Brinley Preteen Summary: 9.5 Years Old

by

Daily life and schedule for a 9.5-year-old tween who was raised on Babywise. See her daily life, activities she is involved in, and her daily schedule.

Brinley at 9.5 years old

This is a summary for Brinley from 9.25-9.5 years old.

EATING

Eating is going well with nothing extraordinary to report.

SLEEPING

Sleeping is also good. She has started using an alarm in the morning. Our kids haven’t traditionally used an alarm until middle school. They have either woken on their own or we have just woken them up.

Brinley has started to be one to like to sleep in. This is actually surprising to me because she really is A LOT like Brayden in most ways. He has always been an early riser and even now (coming up on 17) just doesn’t sleep in.

So in elementary, he just woke up in the morning. School starts late enough his natural wake up time of 7 AM worked just fine.

But we have to wake Brinley up at 7:30 each day.

She likes the alarm. We have it set to music. She loves music, so the music thumping gets her more excited to get up. She often gets out of bed and has a dance party. Sometimes she does a stretch session (yoga) to the music.

She also likes to be like her siblings and they all use an alarm to wake up.

SCHOOL

School is great. Brinley is doing well in school. She understands it all very well and loves to learn. She is loving the gifted program at school.

Other than learning, other favorites at school are PE and library.

GLASSES

I got a text one day from Brinley’s primary teacher at church telling me she thought Brinley might need glasses. She said Brinley was squinting to see the board a lot.

So I started paying attention and noticed if Brinley looked across the room at home, she squinted.

We got her an appointment and indeed, she needed glasses! Her eyesight is actually pretty bad.

The doctor said it came on fast. She had a massive growth spurt where her eyes grew really long and it changed her eyesight rapidly.

She was really upset at the idea of getting glasses (which is actually ironic because I have two other kids who have always wanted glasses but don’t need them).

Once she was at her exam, however, and saw how much better she would be able to see, she was ecstatic.

So she is loving having glasses because she can see significantly better.

We have a lot to learn, though. My eyes are the minimum “bad” they can be, and that didn’ come on until after kids. I don’t need glasses and only wear them when working at the computer just to help with eye strain.

So I have very little experience.

I will be sure to do a post as we gain some knowledge and experience. Please feel free to comment with any advice you might have!

ACTIVITIES

During this time, Brinley did basketball, soccer, piano lessons, voice lessons, and started a musical.

Kaitlyn is now teaching her piano. Brayden has gotten too busy so Kaitlyn took over. It is a little bit different of a dynamic. Brinley adores Brayden. He is her only brother and the oldest, so she just has a lot of open love for him.

My read on her with Katilyn is that Kaitlyn is the sibling she wants approval from the most. I think she admires Kaitlyn in many ways.

Brinley is not one who enjoys being corrected. She is an emotional, gifted perfectionist who takes correction hard. It is hardest for her from family, and THE hardest from Kaitlyn. But it is a very good experience for both of them. They are both learning a lot (more than related to the piano) and they are growing closer.

Brinley is doing a Beauty and the Beast JR. Musical and is playing LeFou. She wasn’t excited at the idea of playing a boy, but such is life in the theater! She does a great job. She has come to really enjoy her role.

Brinley also started voice lessons and is doing them in a group setting with Kaitlyn and McKenna. Brinley actually has a wider range, both lower and higher, than I do, which is pretty crazy for a 9 year old. She can easily belt up to a high G. She loves to sing and does it constantly.

She wasn’t initially excited at the idea of doing voice lessons (“I am already a good singer. I don’t need someone telling me I do it wrong”). Again, emotional perfectionist.

But she has absolutely loved it since she started and really nothing makes her more energized after she is done than her voice lessons.

Brinley enjoys playing sports. She enjoyed basketball and enjoys soccer, but she goes up and down with soccer.

Soccer is tricky for her right now. Our other girls played competitively at this age, but with a local team. It was in town with their friends from school. Practice was 5 minutes away, as were home games. Half of your games are at home and half are away.

There isn’t a local team Brinley’s age. So she practices 30 minutes away with girls from all over the valley. Home games are 30 minutes away.

It is a lot at this age.

It is interesting because Kaitlyn and McKenna both eventually left that local team and joined a team like what Brinley is on. Nate and I felt like it would be best for Brinley to just be on the team she would end up on from the beginning.

But there are many benefits to a small, local team that we didn’t fully appreciate.

We don’t have that option for her, but it is an interesting consideration for others to take when choosing what to do with your own kids.

So I am unsure how her soccer future will look. Tryouts are in May and she can decide at that point what she wants to do.

PUPPY

Brinley is great with the puppy. She is an excellent puppy-sitter. It works well for Kaitlyn because she can have a social life on weekends and Brinley can watch her dog while she goes out.

The dog is also very good for Brinley. Having an indoor animal she can cuddle has been great for her high-intensity emotions.

Before we had the dog, she would get one of our outdoor cats and bring it in with her when she was upset. She even tried getting one to sleep with her at night, but they all prefer the outdoors.

So having the dog inside at all times has been great for her emotionally. If you have an emotionally intense child, I would strongly recommend you consider an indoor pet that can be cuddled.

YOUNGEST CHILD

I am an oldest child, so I really can’t understand what it is like to be the youngest.

It is interesting to observe. There are many ways she loves to be the youngest and milks that role. There are many ways she wants to be “big” and be like her siblings.

Nate and I definitely treat her younger than she is. Just as you treat your oldest as older and more mature, you treat your youngest as younger and less mature.

Brinley has expressed interest in joining the swim team instead of soccer. I think she is too young for the swim team. But at her age, Brayden had already swam in a swim meet!

She is priding herself on becoming more and more independent and doing things alone. It is definitely bitter-sweet.

HAIR CUT

Brinley’s hair grows really fast. It always has. It is also very fine and the strands just get tangled SO easily.

Over the last year, I have had about a foot cut off of it. Having it a bit shorter really helps avoid the snarls.

And she has a very sensitive head, so brushing out the snarls hurts a lot.

She had a haircut in January. She hates getting anything cut off. I have been trying to talk her into willingly cut off a significant amount, but she didn’t want to.

For at least a year, I have been texting our hair dresser before we go the amount I want off so Brinley doesn’t know the amount.

Well, I kid you not, the morning of her hair cut, she was looking at old pictures while I did her hair. She saw an instgram story where I shared she had 5 inches cut off the year before.

She looked at it for a while but didn’t say anything.

After school, as we drove to her haircut, she asked me how much she was getting cut off.

I told her a few inches.

She wanted to know exact, and kept pressing. She was on to me. HA!

So I told her 6 inches. She kind of panicked. But she survived.

And she has been loving it. It is still long, but short enough that it does not get so tangled and also short enough she can brush it out by herself. She can even put it into a ponytail for bedtime by herself.

DAILY SCHEDULE

Here is her daily schedule for school days.

7:30 AM – Wake up, eat, and get ready. Take care of puppy.
8:30 AM– Go to school
4:00 PM – Get home
5:00 PM – Dinner. Then free play/family time/practice piano/perhaps soccer practice. We also do family scriptures in this block currently.
8:30 PM – Bedtime. She is in bed by 8:30 and allowed to read before going to sleep.

Related Posts

9.5 year old tween schedule and routine