This is a summary for Kaitlyn between 9.5-9.75 years old.
EATING
Eating is good! Same as usual.
SLEEPING
Sleeping is great! Last time, I talked about how Kaitlyn is a very deep sleeper and how that can be very hard to wake up in the morning. I cam up with a plan to give her five minutes to be up and either dressed or headed to the shower or to get to go run a mile.
That is still the understanding at our house and Kaitlyn (and McKenna) still hop right out of bed and get going. I would absolutely, 100% enforce this, even if it were snowing outside, and they know that. Which is why it works and why they never have and hopefully never will have to do it.
BRACES
The biggest news of this time period is probably that Kaitlyn is now has braces on her top teeth. They are a pre-braces sort of thing. I can’t remember the official term. Her teeth were bad enough that they will be moving them into place, then she will wear a retainer until her baby teeth are all gone and she gets the real braces. It makes so when she wears braces for real, she should be done much faster. Of course, the overall time with braces is not shorter because she has them on now. She wanted them on now and we let her decide if she wanted to get them now or just wait until all of her baby teeth are gone (that usually happens as twelve year olds. Kaitlyn has always been a very late teether, though, so I could see her being 13 before that happens).
As a point of reference, Brayden’s teeth were not bad enough that he ever needed a pre-braces thing. He will be getting braces in a couple of moths. Kaitlyn’s teeth are very similar to how mine were, and I didn’t get braces until I was 14 or 15 and only had them for about 18 months, so I would have been willing to have her wait if that is what she wanted.
EXTRA CURRICULAR
During this time, Kaitlyn has had her regular piano lessons going on. Kaitlyn also played basketball with two different leagues (not at the same time; one was before Christmas and the other was after and is still going on). She really enjoys basketball and she is quite good at it. At her first game last month, for example, she scored 24 points by herself. She likes the fast-paced sports like basketball and soccer.
Kaitlyn also started up participation in the school musical. We are doing Peter Pan and she is Tinker Bell. So fun!
We had these cute wristbands made by https://www.reminderband.com for the full cast. They are a lot of fun and double as great advertising to have the kids all wearing them. Disclosure: Reminder Band donated the bands to us in exchange for a mention on this blog.
SCHOOL
School has been great! She has great friends. An odd thing with her grade has always been that there are a lot of boys who are pretty girl-crazy. She always has stories of some boy who is chasing her at recess or confessing his never-ending love for her. Brayden and his friends still don’t have an interest in girls in that way, so it is different for me to hear about boys so “in love.” HA!
Kaitlyn’s teacher is fantastic. I am amazed at how things work out for kids to get the perfect teacher for them. In fourth grade, Brayden had a different teacher who we all loved dearly and who was so perfect for him. Kaitlyn has a different teacher, and she has proven to be perfect for Kaitlyn. One of my favorite accomplishments of this teacher is getting Kaitlyn to love math. Kaitlyn is very, very good at math, but at the beginning of this year was declaring she hated math. Her teacher made it a personal mission to get Kaitlyn to like math, and at this point, Kaitlyn now declares she loves math. I love that. I don’t want Kaitlyn slamming any doors on herself and her future by declaring hating the subject of math, so I am so happy to see her accepting that math is good.
BOOKS
The current series that is all the rage for Kaitlyn is Wings of Fire (aff). I don’t think she could like it any more.
SCHEDULE
Here is her school schedule:
7:00 AM–Wake up and get ready.
9:00 AM–School
4:00 PM–Home. Homework and chores. Then free play.
5:00 or 5:30 PM–Dinner. Then family time.
7:30 PM–Get ready for bed.
8:00 PM–In bed.