Tonight I tucked into bed an excited and nervous nine-year-old girl. Sophie is preparing to play her violin for the entire junior school at a music assembly in the morning after having successfully auditioned earlier in the week. We are quite proud of her, of course, especially as she did not make it on her first attempt earlier this year. Her violin teacher, a wonderful woman who has the gift of encouragement, convinced her to try again.
It has been interesting for me to look back through a few pictures and reflect over the changes in our third-born. I'll start with some photos from 2010.
Singapore in November:
First of many, many sausage rolls:
Here she is about one year ago:
And here she is in February of this year, first day of the new school year:
I remember so well her first day of school. She told us later how lonely she felt when James and I walked away, but she was very determined that she would like school, and by and large she has. This year in addition to violin and piano lessons at school, she is participating in string training orchestra and choir. She wanted to add in chess, tennis and also a wind instrument, but our answer was no, no, and no. So she settled for one hour of swim training per week instead.
Beyond making music and swimming, Sophie's favorite pasttimes include playing with her American girl dolls and Calico Critters. She is still a great playmate for James, and although he is not quite as willing as he used to be to play house and dolls under her direction, he benefits from her maternal instincts. She is very diligent in completing her homework each weekday night, and was quite pleased to learn to write in cursive in Term One. I am pleased that she loves books. We have been reading through the Little House series together.
I'll close with recent pictures from her House Athletics Day. I scrambled at the last minute to deck her out in yellow to support her house. Yellow is not a color we do well in our household, but we pulled together a few things. Unfortunately her house came in dead last, but it was an enjoyable day nonetheless.
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