Elizabeth at 7

Elizabeth is 7 today!

She's 46 pounds. She sits in a regular booster seat now and is proficient at buckling herself in! I will never again have to buckle a kid in!!

She's still a great sleeper. She says she likes to go to sleep at 9:30 (even though I put her in bed at 8:00-8:30). She says she reads or writes until 9:30. Then, she usually sleeps until 7:30 which is when I wake her up for school. On weekends, she usually sleeps a bit longer. Maybe 8:00 or 8:30. So I guess she needs about 10 hours of a sleep on a regular day.

Her eczema is not terrible. Her skin is terribly dry especially in the winter, but she doesn't scratch herself bloody as much.

She has one big food allergy incident this last year when she was exposed to sunflower seeds. Just the other day, we were sorting out her clothes and deciding which to keep. I pulled out a dress and asked why she never wore it. She kind of freaked out and said that was the dress she was wearing when she had her allergic reaction and she never wanted to wear it ever again. That incident was pretty scary for her.

1st grade is going really well! Her teacher has no complaints and she's doing above average work in reading and math. She's just started reading beginning chapter books. She likes Princess Posey and Heidi Hecklebeck books. She loves school and heads off cheerfully every day. She has lots of little friends and her favorite special is art. Her least favorite special is PE as she says she doesn't like the jogging.

Her eating is still not good. I think this will be a forever pattern. She goes to bed hungry most nights as she won't eat what I cook for dinner. I used to tell her that if she didn't like dinner she could make herself bread and butter. She did that for awhile but now says she doesn't like bread and butter anymore. So now, she rarely eats dinner and just eats huge breakfasts when she gets up. She only likes to eat white breads, crackers and pasta, cheese, cereal and milk. And of course, she loves any junk food but I don't let her have any of that since she won't actually eat real food! If she ever does eat well, I let her have a treat or cookie, but that seems to not be very often. She doesn't like any vegetables and will only eat applesauce for fruits. She won't eat meat often, but will occasionally eat some chicken if it's covered in seasoning salts. When I volunteer in her class, I do notice that she's one of the smaller girls in there, but what can I do? I'm not going to let her only eat unhealthy foods simply because it's the only food she will eat. She basically lives on cereal, milk, frozen burritos, bread and cheese.

She started piano lessons last summer and is really doing well! She's picked it up well and is almost done with the first book. She seems to enjoy it. She'll be playing piano in the school talent show next month.

Thus far, she hasn't shown any interest in playing any little kid sports so she doesn't do any of it. She does love her swimming lessons in the summer though. We don't do swimming year round though as it is just so hard on her skin.

She and Nathan still love playing together. They have all kinds of imaginary games they play. They also fight quite a lot! Elizabeth has a LOT of energy. She never slows down, even when she's sick!! She's quite spunky and likes to get her way. When I observe her at school, she is definitely a leader. She's a bit bossy.

Her front 2 top teeth are coming in right now. She's definitely not looking like a baby any longer!

Her biggest obsession right now is rocks and minerals. She just loves rocks. We made it the theme of her birthday party! She and Jeremy have fun tumbling rocks in her new rock tumbler. She also likes gems and crystals and beads.

She loves to be read to. Right now, I'm reading her the Ramona series and Jeremy is reading her the Wizard of Oz series.

Happy birthday Elizabeth! We love you!