Isabella, 6.5

Part 1.
Life with you at six and a half.
Isabella.

I never had a hard time with the newborn stage. I quickly adapted and fully expected the sleep interruptions, the years of nursing and all the other life changes that baby brings.
But six year olds.
Wow. I haven't figured this out at all.

  
 Easy

We're still figuring it out...

Some days, mostly mornings, I feel like I live with a pre-teen. The mood changes are out of this world. We can go from stomping, crying and affirmations of how awful I am because I picked out THE WRONG SHIRT, to gleefully talking about braids and pigtails and which shoes she is wearing and the books she wants to read before we leave. Some days, it's just pure crazy town.
I don't know if people outside of our little world here at home would even believe the six year old antics we've experienced. Isabella is seamless when we are in public. She's polite, respectful. She listens, she's helpful. She's comfortable when she's at home...

At six, Isabella can't handle if we don't have a full dinner, at the table, with the whole family every night. Even if she isn't hungry because she ate her entire lunch that she didn't eat at school, when she got home, she still fully expects dinner at the table with everyone there. If it doesn't, she's heartbroken.

She insists that her world is crumbling if I don't lay with her for awhile at bedtime. Although, when it's "Declan's night," she doesn't want Ryan to lay with her but prefers to lay in bed, light on, and passes out in minutes. She has decided, at six and a half, that she doesn't want to share a room or a bed with Quinn anymore. She says "Quinn is way too c-h-a-t-t-y" and she can't stand talking at night. By the time she gets home from school she craves and needs peace and quiet. I totally get that one.

Quinn adores her, idolizes her and wants nothing more than to be just like Isabella. We try to reassure Isabella that it's a compliment, but some days she just doesn't have the patience for it. Some days, she sits with Quinn and teaches her how to outline a picture before coloring it in. They sit with notebooks and Isabella writes dotted line numbers and letters for Quinn to trace. She helps Quinn get into her ballet clothes and choreographs performances for them almost nightly. If I tell Quinn that I'm not going to carry her, Isabella always offers a piggy back ride. Some times she's too mature and I forget that she's just six.

 They still love to dress up together...And that dress that Isabella wore from age three to age five, almost daily, is now one that Quinn goes straight to when they dress up.

 Isabella's over it, but Quinn would sleep like this every night if her sister would let her...

Quinn would also prefer me to buy every single outfit in sets of two. One of her most favorite things is to dress exactly the same as Isabella.

Isabella loves to read and flies through chapter books every week. She really wants the Little House on the Prairie set for Christmas. She really does not like math. She gets nervous when things don't come easily and she rushes...a lot. She's embarrassed to use her fingers or other manipulatives and no matter how many times we work through it at night, she is still figuring out how to be comfortable with not always "getting it" the first time. She's the first six year old I've had, so I get that too. Every day I try to figure out how to be comfortable with the chance that I am not "getting it" this first time.

This season of our lives is changing by the day. I have a feeling this is the new normal. We spent so many years, five actually, having kids that were essentially in the same phase. Now we are entering a new one and it's all very new.

Isabella will always hold her own very special place in my heart. My first born, my first daughter. The one who made me a mom. It was just the three of us for only seventeen short months, but in that time we developed a special bond that will always be just that. Special. She amazed me then, she amazes me now. She has spunk, she has determination and I am so beyond proud to call her my daughter.

Her most apparent trait at 6.5: She truly just wants everyone to be happy.