Kylie at Six

 I’ve been pondering for many days (you can do that when you post over a week late) just how to describe and give glimpses into our life with Kylie. As I was tidying her room last week, I came across remnants of a “Surprise Bag” that Kylie got from one of her favorite aunts:) – the kind of treat bag you grab from a barrel in a store and never quite know what you will end up with. Most times it is the stuff the store couldn’t quite sell and a lot of it is quite useless . . . BUT!!! . . . there is just something so exciting about buying one and seeing what you will pull out.
This is Kylie on any given day. She comes down stairs in the morning, and I’m just not quite sure what lovely treasures I’ll get to amass on any given day. She is THAT unpredictable. But even unpredictable has a certain degree of predictable in it. (Confused??? So am I most days!) 

 One certainty in the morning, is that the first thing she will look for is, what is for breakfast.   Three days a week I torture my kids by giving them porridge.  I am the meanest mom ever . . . except if giving you child porridge makes you mean, then my mom was twice as mean and more – b/c we had to have it 7 days a week, 362 days a year!!!  Anyhow, back to Kylie.  As she does a quick glance of the counter, she will immediately break out into a whine about porridge, and “Why do we have to have it?” and  “I hate porridge.” and “I’m not eating that!”  and “It’s so disgusting.” This is all accompanied by a lot of drama and pout and arm crossing.  I’m usually running around enough at this point, that I really don’t give her the time of day . . . but this doesn’t stop her.  Same thing --three times a week.  GOOD MORNING!!   And it actually gets even better.  I usually feed her.  Yes Kylie, this is your sixth birthday post, and someday you will be embarrassed by this!!!  If I feed her, she can be done it 90 seconds or less.  If she feeds herself, it will be 90 minutes or more, with repeated microwaves to reheat . . . and at that point, the porridge is not the only thing getting heated up!!   It teaches me patience.  Needless to say, I usually feed her.  Cereal days just start out a whole lot more cheerfully.  But, she is not the only stubborn one and therefore porridge WILL remain on the menu!

(Her rose from Jonathan for Valentines Day)

 The next beef I get to deal with is “Where are we going today?” except lately it goes more like this, (insert pout and grumpy face), “I bet we’re not going anywhere today or doing anything fun.”. Such a gem.

And then it is playtime. This is where Kylie shines. She has always had fabulous imagination and it certainly hasn’t diminished. The concern we are having with this lately, is she can imagine just a little too good!!! She has lately begun to tell about her day, her friends, her family and we have no idea what is fact or fiction anymore. I used to believe it all, but I have caught her too many times lately. She doesn’t mean to be disobedient in her lying (most of the time), but It becomes so much a part of her imagination, that it really happened. For example, (and this is minor!), Jonathan came home the other day and she promptly told him that we had gone to McDonald’s for lunch. . . oh! And Brooke and Aunt Steph came too. Jonathan totally believed her . . . except her details kept getting more and more specific . . . a little too specific. “Oh, ya, the kids had a P.D Day. All the kids were there. Uncle Josh was too . . . but he didn’t come in. He just went through the drive through.” And on and on! Soon half of the family was there and Jonathan was wondering why he didn’t get invited to this impromptu McDonald’s lunch gathering! The things I hear home from school are believable . . . sometimes. I am now leaning towards not believing too much. (and if you are hearing stories about our family . . . maybe you should not believe them either:)! Ha Ha!! So this is something we have been trying to deal with . . . without completely squashing her imagination. Could take a bit!

Kylie is our tomboy princess. She loves to dress up, but she is also anything but a princess most of the time. She is dirty and messy and her hair is usually crazy. I can send her away in the morning as neat as ever and more often than not, it is completely undone when she comes home. This drives me a little crazy – especially when she is taking out ponytail holders etc. I don’t mind if her hair starts flying away, but when she is adding to the chaos, and taking things out, it just doesn’t look good! The irony of all this is that she LOVES to be beautiful. If she ever feels down on herself, she’ll say, “You think I’m ugly. You don’t like me. Nobody likes me. Everyone thinks I’m ugly!” We are working on this too! She is sometimes too hard on herself and gets quite upset with herself.  

 Kylie loves books and reading. She is reading quite well and even brought home a chapter book from the school library last week – a fact she was quite proud of. I love listening to her read (though she guesses a bit too much for my liking on the hard words). She loves being read too as well, and if she sees me sit down with my book, she will immediately grab a book or two of her own and beg me to read to her . . . which I do like to make the time to do . . . even if it means it takes me a week or two to get through my own book (which is crazy for me!)

Some of her favorite things to play are: Store – When I sit at my computer (working of course), I am interrupted many times to scan in her purchase, put them in her bag, take her money and give her her change. Teacher – I’m pretty sure Kylie’s teacher has made a huge impact on her.  She walks around  (and takes it to bed) these plastic covered papers, all day . . . b/c that is what her teacher has.  I have told her not to take them out of my binder many times, but she just can’t resist and she gets her “tappy shoes” on and clip clops around and teaches her class.  It is pretty cute.  Restaurant – when I make lunch or snack, she usually likes to put in her order and pay for it too.   Singer – she has a couple of microphones that she loves to use. She gets up on our fireplace hearth and sings it out.  I think she has a beautiful voice too. I love hearing her sing. She also loves to stand by the piano while I play and sing with me.  She “plays” the keyboard too.  Bookkeeper – she loves to have a clean sheet of “paper” on the computer and loves to type away like a secretary.  She also loves Polly Pockets and Barbies, though they are a bit on the back shelf right now.  The other things I’ve mentioned are what occupy her the most. 

(Sometimes we make her a little fortress so that she is safe from Karter)

Kylie loves school and does well there . . . her school work often comes home lacking and I’m quite sure that she has her mind on other things during school work time and rushes through far too quickly.  She can get the answer quite easily when she is at home.  I know she is smart, and her school work doesn’t always prove it! But I am glad she is having fun.  She loves her friends and her teacher.

 Kylie is very interesting to discipline. Sometimes her heart is so soft and we can really have a good talk and other times, she is so stubborn and we feel like we get nowhere.  She needs time to think and process things, so we often send her to her room (which makes her very angry) and she will often come down after a while and say sorry for what she has done. One time she wrote an apology in her notebook - - this was pretty precious.

 Kylie is a both a big helper and a huge mess maker.  She loves collecting things from all over the place and then she plays with them, but at the end of the day, she isn’t too keen on putting it all away.  We have learned to limit the amount of things collected in order to limit the grumbling at clean up time.  If she is in the right mood, she loves to help me clean. She likes to make a big list at the beginning of the day and get to work on it and then cross things off. She can handle quite a few chores (IF she wants to!). There are other days when setting the table is as big a job as building the CN tower. 

 Kylie is also a big boss.  She loves to be in charge and have everyone around her listen to her. This obviously doesn’t always work and she is figuring this out too.  We have seen her mature in this way a bit lately.

Kylie doesn’t like to be laughed at at all. If she ever says something funny, and we retell it to someone in her hearing, she will get quite upset. She thinks she is being made fun of – which if most often not true at all. We are trying to teach her that it is good to be able to laugh at yourself sometimes.

 Kylie has a real thing for shoes.  When around friends, she is rarely wearing her own.  Everyone else's are just more exciting.  It is one of her favorite things to look at when we second hand shop, and she is always convinced she needs just one more pair. I am getting smart here. There are just too many pairs at home that are purple, pink, sparkly, glittery and were wonderful in the store (and cute to me too), but when they come home they just aren't quite as good for some reason.  So unless they are super super cute and comfortable and cheap, the answer is now "No!".

Kylie is rarely (except when she is sleeping) quiet. She jabbers constantly.  I will really miss her chatter and singing when she goes to school full time next year. I will miss A LOT of things about her!!!

Kylie loves her dad. She wishes he would stay home every morning (the days she is not at school) and have coffee with her.  She loves it if he pops in during the day and she wishes she could go to work with him. 

Kylie loves swimming and does really well there too. She was a fish in Florida and is looking forward to swimming lessons this summer.

Kylie also enjoys skating, rollerblading, soccer, and most of the other things the boys are doing. She is not usually one to be left behind.

(Kylie wearing Kade's Tae Kwon Do suit and pulling some moves!)

I’m sure there are so many other things I could write about this treasure of ours . . . but this is a lot!! (I don’t have too much trouble writing about my kids! I want them to get a glimpse into what they were like as kids. This may help them some day when/if they have kids of their own;)).

We are both very thankful that we were blessed with this girl. She is exciting and beautiful. She makes our life interesting and crazy. We are definitely blessed by her and have learned much from her. Kylie, we pray for you often. We pray for your heart to be tender and teachable. We pray that you would love the Lord. We love hearing you pray. You pray exactly what is on your heart and mind and it is cute and refreshing to hear. We can learn from you! We are thankful for the six years you have been in our family and pray that God would bless us with many more years with you!!

We love you!!!