this year. Originally, the plan was to be 'Demented Alice in Wonderland' but I guess the 'demented' part was going to be too difficult to explain so she just went with the original.

Tonight, Emily is having six girls over for a Halloween sleepover. We have decorated the house with a few spiderwebs and gourds. Emily has plans for pizza, all sorts of junk food, and a movie. I am a bit worried about the drama that can come from shoving all these girls into a small space for a long time, but Emily says, "Oh yeah, don't worry. There is always crying at a sleepover party. It usually happens at 3am when people are overtired." Ugh. Perhaps this is part of the Halloween terror. 

For the actual Halloween, she is planning to go to a grade-level party with a friend of hers. Then, next weekend, one of her friends is having a belated Halloween/birthday sleepover. Hopefully this will be enough Halloween-related activity for her.

In other news, we had her annual check up a few weeks ago. She continues to grow and is currently 5'1.75" to be exact. She is incredibly excited because the doctor now projects her to be at least 5'5" tall. Having always been the littler little sister, she is very excited about the prospect of being the bigger little sister. We also had her parent-teacher conference yesterday. Not surprisingly, she is doing great and her teachers are happy with her. :)

7th Grade!

Its hard to believe, but Emily has been in school for almost three weeks already. So far, 7th grade has been going well and the friend situation seems to be under control. She likes some of her teachers better than others, but that is to be expected. The biggest piece of her schedule that took a little while to nail down was her athletic requirement. She started the year enrolled in field hockey, but very quickly realized that she knew nothing about field hockey and had no interest in playing it. Instead, she switched to cross country and seems happy with the choice. On days that are too hot, they stay in the weight room and she seems to have taken to that as well. 

Obligatory 1st day of school photo

A couple days before classes started, one of Emily's friends arranged for one last summer hurrah - a bunch of girls got together for dinner and a live performance of Frozen. Emily was a little torn on whether she wanted to sit through a musical or not, but she was so glad that she did. She absolutely loved the show. 

Since school has been in session, there have been a few football games and a few sleepovers on the weekends, but nothing as fancy as their evening at the theater.

As we inch into fall, Emily's thoughts naturally turn towards Halloween - her favorite holiday. There is at least one scary movie on her "must see" list that is either already in theaters or will be soon. She also already has plans for her costume, but I can't give it away yet!

Summer Camp

It has been a couple weeks since Emily returned from her two-week adventure at summer camp. The short version of the story is that she really enjoyed it, but she doesn't plan to go back. LOL.

Induction Ceremony for Trojans vs. Spartans

The longer version of the story is that she really enjoyed the people she met - lots of girls that she really enjoyed hanging around with and getting to know. However, 14 days/nights in 100+ degree temperatures without any air conditioning, even at night, was not her favorite. 

Neon Dance

She definitely came back with more maturity and confidence. She now knows that she can spend two weeks away from home and do great on her own. The key is just to find a camp with cooler temperatures or air conditioning!

Hawaiian Dance

One thing the camp was really great about was taking tons of photos and uploading them daily. Then, the app software used facial recognition technology to identify photos of your child and highlight them for you. That definitely saved me from hours of scrolling!

They also made it easy to send emails every day, which definitely helped with initial homesickness. Emily received at least one letter every day she was in camp. She became friends with a girl who had been attending camp for four years and had only ever received one letter, which was to tell her that her grandparent had died. Poor thing. 

The girls all exchanged phone numbers so hopefully they will keep in touch. There is one girl who only lives about an hour from us, so maybe they will even get together at some point.

When I picked her up, I was pleased to see that Emily did a great job keeping track of all of her stuff. We got her home, got everything washed, and got her settled in. She still has some summer homework to complete, but the first day of school is still over a week away so I guess there is plenty of time. LOL.

Dog Days of Summer

We have reached that point where the only options for keeping cool are hiding in the air conditioning or finding a place to swim. Emily has been doing both over the last couple of weeks. After two weeks in Minnesota, during which she kept busy with day camps, shopping, and a Taylor Swift concert, she returned home and has been swimming, playing with water balloons, and going to water parks with friends.

Pre-concert

 

If you look carefully at Emily's hand in the photo above, you will see the other big development from this summer - we finally got her a phone of her own. I think it will come in handy when the school year starts up again, but for now, she doesn't use it much.

Late into the Night

Other than trying to stay cool, we have been busy getting Emily ready for her two-week camp adventure, which starts on Sunday. She has a huge packing list and everything needs to be well-organized and labeled. This camp seems like a pretty well-run machine with all sorts of systems in place for getting campers moved in and settled.

She will be in a rustic cabin with 8-12 girls and 2-3 counselors. There is no electricity, so no lights and definitely no air conditioning. Fortunately, I think the kids spend a lot of time in the lake and the pool during the days, but I don't know how comfortable the nights will be for sleeping. It sounds like they keep everyone pretty busy, but also provide downtime in the afternoons, so hopefully she will have fun but won't be run too ragged. 

Once she returns from camp, there are a mere two weeks left before school starts up again. Hard to believe!

Thirteen!

We officially have a teenager in the house! Emily turned 13 on the 3rd (obviously) and we celebrated with a pool party on the 2nd, followed by a small sleepover that night, followed by a small family party on the actual birthday. I left for Switzerland on the 4th, so it has taken me a while to get a post made, but at last here we are! 

She requested chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting, which we had, but then there were leftovers. Emily was a trooper, though, consuming probably three cupcakes on the day of her party and two cupcakes on her actual birthday. It was a tough job, but she managed to suffer through. LOL.

All of that chocolate must have given her the energy to grow because I returned from Switzerland to find that she is now as tall as I am. We confirmed it both by standing in front of the mirror together and with a tape measure. It appears that she is now 5'1"! Needless to say, she is pretty pleased with this.

Meanwhile, the summer seems to be flying by! Later this week, Emily will fly to MN for two weeks (with Abbie), then she will be back in Texas for two weeks before her two week summer camp at the end of July. Once that is over, it will be August and we will already be thinking about the new school year. Crazy how quickly the time goes.

School's Out for Summer!!

We made it! Emily is officially on summer break and she is definitely pleased with the change. :)

Last Day of School

 

The last few weeks weren't too hectic, but there were a couple of award ceremonies (at which Emily received an award for French - her least favorite subject, ironically), a geography project, and final exams. The exams seemed to go reasonably well. As for the geography project, most of it was completed in school, but the at-home component was to make a food from a foreign country and then bring it in for people to try. Emily opted for a Japanese dessert and we made a Japanese strawberry shortcake. 

Japanese Strawberry Shortcake

 

It was a very long, involved recipe that turned out great but also just tasted like an American strawberry shortcake, so much more work for not much additional benefit. It did look beautiful, though, and some of her classmates thought that she bought it rather than made it. The fact that I went to Michael's for a doily and a disposable cake box probably didn't help matters.

Emily has made herself a rough summer schedule that involves reading in the mornings, etc., but I don't think she has actually implemented the plan yet. We need to get her summer reading books so that she actually has something to read in the mornings. Perhaps more importantly, Emily's 13th birthday is less than a week away and we have not yet sent out the invitations - yikes! She has the guest list, but I need to finalize some details before we can send the invites. She would like to have a pool party with a larger group of friends and then follow it up with a sleepover with a smaller group of friends, which is sort of a tricky maneuver to pull off, so we'll see how it goes. Stay tuned!

End-of-Year Activities

Spring always gets busy with end-of-year activities. We kicked it off with Emily's induction into National Junior Honors Society a couple weeks ago and it will continue over the next few weeks. Next Tuesday is the middle school choir concert, and I believe that Emily has either a small solo or will be featured as part of a small ensemble, so I am interested to see how that goes. The following week, the choir will be competing in a local competition, followed by some fun at a local indoor water park. There will also be the usual end-of-year class party, which will be at a local arcade this year.

NJHS Inductees (apologies for the poor image quality)

Emily has also become busier lately because she decided to pick up an after school volleyball class that meets on Wednesday afternoons and has been participating in a memoir-writing seminar on Friday afternoons. Needless to say, with everything going on, Emily has been pretty tired lately. She uses the weekends to recharge her batteries as much as she can, but she is definitely ready for summer break!

As for summer break plans, Emily is planning to spend some time in Minnesota, and also planning to spend two weeks at a sleep away camp. This will be her first time going to sleep away camp and I think she is really looking forward to it. Hopefully it will be a great opportunity for her to spread her wings a bit.

Spring Break

Emily had a pretty quiet spring break this year. We didn't go anywhere or do anything particularly exciting. Many of her friends traveled, though, so there weren't many people to hang out with. We did manage to make a trip to the mall and get her some swim suits for the summer.

While at the mall, she had to get some pretzels and take a selfie for her friends because her group calls themselves the Pretzel Gang. Two of the Pretzelers are Morgan and Laila, who Emily continues to have tea parties with every other weekend. The girls take turns hosting and this past weekend, it was Morgan's turn again.

Emily loves getting dressed up for these events. I think the next one will be back at our house again. There is also a watch party for the latest episode of The Owl House coming up. This is an animated series that they all seem to love, so we may be hosting that sometime soon, too. With any luck, it will correspond with the next tea party. :)

On the school front, Emily has a volcano project due next week. With any luck, this will be the last volcano that we ever need to build. It is definitely not my favorite activity. We bought all the supplies over the break and Emily has the shape the way she wants it, but there is still plenty of painting, etc. to do this weekend. 

Sorry there isn't more excitement to report, but sometimes boring is a good thing! :)

Middle School Narratives

It is one of my favorite times of year again - narratives season for the middle schoolers! This is when the teachers take time to write individualized feedback for each of the students in their classes. It is great to see what they see. There are usually compliments and areas of strength along with areas to work on. Here are a few tidbits in terms of Emily's strengths:

From her Earth Science teacher: "Emily is an enthusiastic, dedicated learner who exhibits a positive outlook and attitude in the classroom. She communicates well with students and teachers, and asks questions when she is unsure of the material."

From her English teacher: "Emily enters English class each day by sharing a gentle greeting and lovely smile. She is not only a talented English student but a wonderful citizen as well . . .Emily LOVES to write and our Quickwrite Wednesdays. She possesses strong writing stamina and is able to take creative risks. Emily's writing contains "voice," a skill that is not common for sixth grade students." 

From her French teacher: "She is a bright and kindhearted student who always comes to school with a positive attitude." 

From her Geography teacher: "Emily is smart, creative, and hardworking. She naturally asks the bigger picture questions in class, and she is very easily able to empathize with someone else's perspective. These are two skills that show her maturity."  

From her Math teacher: "Emily is a sweet and respectful young lady. She is focused and attentive in class and has strong organizational skills." 

In terms of her areas for improvement, there seemed to be consensus that her teachers would like her to speak up more in class, both in terms of projecting her voice and also asking questions in whole-class settings. That is definitely consistent with what I know about her. She likes to hang back and observe more than she likes to get into the middle of things. 

While I find the narratives exciting, I think Emily has other things that she finds more exciting. As for what she has been up to, drawing is always on the agenda. Here is one of her recents:

She also thoroughly enjoyed having an entire weather-related week off from school a couple weeks ago. She, Morgan, and Laila managed to get together for a tea party. Emily and Morgan got everything set up and I was impressed with how elaborate it was.

As for something that Emily does not enjoy so much, we are still doing weekly violin lessons, but Emily is not a fan. We'll have to see how it goes, but this may be our last academic year for violin. That said, I had fun capturing the photo below during lesson this week. Notice the little spy in the window.

Our crazy kitty is often finding her way onto narrow ledges both inside and outside the house, and seems to enjoy hanging out on the roof of the house. I suppose that it makes for a good view, but it makes me awful nervous.

"Holey" Christmas

Rather than a holy Christmas, Emily had a rather holey Christmas. Shortly before Christmas, she had her four canine baby teeth extracted, which left pretty big holes in her mouth. Her adult canine teeth have already formed and developed mature roots, so they need a little encouragement to erupt or else they will end up impacted. It was a quick procedure and she did great with it, but it was still something different for her to get used to. While she was still under IV sedation, I didn't think she could hear me and I was telling the oral surgeon how tough she is about stuff. Imagine my shock when she came to and, eyes still closed, said, "Thanks for saying that." Definitely took me by surprise.

Christmas Eve (with Home Alone in the background)

Also, shortly before Christmas, Emily took the plunge and got her ears pierced. She definitely wanted them pierced, but it was more painful than she expected so she has already decided that one set of holes is more than enough.

Now that she is back to school, things seem to be rolling along pretty smoothly. So far, there hasn't been too much homework and she has been having fun with friends on the weekends. There is not much excitement for the next few weeks, but in mid-February her entire class will be taking a three-day trip to the state capital, which will likely be eventful.

Holiday Spirit?

What a busy six weeks it has been. I feel like I always say that, but Halloween feels like a lifetime ago at this point. Just two days after that holiday, Emily came home from school with a fever. Sure enough, it was Covid and Abbie and I caught it, too. Emily had a booster more recently than either Abbie or me, so her symptoms were negligible and she enjoyed the time off from school.

Fortunately, we were all better well before Thanksgiving rolled around. We had Grandma P. here to help us celebrate, which is the first time that we have had company for a holiday since the BC times (before Covid).

Recent art

Emily doesn't care much about the Thanksgiving meal, but she does like dressing up and watching the National Dog Show. The art above is one of her recent creations, with the dress being inspired by the outfit that she wore for Thanksgiving this year. One of the things that she likes about drawing on her iPad is that it makes it easy to do the shading in her pictures. However, she has been drawing on paper more and more recently and she just got some new paint pens that make shading just as easy as on the iPad, so she is happy about that.

As for Christmas, life is a little different this year. For one thing, Emily now knows the scoop on Santa. We still have the elf visiting us right now, but Emily has started being the one to move her around the house. After all these years, I think she was happy to finally touch Frisbee without fear of killing her.

Gingerbread houses

Perhaps the weather is also making it hard to get into the holiday spirit. As you can see, Emily went to a gingerbread house decorating party after school last week. It was a beautiful 70 degree day. Perfect for keeping the mess outside, but definitely not Christmas weather. 

It is also hard to get too excited about the holidays when there is so much going on at school. This is the last week before break and there has been lots of homework and tests to get ready for. She finishes at noon this Friday, so hopefully we can enjoy a week of shopping, baking, and watching holiday shows before Christmas actually arrives.

Happy (belated) Halloween!

She doesn't look very happy in this photo, but I think that is all part of the costume. Emily had been looking forward to Halloween for a very long time. They dressed up for school last Friday, so yesterday was a regular uniform day. She also had a couple of friends over for a Halloween sleepover last Friday night, but they didn't do as much Halloween-related activities as she had hoped. On Sunday, we baked pumpkin spice cakes in the skull-shaped muffin tins. Then, last night she went trick-or-treating with the same two girls that slept over on Friday night. All in all, there were lots of activities, but she wasn't as happy with this Halloween as she had hoped. She worried that maybe she is getting too old for Halloween, which I assured her she wasn't.

Annual School Photo

As for other updates, Emily had her annual check-up a few weeks ago. She is now 4'11.5" which puts her in the 36.6th percentile and keeps open the possibility that she will ultimately be taller than Abbie. Of course, this delights her to no end. :) At school, the first quarter is over and we received Emily's report card. She is doing well and has a 92.8 overall GPA. We were supposed to have her parent-teacher conference last week, but her advisor was sick and needed to cancel at the last minute. We will need to reschedule and I'll keep you posted on any nuggets that come out of that meeting.

Finally, it may not be scary, but it is a bit gory - Pumpkin the kitty managed to get a nasty puncture wound on her chest. We have no idea how it happened, but it was pussy and infected so we had to take her to the vet last week. The result is that poor kitty needs to wear the cone of shame for 10-14 days. This is a double-whammy for her because she can't go outside with the cone on. Needless to say, she is not a fan of the cone. We did have a good laugh at her expense, though, because when we brought her home, she ran around the house backwards, desperately trying to get the cone off her head. She has since accepted her fate and has quit meowing constantly. This has also been a good excuse to feed her some extra tuna fish, which doesn't hurt her feelings.

Progress Report

Emily has been back in school for just over a month and it has been going well, all things considered. One source of excitement (at least for me) is that we already have her annual school photo! I was surprised by her photo this year because she has so clearly matured. I can really see the transition between child and teenager happening. 

School Photo 2022

Middle school is always a challenge, but she seems to be adapting. From an academic perspective, she is doing well in her classes and keeps herself very organized. I never need to worry about her getting her homework completed and turned in. From a friend perspective, she has a few girls that she has been hanging around with. It sounds like there tends to be a fair bit of drama among the girls and the friendships are sort of always in flux. That said, she has gone to a couple of parties and football games, so that has been good.

Laila's Birthday Party

There has also started to be some relationship drama in that the kids are asking each other out and "dating" (which doesn't actually involve going anywhere together). There is a boy in Emily's math class that seems like he has been trying to get her attention lately. One day, he showed her the doodle that he had done. She didn't say anything, but she told me that it wasn't very good. Another day, he just marched up to her and counted to seven in Latin - LOL. Clearly, this kid needs to get some better material. Anyway, she isn't quite sure what to make of him. Hopefully his intentions will become clearer over time.

Back to School

1st day of school photo

Emily went back to school on Tuesday this week. They started with a half day, and then full days for the rest of the week. I think that she was excited to get back, but also a bit apprehensive about a new year. She wants to do a good job and impress her teachers. That said, getting back into the swing of going to bed early and getting up early has been a bit challenging. She is already exhausted every morning, but also has a hard time falling asleep at night.

Another 1st day of school photo

It probably doesn't help that in the few weeks before school started she (1) had three sleepovers with Laila (which contributed to late bedtimes), and (2) didn't do much other than draw during the day. So, now, having to be active and attentive in class probably feels particularly tiring. We are also back to violin lessons on Wednesday afternoons, so that was a drain yesterday, too. Hopefully this weekend will help her catch up a bit. 

As for other news, we were all happy and relieved to return from MN and find that Pumpkin was healthy and happy to see us. For the first few days she stuck very close to us, probably out of fear that we would abandon her again. However, now she feels much more relaxed and is back to her usual routine - sometimes sleeping inside at night, other times spending the night outside. As you can see, she is still a playful kitten from time to time.

The only other wild card on the horizon is COVID. Laila's older brother just tested positive yesterday and many of the kids in Abbie's classes are out with it already, so we'll see how the year goes on that front. Hopefully we can all get another round of boosters sometime this Fall . . .

Quick Summer Update

A long time has passed since Emily's birthday and we have been in Minnesota for about six weeks now. For the first few weeks, Emily did not have summer camps, so there was a lot of free time. Chad took her to the zoo, grandma came for a visit, we did some shopping, and there was plenty of relaxing.

At the petting zoo

Emily also got a COVID booster shot shortly after we arrived in MN. Now that she is twelve, she was able to get the larger dose. For the past few weeks, she has been in day camp. She has done stop motion animation, jewelry making, volleyball, pottery, and horseback riding. This week she is doing advanced drawing and anime. These are two of her most passionate interests, so I am cautiously optimistic that she will enjoy them. I will find out more when I pick her up today, though. 

Rides at the Mall of America

As usual, she has had an easy time making friends at camp and even keeps in touch with some of them after the week is over. She has also been exchanging snail mail letters with her friend Laila who went to camp in the mountains of North Carolina for four weeks. She will be back in town at about the same time as we will be, so I expect that the girls will want to get together a bunch before school starts again.

When she is not at camp, Emily is hard at work drawing, story boarding, and making short stop motion animation videos. Her dream is to work for Disney one day and she has become really interested in attending California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) because she thinks that Disney looks carefully at their grads. Time will tell as to how all of that shakes out! :)

Happy, happy birthday (thankfully)!

Emily is officially 12 and we are happy to celebrate this milestone. Being her first real birthday party since before COVID, she celebrated with a sleepover with friends from school on June 1st (celebrating early because we leave for Minnesota tomorrow). We sugared them up really well - snow cones, peanut butter cups, pizza, soda, and bundt cakes - doing our part to add to the country's health crisis! 

Dinner time!

In the morning!

Only two of the three girls spent the night, but Emily declared it, "The best sleepover ever! Just like in the movies." What more can we ask for! They definitely seemed to have fun staying up late, watching Arachnophobia (one of Emily's favorites), and then making a giant bed on the floor of her room.

That said, the day of her celebration was one of ups and downs. She awoke at the regular time and decided that she would take a shower right away. She never takes showers in the morning, but it made sense, because she wanted to be ready for her party in the afternoon. After awhile in the shower, I heard her get out. She opened the door and called, "Mom, I need some water, I am going to be sick." I could tell immediately that something was wrong. 

As I rose from my seat, I heard a thud. I ran to the bathroom and found her loosely wrapped in a towel, lying on her stomach on the tile, not moving. I knelt over her and asked her what happened. I was afraid that she was going to seize, but she was completely unresponsive; eyes open, totally blank, totally gone. I felt like there was about to be a crack in the universe - the time before this moment and then the time after it, which would never be the same. 

I pulled her up a bit and was screaming her name, asking if she could hear me. Again, nothing. I was seconds from calling 9-1-1, but then she came to. She was disoriented, asking me if what was happening was real. Naturally, she was really scared (as was I). She was able to sit up and talk to me, but then she said that her entire body felt like all her limbs had fallen asleep and it hurt for me to even touch her - everything was tingling. Again, totally freaking me out.

She had some water and some food and started to feel better, but I was on high alert. She had a mild concussion about a month ago, and I was afraid of another blow to her head. She had clearly hit her cheekbone and one of her elbows, which was trapped under her body when she fell. I was afraid of fractures, intracranial bleeding, etc. I decided that a trip to the ER was in order. 

As tends to be the case, we spent four hours in the ER only to conclude that she was fine, but modestly more prone to fainting than others. That, the hot shower, which dilated her blood vessels even further, and her decision to sit down before suddenly getting up to call to me, all caused her to faint. Fortunately, there was no serious damage from the fall - no fractures, no bleeding, no concussion. All the while, her biggest concern was whether this would interfere with her birthday sleepover. She asked pretty much every person who attended to her whether she could still have her party. Fortunately, the doctor cleared her for all activities. :)

We got back from the ER with plenty of time for her to rest before her party. In the meantime, I had a chance for my blood pressure to return to normal. LOL. She was just excited about the dramatic story to share with her friends. That afternoon, they all had fun swimming, laughing, running around the neighborhood, etc. I am just grateful that the day ended as well as it did. She said that this is probably the most dramatic birthday that she has ever had, and I encouraged her to keep it that way!

School's out for Summer!

Once again, a long time between posts, so I guess that we have been busy. Emily is officially done with school for the year. Yesterday was the first full day of summer break. Monday - Wednesday this week were final exams, so she had half days and then had the end-of year party on Wednesday afternoon. She was pretty worn out by the time that finals arrived, so she has really enjoyed having a break.

I asked her a few weeks ago whether she was glad to be back in school and how it compared to being online. Hands down, she is MUCH happier being in school. Even with the early wake up times, the masks, and the friend drama, she is definitely thrilled to be back amongst people again. Despite only being in school for half the year, she did manage to earn an award this year. She got a Penguin Award for "most improved" in French. She is definitely still behind her classmates, who have been studying the language for much longer than she has, but she did pick up a few things this Spring. Hopefully she will continue to work on it over the summer.

Emily with Madame Lopez

She did a nice job of making friends this spring and has been getting back to actually doing things! She has been to shows, art fairs, and friends' houses. It is great to see her being active.

Emily and Hattie Beth

Emily and Laila

Naturally, Emily still spends most of her free time working on her drawing. Here are a few recent ones.

You can see that she really has a consistent style that she likes.

Next on the agenda is Emily's birthday party next week. She is looking forward to having a real party again and has decided to have three friends over for a sleepover. I'm sure that I will have updates on how it goes. Also, next time I write a post, I expect that we will be in Minnesota for the summer, so I'll have updates on that, too!

Art!

I have a couple of Emily's recent drawings to share, but first, a skiing update. We had a good week in Keystone last month. It felt like a bookend to the pandemic, as the last time we were there was in March 2020, just a week before the country shut down. We had our first meal inside a restaurant, the same restaurant that we went to in 2020, so it was definitely a flashback.

As for the skiing, much to Chad's dismay, Emily did some, but not much. I am sure that it didn't help that I am not too keen on it. She went out with Chad and Abbie a couple of times, but mostly she lounged around and read her book. She has found a new series that she loves, Keeper of the Lost Cities, so once she picks it up, it is hard for her to put it down. There are worse problems to have, of course. 

Now for the new art, here are a couple of her recent drawings. You can see that she is getting really good with the shadows and they are definitely creative characters.

She far prefers the second drawing to the first, but I like them both. The first reflects her ongoing love of scary things and the second reflects her love of all things anime.

As for school, she is still doing great. Her 3rd quarter report card showed good grades and the conference with her teacher indicated that she is focused and working hard. As tends to be the case in middle school, there is a ton of girl drama, but she seems to be navigating it pretty well. More than anything, though, I think she is ready for summer break so that I quit waking her up at 6:45am every morning. Personally, that sounds good to me, too! LOL.