Seven

I know.  It's been a while.  But I feel like you just turned seven yesterday.  I think it's because sometimes I think -Why are you acting like that?  And then I try to remind myself that you just barely turned seven and I need to cut you some slack.  Or do I?  I don't know.  I vacillate on that a lot.

Could you look a little more grown up please?

I think your grown up look is partly due to all the baby fat you've lost this past year. Wow.  You are just a little silhouette.  Night and day from the chunker of a baby/toddler you used to be.

This past year, you have made huge strides in school.  We've seen so much progress and all your dedicated work paying off.  Going from Kindergarten status at the end of last year to now in second grade!  Your regular school teacher thought you fit well as a second grader with your maturity level and was shocked to here that you had ADHD.   Of course, I've known all along.  No, not about your maturity, I think that is just part of being the oldest and socialized more by adults than same age kids.  I'm talking about the ADHD.  It's almost a relief to have gotten the official diagnosis this year because when you were in the womb, I simply thought you were possessed.  And I don't even believe in the supernatural.  I'm not kidding.  It was a little creepy.

Should I bring out the rest of the laundry list of issues.  Just kidding, it's only one more. I might as well. It would have saved me some figuring out had someone been documenting all my childhood issues.  I've only recently realized a bunch of things wrong with me in addition to the ones I already knew.  At least, had I known before, I might not of been so hard on myself about some things. Another issue of yours, I was more certain about than the ADHD is Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD).  After suffering much frustration on both our parts with clothes and things like gymnastics.  I took a long time, but I finally starting putting all the pieces together and after some research, found that there was indeed a reason for your unnerving, erratic behavior sometimes.  You have SPD which makes you oversensitive to touch and proximity to people.  No wonder, you didn't like being held all that much as a baby.  At least, not facing me, you always wanted to face out to the world.  At the same time, you have under-sensitivities in other senses which made you quite the clumsy toddler.  I will NEVER forget the head-butt you gave me square in the nose that I was sure had broken it and gave me a concussion.  You weren't even throwing a fit, you just wanted to get down from my lap. Also, I don't know how many times you ran square into the frame of the door when entering or exiting a room.  But hey, you NEVER cried.  You were made of steel, or so we thought.  Actually, your nervous system just wasn't telling you that that shit hurts!  Again, because I'm a know-it-all, I knew there was something wrong every time I took you for a well-child visit and you had absolutely no reaction when the nurses simultaneously stuck needles in both your thighs and then did it again for another round.  I could hear all the other babies screaming bloody murder during the vaccinations, but you never even flinched.  You never laughed either.  I used to tickle you, and nothing. After months and months, we finally got a "ha".  Now, this part seems to have fixed itself, you laugh too much.  You like to be tickled about as much as anybody else, but I rather avoid it.  I'm afraid you'll pee. 

There's so much evidence, it's hard to list it all. As a baby, you never cared (noticed) that you went #2 in your diaper. You were a terrible potty-trainee. Always being the last in line a gymnastics. Being super excited about gymnastics but not wanting to participate once you got there.  We switched to another sport, soccer.  Same thing.  Super excited, but couldn't be in the middle of the wad of children chasing after the ball.  You always waited for a pass or enthusiastically ran along side.  And of course, no hand shaking please. Unless, of course, it's a very hard slap.  Then for some reason, it's OK.  If you are in control of the touching momentum, you're OK, but tender touches, not so much. Oh yeah.  Singing.  You acted like you wanted to die, when your preschool class got up and sang. You would make a face, like someone was forcing you to eat the most horrible crap in the world.  It was pretty embarrassing at first and certainly lead to some talking-to's that I gave you about your rudeness.  I finally realized, that some frequency of singing is really just that horrible to your senses.

There's not much to do about these issues.  Mostly, knowing about them, is what helps to cope with them the most.  The coping is mostly on my part I think.  It's certainly relieved much of my frustration with you and I no longer think you are an alien from outer space.  It has helped me broaden my perception of how you and even other people react to things, and to be much more compassionate instead of annoyed.  It's made me realize, I too must have some form of this, as I am the pickiest eater in the world and couldn't do a cartwheel if my life depended on it.  We did try out some therapy available for SPD. I was pretty skeptical about its effectiveness for you, but I have to be scientific about things, so I couldn't say there was no value in it until we tried it.  So we did and there was no value in it.  The therapist would play with you for an hour.  You loved it, because you got one-on-one attention with no other kids around which you love.  BUT, you got really hyped up.  This was right before the ADHD diagnosis and right before we pursued medication as treatment for this.  So, although I tried to explain the problem to the therapist, they are like most professionals, of a one track mind so they could only do what they were trained to do, nevermind, that this really wasn't going to take away your SPD issues but was exasperating the hell out of the ADHD issues and then you would come home overtired and cranky.

Now, we have found a balance and I think we are managing the SPD and the ADHD issues in the best way that we can.  I think, it's lucky that having half a clue about what's going on with you has enabled us to help you and to understand you better and give you the best opportunities for growth, learning, and happiness that we can, despite these little hiccups that we all have to some degree or another.  I feel good about that.  I hope, one day, as an adult, you will too.

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Boy, compared to the boys, you are such a delightful child.  You are stubborn (this is mostly the SPD though), but you are mostly kind with your brothers, especially baby Peter.  You have a good connection with him, even though you spend most of your free time playing and bickering with Marcelo.  You're both generous and selfish sometimes.  Trying to do the right things, and doing the wrong things sometimes in spite of knowing better.  Your common sense is not the best sometimes, but maybe my expectations are just too high.  Or, it could be that you take the world more literally than you should and then problems in logic arise when things don't match up.  I was this way too.  Marcelo -not so much. He's pretty much in fantasy 95% of the time.

You can be quite helpful and independent about those things that you are motivated about.  You've become much more independent than you used to be but still have a ways to go.  I think the ADHD medication and probably your own maturity has helped with this.  Before, I was fully responsible for keeping you on track with anything.  You still need a lot of help with this, but there are times, when if properly motivated, you can accomplish many things on your own.  You are fairly confident.  You were a very outgoing little toddler, but I think when you became a pre-schooler, your SPD issues started to have a negative impact on your confidence.  It made you not want to do things with other kids.  It made you uncomfortable in your clothes and your own skin sometimes.  You have overcome quite a bit of this now.  Not all. But things could have continued getting worse, instead they've gotten better.

This past year, you've developed a love for horses. You enjoy reading, but it doesn't come super easily to you so you still have to be reminded to do it. I spend a bit of energy finding the right books to interest you and motivate you.

School. Public school has changed you a bit and not for the better. I keep a pretty tight watch on this as I'm not a fan of being socialized at school by same-age peers.  Socialized as in the technical term socialized, not the way it's used by lay people.  Although, your ears are well versed in a few swear words we (adults) liberally enjoy using at home, you never repeated them (after the Christmas party incident in 2009) until now, when you've heard them used by your peers.  Suddenly, you've splurted off into all kinds of rudeness and whining that you didn't do before.  I've volunteered at your school, so I know the sources of these influences first hand.  It really bugs me, but we continue to persevere with the public school experiment, I mean, experience because I don't want you to be sheltered.  I was very sheltered growing up and along with my natural introverted disposition, it certainly didn't do me any favors.  I want you to be exposed to many different things so you will be at ease in all kinds of situations and environments as you encounter new experiences.  Hopefully, this balance of homeschool and part-time public school serves you well.  At least for the time being. 

I know homeschool has served you very well already.  I can't stop being proud of both you and me when it comes to all that you have learned and the generally great attitude you have about learning and the day-to-day lessons.  I began with a sense of guilt almost, as if I was tricking you into doing something as horrible as drinking raw vegetable juice when there are chocolate and strawberry shakes to be had! How, would I ever keep you from discovering that most other children are not homeschooled and they don't have to do lessons at home.  And when you inevitably found me out, I pictured myself holding on to your heels as you drag me through the floor on your way out to real school.  Instead, we all get to eat breakfast as a family. Dad goes off to work. Everyone has their morning activities to do and you willingly march into our study to get started for the day.  You know there's public school out there and you know there's also those that choose to do homeschool and you seem to really like both.  You get excited about going to school, mostly to hang out with the kids and for the teachers.  But you still get excited about our next hands-on ancient history project or doing math at home.

It seems, I'm always talking about homeschooling when I talk about you.  But, it's not just about homeschooling, it's really about a whole new way of thinking about raising kids and teaching them.  It's because it keeps happening even when we're not doing homeschool according to our daily schedule.  It's a way of life.  I'm so glad, my eyes opened up to this.  I think I had deja-vu about this once, before I had kids.  And, I think, I thought after it was done, that that was the weirdest most ridiculous thing that I would NEVER, EVER do.  Why and how could such a strange vision/thought flash through my mind.  Nothing could be more alien to my very being.   And then, you came to be and the other little ones. And now, here I am doing it.  And I like it.  And it's working.  And you like it.  Weird.

Thank you for being such a great little girl.