Abigail at 6

I love this picture of Abigail. It embodies her spirit and personality. Thanks to Aunt Annie, Abigail awoke to a chalked driveway and heart-attacked lawn. The heart were originally scattered around the lawn, but in true Abigail style, she plucked them up and arranged them in a neat line, holding a few back to pose with in this next picture. Abigail loves to arrange, decorate and design.

For her birthday party, Abigail wanted to go to "the plant nursery" and look at flowers and feed the fish in the koi pond. All the children were so cute running around the nursery, exclaiming over plants and admiring flowers. We picked blackberries from a big bush the kids chose some flowers to buy. I asked them to stop for a picture, and this was what Abigail composed--smelling the flowers. You'll notice one friend had an encounter with the koi pond just before we took the picture below. They are all making their best fish faces.
After the visit to Harper's Nursery, we went to the AZ Museum for Youth and played in the fairytale exhibit. We acted out a few stories, did a puppet show, made some crafts, read a few stories and had a great time. Abigail loves to dress up and has a flair for putting on shows. Then we went to our house for ice cream.
A few weeks ago Abigail said, "For my birthday I want kitchen stuff like Avery got for hers." So I looked through the Montessori catalogue and with Warren's help, chose some items that would be fun and useful for Abigail. They were a crinkle-carrot slicer, kid chopsticks, cutting boards, an apple corer and slicer, mini-souffle ramekins and a melon baller. It looked like a bridal shower. But Abigail was pleased and she really likes to help in the kitchen and prepare food by herself. She was also thrilled to get this cute cake-making set from her grandma.

The gift I really want to give Abigail is to change my way of being with her. The last few months have been rough for us. So many behaviors I see her do I recognize, painfully, she las learned from me. Even the ones she hasn't, I am often overly critical of, like always wanting to do and like what her friends do and like. She is so grown-up in so many ways, but that can be deceiving when I then create unrealistic expectations for her. I struggle just to have fun with Abigail. I want to invest in her emotional bank account more. I have made a lot of withdrawals lately, and I have got to do better. I told her last week that we were quitting violin. I'm not sure I meant it. I know it could be a lovely experience, but mostly, I just go into psycho-cranky mode when we need to practice. Her teacher is gone for several weeks, and so I think we will take another week off from practicing, because really, I think I am toxic to the whole experience. I will make a lot of "deposits" this week--time together, books read, hugs, lying in bed together to talk--just normal stuff. Then maybe we'll try practicing again.