Tweening
I didn't really expect that B. would be starting to tween already as she's two months short of 9, and despite the fact that she is precocious in many academic ways, I would not have said she was socially ept, much less precocious. But she's starting to do things like being more private about her body (and it is very slowly, almost imperceptibly
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I'm much more attuned now to the idea that little kids are different about every 6-10 weeks. I'm hoping M. is seriously different in 6 weeks--the temper tantrums and the potty training resistance are really wearing us down (and by 9 he'd damned well better be potty trained). Even B., at almost 9, is noticeably different about every 6 months. If you'd asked me 10 weeks ago what M. would be like at 9, I would have a different answer than I do today; much of that is because we are in a real phase of timidity over loud noises and strangers and separation from Mama. I would have expected him to be far more fearless and brash than I expect now. He would go off to the playground without worrying if I were in sight; now, he'd prefer to stay near me. I fully expect that that will change again.
Yesterday, B. came home with a list of instruments that she'd started to try out for Orchestra/Music class. She'd narrowed her choices by "furthest away from the percussion section" and size and range; her choices by order are viola, clarinet, violin (viola?!). The interesting thing is that last year, when we brought up whether she'd like lessons, she was adamant that she did not want to learn an instrument. No argument held any weight and we eventually gave up trying to convince her it was a good skill, fun, pretty sounding, a chance to make new friends, getting out of the house, etc. Today, she sounds pretty positive that she wants to try one for sure. For the last three years or so, her career ambition was to be a stay at home mom and I despaired of that big brain not being used; she has recently started saying that she would like to go to college. I think that she's a late bloomer in terms of knowing what she wants and I need to respect that by offering lots of choices but not a lot of pushing. Some things you can predict--I expected she would be good at reading, that her prodigious memory would be to her advantage in school and language lessons, that she would be bad at sports but desire to be better without working at it.
But I used to freak thinking that she would always be like she was. It was why we pushed so hard to get her speech therapy because it was so frustrating that she wouldn't talk and we couldn't go on like that (12-22 months). Now the way she tells stories--rambling, unsorted details--drive us nuts. But maybe because we've gone through so much change, we're readier to accept that she is going to change, if you see what I mean. And M. is easier because we've gone through it once (though more difficult because every child is also different...)
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