growing up

Madyson is growing up so much right now. We are well into our 2nd half of kindergarten and I am seeing such a huge change in her. She adores school. I have no doubt in my decision to send her to school, and public school at that. She has 2 amazing teachers and she honestly looks forward to going each and every day.

In January, she started the Accelerated Reader program. She loves to read and I find I can no longer spell out words to Todd, because she will sound them out and catch me.

Her handwriting is slightly better, she is def. my child when it comes to writing. We do not boast at having good penmanship, ever.

Spiritually, I can see her growing more in Christ each day. Yesterday, her heart blew Todd and I out of the water. At school, if they stay on the green light they get a treat at the end of the day. Madyson had a snicker bar (her favorite) she got in the car and proceeded to tell me all about her "SNEEKER bar" then her sweet friend that rides with us, said "I didn't get one because I was talking". Me, not thinking much about it said, "well thats okay buddy, you can get one tomorrow" Just then, madyson spoke up. "Here, you can have mine. Its a sneeker bar, its peanuts and caramel and chocolate, its my favorite, but I want you to have it." She then, turned her snicker bar over to her friend and sat back and was okay with her decision. My heart stopped. My five year old, has been listening. We have been talking alot about Grace in our house. The definition we use is "getting something great that you don't deserve" She deserved the candy bar, because she stayed on green. But because her friend did not, she shared her "something great" with him.

I was so moved by her decision and attitude. I told Todd about it and he just hugged her and told her how awesome she was. On the way home from Adoption Class last night, we stopped at the store and bought her a bag of mini snickers. When we got home, we explained how proud we are of her for showing grace to her friend. How she made us happy and God happy, just by using her heart. we presented her with the bag of snickers and told her these were not a reward for showing grace, these were a gift from us to her, because we are proud of her achievements in school. She was elated and ate one at that moment.

While all of the above sound fabulous, she is dealing with the pressures of "mean kids" at school. She wears glasses, has eczema and has dark arm hair (like her Italian momma). The arm hair thing, I totally relate to. I was made fun of alot for having more hair than normal girls. I was called things like Hairy Goat, Wooly, and other hurtful names. My mom would say, "your hair is beautiful"..um no mom, its weird. So right now, we are learning how to cope with hurtful words. I feel the urge to bop little kids on the head, but instead I remind her that God carefully creates each of us. He designs our eyes, our skin..he knows the number of hairs on our head...and I am sure he knows the number on our arms as well. We talk about how he doesn't make mistakes and sometimes children see "differences" in others and use that to hurt them.  But thats because they haven't been taught how to love everyone, despite their differences.

She is growing and learning and understanding. My baby is no longer a baby, but a child. and a wonderful one at that.