Sophia turned seven a couple of weeks ago. We were having unseasonably warm weather so we celebrated as a family at Playmobil where we could enjoy the nice day outdoors. She and I had been several times with friends but she wanted to take her daddy there.
At her annual checkup she was given a clean bill of health with 20/20 vision and a healthy height and weight of 47.6 inches and 52.6 pounds. When the doctor handed us a card with recommended limitations for TV Sophia said she didn't like to be a couch potato. I was very proud. She had a cough that she couldn't kick starting around around spring break time and we found that allergy medicine got rid of it, so unfortunately she may be developing my allergies. She also may be getting my bad teeth. She has lost one tooth, but two permanent teeth are coming in and they don't look straight. Last night she was up with the second loose tooth. She really wanted it out and tried eating a hard pear and even had me pull on it with dental floss, but we couldn't get it. Hopefully it will fall out at school today!
Her favorite thing to do is ride her bike outside with friends.
Last year she continued to learn how to ski, learned how to play the piano, and completed first grade in German school.
At this age she can be very sweet or very sour. First the sweet.
She knows how to behave. We are able to do things with her that are perhaps beyond her years. For a couple years now we've taken her to the midnight Christmas service where we did not see any other children her age. We took her to Sardinia where our four (or more!) course dinner did not begin until 8:30. Even though 8:30 is two hours past her normal bedtime she had good manners at the table and enthusiastically ate all of the food which was always a set menu that we didn't get to choose. The ladies at the agriturismo sang her praises. She is always welcomed over to friends' houses for play dates. Her teachers say she is enthusiastic, eager to learn, and gets along with the other children.
She makes friends easily. In spite of claiming to be a little bit shy, it did not take Sophia long to make friends at her new school. She left behind Sarah and Gamze at her old school but quickly made friends with Lara and Nina in our new neighborhood. I was at the school on the first day helping Mary get Riley situated in first grade so I was able to check in on Sophia during her break. She was already running around with a group of girls. I was pleased and relieved.
She's a good eater. She ate everything as a baby but definitely has some preferences now. Even with those preferences I think she eats better than the average kid her age. She doesn't like avocados, fusses about lettuce (though she's getting better with this one), and she doesn't want anything too spicy. She'll at least try everything. She's starting to be self-conscious about being vegetarian, but is happy that she is able to have the hot lunch with the other kids at school occasionally because they have at least one vegetarian meal a week. We try to make healthy choices, but she's nursing a bakery addiction. Can't blame her. The bakeries here in Germany are pretty great with all of the good bread and cakes. They don't use as much sugar as we do so maybe I shouldn't feel too bad about our occasional indulgences.
Her German is getting really good. I used to understand everything she said during play dates. Now I don't. She tells me I speak with the wrong voice, meaning wrong accent. She is starting to correct me. If I'm trying to say something in German and someone is not understanding me she will repeat it correctly so the person can understand. It's wonderful to observe her learning something that I didn't teach her. Her teacher last year had quite a few students who didn't speak German at home. She said Sophia did particularly well because she was eager to learn. She could be corrected one time and then use words correctly the next time.
She's a good walker. When we travel we can be tourists on our feet all day long and she trots right along with us. She's been to major cities like New York, Paris, London, and Berlin as well as lots of smaller cities.
And the sour.
She has anger management issues. When she gets angry there is nothing I can threaten or promise to calm her down. She has to be put into time out behind closed doors until she has worn herself out crying and yelling and hitting and kicking. She sometimes gets angry when she doesn't get something that she has her heart set on, like ice cream or something she wanted in a store. Or, she gets angry when we need her to do something that she doesn't want to do, like take a bath, go to the bathroom, practice the piano, or do her homework. I've always been mindful about not spoiling her because she is an only child but she is certainly acting spoiled rotten. I also try to make sure that she gets 12 hours of sleep a night. But, I need a new strategy for dealing with her and I haven't discovered it yet. I think it all might boil down to control. She can't control when she has to pick up and move and she can't control daddy's work requirements, but she sure can assert her will over things like taking a bath and cooperating with homework. She lost her birthday party with friends this year because she we were struggling over personal care issues. She was devastated but the threat didn't help her make better choices.
She might be behind in reading and her teachers always complain about her handwriting. In German Sophia is a slow reader and it is hard to get her to focus on the task, but she seems to be fairly proficient. In English when pushed she can read books like The Cat in the Hat, but she would rather not try at all. I'm a little bit dismayed because Kenny and I were both early, good readers. I'm not extremely concerned because in America she would be in first grade and she does have to work with two languages. We'll just keep reading to her and having her read to us every day and hopefully everything will click by the time she returns to America. Her afternoon teacher discovered that she gets overwhelmed sometimes, whether it's a full page of words or a busy page of math. She said that if Sophia covers up the part that she's not working on she does much better. And the handwriting, oh the handwriting. I think Americans have started to regard good handwriting as a bit old fashioned, but the Germans still really insist on good penmanship. Last year Sophia even got a frowny face with tears streaming down on one of her papers. Her teacher recommended that Sophia go to occupational therapy to help improve her handwriting. The American doctor tried to keep a straight face when I asked about getting a referral. We of course didn't get one so we're working on trying to be neater when she writes at home, paying attention to staying in the lines. She is barely seven years old and writing in cursive so I'm pretty pleased with that, but we will try to make her teachers happy. Her afternoon teacher told me yesterday that her handwriting is improving, so that was cause to celebrate.
She is really concerned with fair and not fair. She will get in disagreements with other kids and whine to us when things are not fair. If Riley gets to stay at a play date with his friend longer than she gets to stay with her friend, it's not fair. If someone gets to take doughnuts to school for a snack every day, it's not fair. And on and on.
The sweet outweighs the sour but the sour can be pretty ugly. And that is Sophia at seven.
