Friday 24 July 2009

The Kids Part One: LissaLou

LissaLou is now five and a half, amazing! She will be a six year old before you know it! She is a great little girl, sorry, I mean big girl!

I have noticed that as I think about and record the younger children's development, it is all about what they can do now, whereas with LissaLou it is a lot more focused on her attitude and shaping her character.

You'll remember from this post that obeying straight away has been our recent priority and she has got the hang of it very well. We try and chat and pray about it each morning with the girls as it seems to help remind them, and now that LissaLou has (generally but not absolutely) mastered that step, her daily challenge is to obey with a smile (as opposed to the constant "yeah but" that became her mantra, only to be replaced with kissing her teeth!!). Her other one is to come to me about any problems with CassCass (usually) or someone else, rather than hitting/pushing/screaming at the other person... She is so pleased when she has done a good job! (As am I!).

I think she has found it strange not being at school or having a routine over the last few weeks, as she has constantly been coming and asking "what can I do now?". I look forward to getting back into a routine with them and having all our toys and things back!

LissaLou is still deeply devoted to Hamie ("I love Hamie SO much mummy...) and will often retreat to her bed and suck her thumb whilst holding him. He has a very dinky house bag from mum which she loves carrying around with her too.

Reading is coming on bit by bit, and I think she might actually be better in french than in english right now. As for writing, her big dream is to write en attaché (the very impressive cursive style so beloved of all French people) which we have started on. But she gets very frustrated when she can't get things straight away - I can't tell you how much we struggled with k!


She adores JoJo (rather too violently at times!) and has a more love-hate relationship with CassCass. They will play beautifully for hours (always in french!) then end up fighting over something or another. I like the idea that shaping a child's heart is more important than shaping their external behaviour, but it is a challenge to know how to do so. However, it is really easy to chat with LissaLou about issues like this, for example today we discussed that it was more important to love CassCass (by being patient) than to have her play in a particular way.

LissaLou is a chatterbox. Oh boy. But (like her mother before her!) she is apparently very quiet at school, as the maitresse wouldn't like it otherwise. (Oh yes? and what about her poor mother?!)

She loves counting, particularly in french. I pity anyone learning to count in french, having to cope with their forty-twenty-seventeen, that is in fact 97!

One thing I have loved recently is every morning that we get up early and find ourselves on the balcony as a family, she will come along with her French Bible and get Bertie to read to us! A great example to us all!

The girls haven't really developed the same relationship with their Mamie as with their Grandma, as she, in common with parents and grandparents in general here, doesn't spend one to one time with them doing activities and involving them. So I have been pleased to see LissaLou joining Mamie in her sewing room and watching Mamie as she makes her a dress. Hey, perhaps I won't need to learn to sew after all....!

Oh, I stopped the pocket money (she hasn't noticed!) as inexplicably, the money kept going missing, wherever I hid it.... She didn't really enjoy doing her daily tasks so we will work on that in the autumn. She loves washing up with me though, so we can do that more often when we are away from fizz sinks!

LissaLou is looking forward to coming home and seeing her family and playing with her BF! I am looking forward to homeschooling with her and getting to know her and appreciate her even more.

1 comment:

Grandma said...

I remember all those questions about the worms in the garden being related to each other! Now that I have read about Gregor Mendel I could give you a more informed answer!
I don't like fizzy sinks either, but I ha ve a nice new apron which helps me do the washing up.
See if Mamie will give Alyssa some of her scraps of material and I will let her use the sewing machine here to make Mamie a present.
Imagine not noticing your pocket money has stopped!