Lucy

This post is going to be pretty picture-heavy because Lu does so darn much art and I love it so much I can’t not take pictures of it. I will forever be fascinated by the shapes and colors she chooses.  Is this an abstract cat? My Dad had a little chat with Lu a while back that since she is an “artist” she could take liberties to do whatever she wanted in her art, including letting animals have as many legs as she wants them to have.  I think she would love it if there were some sort of “octopus cat" like this one: I love the way she writes her fancy letters. This was one where she was doing something for each holiday.  The hearts in the middle are Valentine’s Day, there’s a black (?) Christmas tree, I think the little girl with the cake is Lu’s birthday. She made her own “chocolate chip cookies:” This is the lunch sack she made for her field trip to the zoo.  Seriously, heart melter. Not only is she diligent in art, she is diligent as can be with her writing and reading. She will go through her flashcards and read and write them with deep concentration. Her handsome Dad will work with her on the amidst Elle’s tennis matches. Her vision teacher has started adding Braille to her flashcards. At first Lu was totally skeptical of all this Braille stuff but we all think it’s about the coolest thing since sliced bread so she’s started to get pretty excited and proud of it.  I had an IEP meeting recently with her teacher, the school psychologist and her vision teacher. It was around the same table as this one was last year, and once again I shed tears of the deepest gratitude for these women who look out for Lucy and adore her despite her feistiness. She is doing so well is school.  Academically she is right on.  She was among the first of the kids in her class to pass off all her 100 sight-words and get her own spanking-new library card and boy oh boy is she proud of that thing.  Socially I worry so much about her, but honestly for some reason reading the book Wonder (at the end of that post) helped me a lot on that front. I hear about some emotional outbursts that happen at school sometimes, mostly around food, which breaks my heart, but I know they’re getting better.  She’s growing and learning so much and usually has a big gappy (from so many teeth lost) smile on her face.  And how I love it. Here’s field day I got to help at a little bit: Lucy LOVES to make books along with her reading and writing, and I could fill up my whole computer with pictures of them. Here’s one of my favs. lately: She is still head-over-heels in love with “The Monster at the End of This Book” that I talked about back here.  Here’s one page from her latest edition: And here she is reading with her enthusiasm: Lu likes routine.  Which means she likes to have the same things to eat ALL THE TIME.  This is always her breakfast of choice:  Kix, milk (her only glass of the day), and applesauce (that we mix her eye vitamins in).  Every single day.  And they all need to be served in blue dishes most of the time. I have loved teaching Art Masterpiece in her class this year… …and my heart melted when I got a fat manila envelope from the kids thanking me for coming in throughout the year.  Here are a couple of the cuties: My favorite, of course, was Lu’s": Lucy’s “sport of choice” is swimming.  I wrote about how much I ADORE her swim class at Aqua-Tots back here, but for the month of April she has also done a mini swim team every day after school.  It has been awesome. The coaches melt my heart looking out for her. Love her.