Adilyn - age 5 1/2

Adilyn has been growing up so much lately! Sometimes I look at her, and I can't believe how big she looks. I get glimpses of her as a teenager, and it's awesome, but it's terrifying! She loves helping out with Brooke, and sometimes she "helps" too much, but it's all in love. She likes to help cook, and she loves when I actually let her do things that I wouldn't let her before. For example, I used to never let her get her waffles out of the toaster, but the other day I did. She said, "Really?" I just told her to be careful. She did it all serious and slow and was so proud of herself. She still has issues cleaning up stuff, and it seems to be a struggle to get her to help out when we ask her to. Anytime it's her idea, she is all over it, but most of the time it's hard to get her going. She is also having some problems getting to sleep at night. I know that she is tired, but she just doesn't want to go to sleep. Some nights she comes downstairs with various illnesses or other issues, and other nights she just stays in her room and secretly reads books or plays. She still gets her feelings hurt very easily, and I would love for her to toughen up a little bit! We are working on it :)
She is doing fantastic in school, and she loves to read. Every Monday, she gets a her "readers" which are her two leveled reader books from school. She is only supposed to read one on Monday and one on Tuesday, but she ends up reading both on Monday because she is so excited. Her teacher sends home the books that she thinks are at her level, and it seems that every week she moves her up a level. I think that's a good sign! She is reading books that are at a level 9, which is definitely a 1st grade level. More important to me is the fact that she understands the stories, and that she just loves to figure the words out. She is so proud of herself when she finishes the books for the first time! Her friends seem to change all the time, and I think that's a good thing. She plays with different people all the time, and she gets along with most everyone. She hates to run in PE still, which makes me sad. But, I hated to run until I was out of college, too. :) She seems to love art and music, and she comes home singing the songs she learned in music a lot.

She is growing up so fast, sometimes I feel like I don't give her enough one on one attention. She is gone all day, and our nights are so busy. I need to try to do some things with her alone on the weekends to make sure I get my Adilyn time in before she doesn't want to hang out with me anymore!