Happy 6th Birthday Eleanor!!!

Eleanor and her favorite cousin Jency
She does much more jumping and diving than swimming.
Ballet: She never smiled once during her performance.
This is the most common Eleanor we see. Even mad she is cute.
This morning she had six different breakfast choices for her six years. She chose the strawberries and whip cream, bluberry muffins and of course chocolate donuts.

Eleanor is our unique child. We love her for all that she is both the good and the unusual and the challenging. Her main loves in life are of course number one- Art. She says she is definitely going to be an artist when she grows up. Her mediums of choice these days are markers and trash. Everytime I go to throw away a wrapper or container of any type she stops me and says she wants that for her art. She still sits at the table for hours and colors and creates. Thankfully she produces much less these days because of the hours she is in all day kindergarten. I was constantly having to try and throw things away without her watching. The one thing I had to put a stop to lately was water color painting toilet paper. Way too messy and she wanted to keep every square. When she does art it is in mass production. Eleanor does not do things half way or small. She also loves to swim and play in the sand in the back yard. She became a great swimmer this summer and showed us her brave side. The older boys were on dive team and when they learned a back dive she watched them do it once and immediately pronounced that she could do that too and did an almost perfect back dive. She really loves her gymnastics and does it constantly. I am always getting to watch her latest routine or this new back bend. We are having a contest who can get all the way down in the middle splits first. I was ahead but she is pulling ahead now. She also loves playing with Darren and making him smile and make faces and sounds. She of course loves to play with all her friends and cousins. They love to dress up, play outside, make forts, watch t.v, tell jokes and be really silly. Notice nothing about dolls. Like mother like daughter. She absolutely loves Kindergarten. She is made for school. She loves to obey the rules and to sit for long periods of time and work on things and she loves to be social. Her teacher adores her. When I go to the school I usually run into another adult that works there and they are all telling me how wonderful and cute Eleanor is. I'm glad she saves all her sass and attitude for home.
There are a few things she does not like at all. She hates having to stop an activity and do something other than her idea. She does not like taking showers. She hates having people touch her unless you are scratching her back very softly and just the right way and in just the right places. She is very particular about most things like that. She hates eating dinner. No matter if you put a tablespoon of food or a cup of food on her plate she immediately says that is too much and she cannot possibly eat it all. She does not like to smile and laugh at things when Mom and Dad are watching. She usually laughs and then quickly covers her mouth or pulls the corners of her mouth down so that the smile goes away. She only likes to display emotions on her terms. She hates her art to be messed with or thrown away. She really wants to have a sister but does not want to have to share her room. Most of all she just does not want to be told what to do, when to do it or how to do anything. I think she is a type A personality.

She continues to get more beautiful all the time. That is fine except that I worry that she will define herself by that and not by kindness and compassion and sweetness. Every where we go people tell her how pretty her eyes are and never how kind she is. I wish we could look at a person and tell imediately how loving or compassionate someone is as much as their outside appearance. She is kind when she wants to be and very sweet at moments, but she also knows how to work it and milk people for what she wants. If you wonder if I am afraid for her to be a teenager that is a definite YES! Her toddler years were hard enough I can't imagine what the natural inclination for more independence and freedom combined with hormones is going to do to her.

We love our Eleanor and wouldn't trade her for anything. She has definitely taught us many valuable lessons. She is our very girly, beautiful, and sweet when she wants to be SIX year old!