Approaching the Tween Years

I can definitely see that Abbie is well on her way to becoming a "tween." Although she won't be ten (the official start of the tween era) for a few more months, there have definitely been times lately when she was content being 9 and other times when she thought that she was 12.

As for some of the recent events, there, of course, was Easter. Abbie definitely enjoyed hunting for eggs, both at the neighborhood event and at home. She is a big fan of the Easter bunny, who was good to her again this year with tons of candy and presents.

There are also other times in which she expresses, for example, how important it is for her to have make-up of her own to experiment with. Of course, this conversation immediately followed a birthday party at which she and the other girls had been putting make-up all over their faces and having conversations about boys, flirting with boys, and which of them called "dibs" on each boy in their class.

Yes, I know what's happening right now - you are experiencing some mild nausea and you are wondering if it is caused by what you ate for lunch or by the preceding paragraph. Trust me, it wasn't your lunch! Perhaps not surprisingly, Chad and I have had some good talks with Abbie about the value of being 9 when you are 9 and being 12 when you are 12. She is a smart cookie, so she is listening to her wise, old parents. :)

Most other activities in her life these days are what you'd expect - non-stop reading, a new obsession with Pinterest, violin, and tennis. I arrived at school early on Monday and was able to watch her play tennis for a few minutes. She was doing great and having fun, which is the important part.

As for upcoming events, there is some interesting stuff on the horizon. First, we have the Spring parent-teacher conference next Monday.

Then, in the following week, her entire class goes on a three day, two night field trip which will include class sessions, zip lining, lots of outdoor time, and sleeping in cabins. The students have been running a pizza business at school all year to raise the money to pay for the trip, so they are pretty excited.

Finally, at the end of the month, Abbie will be auditioning for the local youth string orchestra. Much of our violin practice lately has been focused on preparing for the audition. It will be a quick audition with the requirements being a G-major scale, a piece of her choosing (we have chosen Minuet 3), and an assigned piece. This year's assigned piece is the theme from Star Wars, which is pretty fun. We don't know what her chances are of being accepted into the orchestra, but we will be notified of the decision on May 15th, so stay tuned!