#3

Eliza has been doing well lately, though she mourns the loss of her tumbling class.  She isn't doing cartwheels everywhere she goes anymore, but she does like to demonstrate her flexibility.  The other day she said that a soft carrot that had been left on the counter overnight was "flexible like me." She loves bending around in unusual ways and recently told me that she wants to be a contortionist when she grows up.  Truly starting to push her body's limits, she actually hurt herself the other day by overextending her arm.

Another one of Eliza's passions right now is turtles.  All of the kids are currently in a yearning-for-a-pet phase, but Eliza has it the worst, and insists that a turtle would make the best pet.  She told me that she wanted to get a turtle and teach it tricks (you know, like rolling over).  She gets really excited whenever she sees or hears something related to turtles and starts exclaiming, "TURTLE!  TURTLE!"  Box turtles are her favorite and she said that maybe we should get one from Africa.

A small turtle Ben brought Eliza from a business trip,
and a birthday request list Eliza gave me several weeks ago.

Last year, Eliza was in a reading class one level higher than her grade level.  This year she was placed into the same level she was in last year (with most of her classmates) and said that whenever she complained to the teacher about doing the same things she did last year, the teacher would say, "Well, it's good to review." When I emailed her teacher about it, she checked Eliza's reading scores and saw that she did qualify for the higher class and immediately bumped her up.  Sheesh.

Eliza has some extra motivation to read on her own this year too because she's decided to try to earn a spot at the Principal's lunch table.  The kids at the school are supposed to keep track of their reading minutes and turn in a calendar every month.  Any student who reads for 1,000 minutes or more gets to eat lunch with the Principal.  For Cat, this was a monthly occurrence, but I wouldn't have thought Jack or Eliza would do enough reading on their own to earn this reward.  Well, Eliza took it upon herself, and this year she's been reading for 30-60 minutes each day.  When we tallied up her reading minutes for September, she had over 1,200.  The Clementine books are her favorites, but she reads lots of other things too.

Tin foil creations in Eliza's room.

Eliza enjoys being creative, making things that are useful or beautiful.  She's been using the tea sets more lately, and gets particular enjoyment out of helping younger kids to have fun, so having Cousin Whit around has been a dream for her.  (He was part of the below tea party until right before I took the picture.)

Snack Time: Eliza Style
(cutting her apples into tiny bits, and arranging them on our tiniest tea set plates)

Eliza still loves jump roping, and it's her favorite recess activity.  In fact, when I asked her what she did during recess after school one day she looked at me like I'd just asked what her name was.  Duh.

Eliza is friendly and kind.  I took these pictures during the recent Triple Crown race at BYU, but there's something you might not have noticed.  Eliza is holding hands with the girl on her right, someone she is friends with but I don't think they're particularly close friends.  She just instinctively reached out to this little girl.  She has great friends at school and from church, but lately I've noticed a pattern she has of becoming friends with an entirely different demographic: grandparent-age people.  Examples?  The custodian at school, who she talked to at greater length and with more animation than she did any of the kids when we were there over the summer.  The crossing guard outside of her school, who it took me a while to find out was the friend she was referring to when she asked if she could bring an extra piece of candy to school to give to her friend.  Our elderly back-door neighbors, who were the recipients of lots of baked goods when I went on a baking kick and Eliza kept asking, "Can I bring some to our neighbors??" I was afraid they might be getting sick of her, but of course they just ate it up.  (Hee hee.)

Eliza is so playful and fun and has a great sense of humor.  One day recently, Jack ordered a set of small plastic whales and sharks online, and when they arrived, the three younger kids excitedly started playing with them.  They started out with my biggest mixing bowl, full of water, on the kitchen floor.  They were having a blast and playing really well together.  Since it was warm and sunny outside, I suggested they take the toys and water outside to play, which they all agreed to.  While they were in the back yard, using the hose to put water in our little kiddie pool, Eliza fell backwards into the window well.  She didn't sustain any injuries except for a few scrapes, but it still made her a little gun-shy.  Soon after, I thought she had mended enough to go back outside and play with Luke some more, but when I told her that, she made me laugh with her shrewd reply.  "You know how well that went last time."

She also made me chuckle the other morning when I was running on the treadmill in the basement and looked up to see her holding this:

Apparently she was ready for breakfast.

Three other notable qualities I'd like to mention are that Eliza is very spirited - she feels strongly about things and gets very animated both when she's happy or excited, and when she's disappointed or angry; Eliza is loving and thoughtful and kind; and Eliza has a strong sense of justice, and acts as the self-appointed police officer of the family, which often comes in handy.

Eliza loves attention and hates it when things aren't fair, making her a pretty typical middle child (and being the third of four children myself, I completely understand).

She still does her hair herself almost every day, but she's getting better at it - a fact that I both appreciate and lament.  I really love that she is still a little girl in so many ways.  It makes me smile that she skips around, piles bracelets and hair bands on her wrists, loves paint and glitter, and still giggles adorably.  I'm afraid it won't last much longer.