Monday, October 19, 2020

9 Years Old

Height: 4' 3" (31st percentile)
Weight: 61 lbs (39th percentile)

Happy pandemic birthday to this 9 year old who wanted to make panda (still a favorite animal of hers) cupcakes on her actual birthday.  This year's celebration was a little different since Chrissy Yee Yee was home in October so she had an early combined birthday celebration with Ethan.

This year, she's in a 4th/5th grade split class and loves her teacher Mrs. Freels.  She also loves that she's in a class with her friend Emma.  The school year started off with remote learning and then transitioned to in-person learning with cohorts (she's cohort B because her class split by grade rather than last name) and she's been doing a good job handling the changes.  During her free time/break time when she's remote learning from home, she and Emma call each other via Messenger Kids video and talk.  These two chatter away - sometimes they'll work on homework together, other times they're working on different crafts but can see what each other is doing and when the home office isn't occupied, she'll even go play piano over the video with Emma.

   

Over the summer, despite pandemic times, she got to try a few new things like "surfing" and fishing.  As you can imagine, she wasn't a huge fan of having to hook the worm but she enjoying trying to catch the fish.  She also finally got to make the air-fried donuts she's been asking about.  I've been encouraging her to cook more so that she's more comfortable around the kitchen appliances.  On a related note, she's been more willing to try and actually like foods other than mac n cheese (favorite is still Kraft) and plain, sauceless pasta (although those are still 2 of her favorites!).  When we went Mackinac Island towards the end of September and stayed at the Grand Hotel, she even took advantage of the all inclusive meal plan an ordered off the adult menu!

 





She was also been able to keep up with gymnastics during the pandemic.  It started off with zoom conditioning workouts and then once it got warmer out, she met with her team outdoors to practice and eventually her gym was able to safely get the girls back into the gym for practices.  Because of all the COVID restrictions, parents aren't allowed into the gym at pick up time but her coach has been so wonderful to send videos of what she's been working on.


 

Still, at 9 years old, she's a great sleeper - on the days she doesn't have gymnastics, you will most likely find her napping around 4pm.  One time I found her napping in the basement:


Looking forward to seeing how this girl grows this year and what things she will no doubt accomplish!


Friday, June 5, 2020

(Online) School's Out!



No one would have predicted that this school year would end with remote learning from home March through June.  Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, school was transformed into remote learning composed of daily online i-ready math and reading modules, weekly Zoom meetings with teachers and classmates, google classroom assignments, specials (art, music, Chinese, PE) via Weebly  and anything else I could find to keep the kids busy while trying to work from home.  Sophia was really disappointed that she wasn't able to return to school to see her friends and have the opportunity to stand on the bleachers for the 2nd/3rd grade concert (because 3rd graders get to stand up higher on the bleachers!).  Thankfully she's a pretty good student and required minimal guidance in completing her weekly work assignments which helped ease some of the stress/demands for me while working from home (Covid-19 pretty much shut down the state for a couple of months!).  As usual, her end of year report was outstanding and her teacher had nothing but praise for her.  This comment nice to read: Your kind heart, thoughtful ideas and growth mindset will be put to good use for the rest of your life.  When I think of you, I especially think of your confidence and interest in learning!  So with that....on to 4th grade in the fall!

During this time, however, she learned a few things that would not have been taught if she were at school such as learning to use kitchen appliances (with supervision)!  She cooked eggs on her own for the first time, used the oven on her own to heat up some Brazilian Cheese Bread and refined her knife skills when she cut up fruit for crepes and apples for her own homemade apple pie!  We also attempted making macarons and pretzels!




During this pandemic, she was able to keep up with her piano via virtual lessons, gymnastics via Zoom meetings and rollerblading via roller blades at home.


When asked "what do you enjoy most about this pandemic": Being able to sleep in every single day!!
Yep, she still loves her sleep! 😴🛌