Summer!

The weather might not realize that summer has arrived, but for Abbie it is official - school is over, the "big pool" at the country club is open for the season, and her summer day camps start today. This week she has a tennis/swimming camp - tennis in the morning and then swimming after lunch. At least four of her classmates are in the same camp, so she is looking forward to running around with her friends. As you can see, she loves jumping into the pool over and over and jumping off the diving board at the big pool. She is still in that phase, however, where any attempted dive ends in a belly flop. She doesn't seem to mind, though.

Although school is over, we are still doing weekly violin lessons at her teacher's house through the month of June. As I mentioned in the last post, there are five variations on the "Twinkle, twinkle" theme. In addition, there is the theme itself, which Abbie learned last week. We have now begun the long process of doing 100 repetitions of the six versions of "Twinkle, Twinkle." Once Abbie completes all 600 repetitions she will be ready to have her Twinkle Recital which means that she will go from being referred to as a "pre-Twinkler" to being referred to as a "Twinkler." She will learn other songs along the way, of course, but this right of passage seems to be a big deal for these Suzuki kids.

The other fun thing about this is that a different type of dried bean is used to count each of the six versions. For example, variation A is counted with kidney beans, variation B is counted with lentils, etc. Each time she completes a repetition, a bean goes into the jar. In the end, we will have 600 dried beans, which we will use to make bean soup (referred to as "Twinkle bean soup"). This is a cool way for the kids to visualize their progress and Abbie seems to be excited about amassing her 600 beans.

Below is the video of her solo from the very informal recital that they had during the last group lesson a few weeks ago. This is variation A: May Violin Recital

Growing Up

Abbie is starting to look more and more grown up lately. Her baby face has been replaced by a face with delicate features and I am often struck by her long, skinny legs. Her personality is becoming more mature as well and I often see evidence of her great reasoning ability and her attention to small details. On the other hand, she still gets completely goofy on a regular basis and, if the mood strikes her, will actually roll around on the floor yelling and laughing over what seems like nothing.

Above are the photos that we took during our annual trip to see the bluebonnets this year. They were rather elusive, but ultimately we were able to find a great field for the girls to run in. Also, during the month of April, Abbie celebrated her un-birthday at school. This involved bringing a treat for the class, having me read a story to the class, and Abbie getting to decide on a secret word for the kids to guess at during a game of hangman. She chose the word 'maniac' which all the kids seemed to get quite a thrill from. I think it is a word that they throw around amongst themselves despite the fact that half of them probably have no clue what it means.

Abbie has always had a pretty good vocabulary and it seems to be getting better and better with all of the reading that she is doing lately. She got a Kindle for Christmas and uses it daily. It has been hard to keep enough new books on it, as she seems to go through them very quickly. Fortunately, she enjoys re-reading stories that she has read before!

This past weekend was Abbie's ballet recital at school. She had a long wait from the time that I dropped her off until it was actually showtime, and she became concerned that her lipstick was coming off so she decided to take it upon herself to reapply it. Imagine my surprise when I showed up minutes before the performance and there was Abbie with what looked like clown lips. This picture is far enough away that it doesn't look too egregious. Thankfully!

As they approach the end of the school year, all the weekly activities are winding down. Ballet is now over for the year, and this is the last week of violin. We will do a few group and individual violin lessons during the summer, but not on a weekly basis. Abbie has really started to enjoy violin more lately, which I hope that it will make it easy for us to remember to practice over the summer. The Suzuki method starts with all students learning to play five different variations of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." The notes are the same in each variation, but the rhythms that are played on each note change with the different variations. Abbie now knows all five variations, which gives her lots of variety and keeps her entertained during practice.

Abbie is definitely looking forward to the end of the school year, though, and I have to agree. The relaxed, flexible schedule of summer will be a relief for all of us. As was the case last year, we have signed her up for a variety of day camps that will hopefully keep her entertained. I'll keep you posted!