Travelling at the Speed of Life - Part 1: Elise ⇒

Forgive me readers for I have sinned. It has been 6 months since my last post.

Whew! I feel better already!

Sit back and relax for the first of three posts in my new series, Travelling at the Speed of Life. This post will bring you up to date on the last six months of Elise’s life.

After just turning 5, Elise started Kindergarten in September with two lovely teachers: Mrs. Meg Edworthy on Monday through Thursday and Mrs. Amanda Bradley on Fridays. Our school, thankfully, was one of the few schools in South Surrey that kept a half day Kindergarten for one more year. I was pleased about this because a) I think a full day would be difficult for Elise socially, though I know she would adapt and b) it would be difficult for me to be away from her all day. Of course, I am writing this 7 months down the road and only now I think she would enjoy being at school all day. She is less tired at the end of the week. Still I’m glad it worked out that way.

Her last report card said “Elise is working hard to stay calm when unexpected things happen in the classroom and was a model student during a recent earthquake drill listening and following instructions.” She is meeting expectations on all the elements. She adjusts well when she has a substitute teacher. Mrs. Edworthy missed about 6 weeks of school due to surgery and Elise had no problem adjusting to Mrs. Marano who took her place, greeting her with a big smile and hello on her very first day.

Every day when I ask her what her favourite part of the day was her answer is “School.” As such, we have put our homeschooling plans on indefinite hold. Secretly, if she ever says she doesn’t like school anymore, I would love to homeschool her but as it is right now, I wouldn’t take her favourite part of the day away. Plus, I’m enjoying the time to myself—more on that in Part 3.

The highlight of the fall at school was Elise’s theatrical debut in Oliver Twist where she, along with all the K-3 students played rats. She LOVED learning the songs and enjoyed her performances even allowing our neighbour to take her to the play one night as neither Erin nor I was able to take her. The only downside was my dad, after a lifetime of teaching musical theatre, missing this debut as he was in hospital awaiting a diagnosis. Also more on that in Part 3.

Elise had another performance debut with her very first piano recital that she played “Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas Don’t be Late” She played it beautifully. We are enrolled in Music for Young Children which is this lovely program where the notes all have characters attached to them (C is a Creepy Crawly Critter, D is Dinosaur that lives in the den between two black keys on the piano etc.) Since the recital, she has gone through a period of not wanting to practice but as of last week, she is enjoying it again.

For Christmas this year we got Elise a two-wheel Razor scooter. She was a bit wary of it but took to it, slowly, right away. Elise really enjoyed Christmas. We picked out a live Christmas tree this year that we will be able to use year after year. They saw Santa at the mall and at the land of Lights in Langley we’ve been going to.

Elise has grown up a lot in the last 6 months - being less scared of “silly” things like movies, dogs and water. She finally agreed to take swimming lessons and promptly passed Level 1. She is still in Level 2 mind you but she is gaining confidence all the time.

In January we got the shocking news that all 8 of her molars have cavities. This was mostly shocking because since she was 3 our dentist has been saying what a great job we are doing. It was only seeing between her teeth with xray that the cavities were discovered - though the bottom ones have some good chunks out of them so I was expecting to hear we had two cavities….not 8!! Dr. Regan suggested that he would fill the cavities over 4 visits. We’d see how she went at the first visit and if it didn’t go well, he’s send us to a pediatric dentist. I don’t think so! I decided to skip that first step. It turned out that that week, I met a pediatric dental hygienist at ballet that week - what timing! She recommended Dr. Anabel Chan who informed me that she would need 6 caps, 2 fillings and possibly an extraction. She could do it all under general anesthetic. I cried when she showed me photos of what the caps would look like and she was SO understanding. It is taking me a while to get over the guilt of not flossing enough, giving her too much juice over the day, not giving her flouride drops (that I had never heard of!) The estimated cost was $3300. OUCH!! And there goes our planned Disneyland trip with $3300 that will fall out in 5 years. We had the surgery done last week. All 8 of her molars have silver fairy teeth now. Dr. Chan told Elise that the tooth fairy pays extra for them when they fall out. I am getting over it and Elise got through the process like a star and loves showing everyone her fairy teeth.

Elise is doing really well with her reading and inventive spelling at school. She often asks how to read words she sees but can sound them out when we press her to do it.

She and Daniella play super well together. They are the best of friends most of the time…except when Elise says “I don’t want you to look at me.” and “Don’t sit beside me”…normal sister stuff.

I was especially prompted to write a post today because of a phenomenon that happens at my house every 6 months and was particularly notable with Elise this time. It seems like on their birthday and on the 6 months mark of a year, my kids accelerate developmentally. The last month with Elise has been extraordinary. Her confidence is soaring. She is more energetic and outgoing all of a sudden and today, for the first time, she rode her bike without training wheels to the delight of me and our good friends Tasha, Lydia and Kieran Dumont. She’d been pushing Lydia’s small bike (Lydia is now on Danica’s bigger bike) along with her feet and occasionally getting her feet on the pedals for a couple of strokes. Today she hit a small slope and just started pedalling and that was it.

It has just been the most amazing month around here and we have this new little person to enjoy who is less timid, more willing to try new things and just so delightfully conversational, enquiring, reading and imaginative. Still loves her cuddles in the morning and evening and just such good company all around. I am so excited about the coming months with my Elise.