The day started, as most special days seem to, waaayyyyy too early. For both me and Naomi. I blame cancer for my early start, and excitement for Naomi's.
No matter. Naomi had cleared it with me that she could wake her sisters up at 6:45 to begin the festivities. So she only had, like, an hour and a half to wait--but that's why books were invented, right?
We'd all decorated for Naomi the night before, and had her birthday cereal--magically appearing dragon Lucky Charms--ready to go on the table. Everyone dug in (except me, I dutifully ate an egg and toast), and I hustled off to 8:00 am radiation (I'll go on my birthday, too). Poor Naomi had to wait until I returned home before opening gifts, but I don't get the impression she had a hard time waiting with her sisters to entertain her.
The only one still in her PJs, Naomi clearly hunted for a new birthday dress on the table. She'd asked for a penguin dress, penguins being her favorites right now, but those are difficult to find in August, and sometimes at all. She landed on a floppy package that did feel dress-like, if one could tightly fold a dress for a 10-year-old into a small, thin rectangle.
But it turns out she was close, because inside the gift was a yard of lovely penguin fabric from Kalina, that she promised to help Naomi turn into a dress, or a skirt, or a pillowcase, or a bag, or whatever. Super sweet!
I then handed Naomi her actual birthday dress, wrapped up in a larger box just for fun. And then she opened an adorable 3D otter puzzle, and that was plenty for the time being.
Naomi of course got to take the day off of school, but Kalina and Elise didn't, entirely. Although with Elise about to explode because the super-cool, exciting gift she'd found for Naomi (and, admittedly, herself as well) set to arrive a day or two late, plus a birthday to celebrate, it was a bit of a struggle to get Elise to focus on anything. She did her math, her science, plus the unofficial crayfish census project she's been working on ever since she started finding these beloved critters in the stream. But I digress.
Poor Kalina did her best to work through her math, but it was hot upstairs (major heat wave) and downstairs was loud. She still got a lot done.
Then we decided that a little PE was in order, and we went to "swim laps" at the neighborhood pool. Swimming seems to almost be a birthday tradition with all our summer birthdays, and it's good exercise when it's so hot outside. That's how we justified it, anyway.
We had the place to ourselves, unless you count all the floating bugs. If you count them the pool was, in fact, quite crowded. The girls not having birthdays today took turns with the pool skimmer to clear things up a little.
Naomi showed off her swimming skills, which finally include plenty of ducking all the way underwater (nose plugged, of course), and even swimming underwater. But not jumping in from the edge yet.
Once back at home, we enjoyed Matt's awesome pancakes, with whipped cream and chocolate chips. Plus a bowl of veggies and fruit, because we really do need those things.
The afternoon passed with more gifts, and then our typical Jason's Deli meal, followed by a Dairy Queen ice-cream cake with Grandpa and Marianne.
The next day, though, something even more exciting happened: Elise's gift for Naomi arrived! Elise, so excited about her gift for Naomi, and that one she ordered for herself as well, nearly died waiting for it in the mail, but somehow pushed through. The entire wait became sheer agony, but the elation... let's just say I'm surprised she didn't throw up, like she would've in her 4-year-old days.
The gift for Naomi was a tracking bracelet, to follow a real live tracked penguin. We located him in South America, presumably just arriving at his nesting spot! I think. He hasn't moved since, so I'll be making a phone call.
Elise's gift to herself was a similarly tracked sea turtle. She now has a "pet" sea turtle off the coast of Florida. And Naomi has a "pet" penguin. Joy!
Naomi also got to celebrate with a few friends at a local trampoline park that she'd been eying ever since her last birthday, apparently desperate to launch herself into the air. So a couple weeks ago, when a particularly good summer sale was still in full swing, we loaded up three friends and let everyone loose on the trampolines. We do, by the way, have a trampoline at home--but these were bouncier. They had a blast.
We followed the bouncing up with DIY ice-cream sundaes at home, grateful that we hadn't reversed the order of activities.
And our little girl is 10!
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Naomi is a delight, with a lovely mix of quiet self-sufficiency, a goofy sense of humor, and a soft spot for all things little and cute. Even her stuffies kiss each other goodnight.
Her courage is currently under development, as she rode a horse and a waterslide this summer, in addition to auditioning for a musical. Of the three, she could picture riding a horse again, but definitely not a waterslide. Maybe the audition.
She's greatly developing her music skills, covering lots of piano music with virtually no help at home and a good practice ethic. She has also made great strides with violin, and has stopped complaining quite so much when I ask her to practice, having enjoyed the fruit of her labor. Remember the super-long fingers of her itty-bitty baby days? She still has those and yes, as I suspected, they are piano-playing fingers! If only she'd trim her fingernails a bit more often--she certainly doesn't need the extra length.
Arts and crafts continue to be one of Naomi's favorite hobbies, and she's applying her practicing skills to pencil drawing and working methodically towards drawing really realistic animals. She continues to delight us with super-creative 3D crafts (as she calls them), combining materials to make adorable little animals. She certainly has an eye for cuteness. She can also crochet little 3D items.
Reading is another favorite, and Naomi continues to enjoy the historical fiction genre, among others. She can somehow be in the middle of four books at once. And her reading skills are carrying over to her writing, as she actually completed her first chapter book this year. About penguins. It contains many of the elements of great literature, including differing points of view and a tear-jerker backstory that explains some of the complex emotions of one character.
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| She made her own travel pillow! |
Practically speaking, Naomi can clean a whole bathroom, make more things in the kitchen (although cooking is, understandably, not her favorite unless she's flipping pancakes or grilled cheese), organize messy areas, check her way through a to-do list like nobody's business and sweep well. Now that she's 10, she's received a colorful laundry basket and the task of doing her own laundry, which she used to be excited about but now isn't so much.
In school, she needs my help like once a week. Naturally, I work with her on several subjects anyway but sometimes only out of principle.
He giggle continues uncontrollably at times, as she cracks up at anything the least bit silly. And in the other direction, she's gaining good composure and communication skills to use when things aren't quite perfect thanks, in large part, to Elise, with whom she practices a lot. Their relationship continues to grow into more friendship, much less frustration. They make a great team most days.
Kalina, for her part, sweetly and carefully takes Naomi under her wing to help her with new skills, like running a sewing machine and solving a Rubik's cube. They can get pretty goofy together as well.
Naomi can occasionally now eat a food she doesn't like, as long as it's not, like, twice in two days or anything, and not anything she has a specific aversion to (beans, potatoes, meat--things like that). She's definitely a vegetarian (not wanting to disrupt any cuteness), and has started to accept the fact that maybe, someday, just maybe she might need to branch out so she gets enough nutrition. The seed is planted, but it's going to take a lot of watering.
She runs faster than most of her counterparts, paddles a canoe, jumps rope a gazillion times, hikes long distances without complaining, swims fully underwater (holding her nose, of course), and does her own hair. She can Google a photo of a cute sea otter with its mom (just type in "cute sea otter with mom"), select one safely, print it, and decorate her wall with it, with no help from me. Her new thing is fake sneezing, and she's surprisingly convincing.
The girl impresses with her theater skills, and can go from silent and still to slapstick comedy acting in a matter of seconds. One of her favorite things to do with her friends is to put on shows, and they've gotten fairly elaborate, with multiple acts and lots and lots of costume changes.
Fortunately, she still has a little neighbor girl who's happy to play Playmobil and Calico Critters with her, and all her friends seem happy to do shows, craft, make things for her mice, and play outside as well.
Speaking of mice, she lost two this year (not lost like they're missing--the other kind of lost). She grieved a long time, and worries about the remaining one. But she and her friends had lots of fun before that building interesting structures for the mice to explore, including a little restaurant, a store, a theater, and more. Two of her sweet friends even helped her build coffins when the time was right, and bury the mice, with Matt, in the backyard in probably the most adorable funeral I've ever heard of. Even the girls, though their respectful sadness, couldn't quite keep from cracking up at the cuteness of it all. [Update: in the writing of this blog post, she lost the third. We hope to host more at some point, as they've been a lovely pet. Or maybe a hamster.]
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| Sisters are just the best. |
Naomi continue to adore younger kids, and her cousins top the list, of course. She's happy to do their bidding on the several days a year we see them, and enjoyed a cousin sleepover in Minnesota when we visited. She also plays with the neighbors' granddaughters who are all at least two years younger than she is. The neighbors just love her. And she helps with younger kids at church, endlessly sweet and patient.
And she's about to get her braces off!! She has virtually never complained about them (the dentist comments every time on how different my children are from each other), and says she'll miss them a little.
What she really doesn't like is bugs. And being upstairs alone, still.
And she still wears pretty much only dresses, but did go through a skirt phase and was okay in jeans for riding the horse that one time.
Naomi thinks a lot, and processes many things internally. But she asks great questions and increasingly makes really good points. I'm guessing we'll all be paying more and more attention to what goes on inside her head in the coming years.
Isn't she a delight? We are excited about our decade with sweet Naomi!
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