Brinley Preteen Summary: 8.5 Years Old

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Daily life and schedule for this 8.5 year old girl who was raised on Babywise. See her daily life, activities she is involved in, and her daily schedule.

Brinley 8.5

EATING

Eating is going well. She doesn’t love everything there is out there, but she eats well.

SLEEPING

Sleeping is great. We are super, super consistent with her bedtime and that makes a difference.

We also discovered she was staying up later and later to read. We have always let her decide how long to read and she has done well with that, but as she has gotten more into books with cliffhangers, she has lost track of time at night.

McKenna has always been this way, so we set a timer for McKenna and when it goes off, she stops reading and goes to sleep.

So we started doing that for Brinley and it is going well.

EMOTIONS

Her ability to manage her strong emotions is improving. I have been reading Emotional Intensity in Gifted Students and that has been helpful for me.

Brinley feels really big. That means her highs are high and her lows are low. She shows her love in big ways.

You will see in her video a picture of her hugging a pumpkin. We did a gratitude pumpkin in November and it filled her emotional tank to the brim of happiness to write something each day and read what her family members had written.

READING

Last time, I talked about her reading graphic novels. Graphic novels are not my favorite.

She still loves them, but I have been able to get her reading traditional novels. I will start reading a book out loud to her, and then she can’t wait to find out what happens so she reads it independently.

It is especially helpful to do this for books in a series. Then you get not only that book, but all of the books in a series.

She has read the Poppy series. Chronicles of Narnia, and Little House on the Prarie books recently all with doing this.

McKenna also got her hooked on Keeper of the Lost Cities by doing this and she is halfway through that series now.

SCHOOL

School has been great! She has been loving it. She loves her teacher.

Her teacher is from Florida and we are in Utah. One day, Brinley said, “Mom, what does ‘y’all’ mean?” I told her and she replied, “Oooh! My teacher told us ‘Y’all did so well on your math test’ and I couldn’t figure out who y’all was!”

I thought that was funny and cute.

One of Brinley’s best friends has recently at times been “mean girl” toward her, which has been sad and hurtful for her. Brinley is in third grade and this typically doesn’t happen until fourth grade.

But she has had some great friends stand up for her and has gotten really close with other friends through it, so there are silver linings.

EXTRA CURRICULAR

During this time period, Brinley participated in rec basketball. She loved it. It was the loooonnnngest season ever because of Covid. What was supposed to take 8 weeks took about 17…so that was fun.

She also did regular soccer practice with her soccer team.

She also is taking piano lessons from Brayden and that is going well.

SANTA AND FAIRIES

This was Brinley’s first Christmas knowing the truth about Santa. It was still a great Christmas! She was just as excited and it was just as magical. I wasn’t sure how it would be since she is the youngest child, but I think her being such an emotional person actually helped. Her excitement was still huge.

She has never believed in the Tooth Fairy because I ditched that chick before Brinley lost any teeth. We have always just given her money right when she looses a tooth. She is really good at pulling her teeth out!

DAILY SCHEDULE

This is a typical school day for her.

7:30 AM–Wake up and get ready for school
8:30 AM–Go to school
3:00 PM–Get home from school. Homework, piano practice, free time
5:30 PM–Dinner. Then free time
8:30 PM–Bedtime. She reads for 15-20 minutes before going to sleep.

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