Jane is SIX!

Jane turned six this month!  Wowzers.  She is such a kind and caring presence in our home.  She has become super helpful around the house and getting more and more independent.  She loves to take care of everyone.  In her own words, "Jack's the Hank hurter and I'm the Hank helper."  She still loves to cuddle and a visitor can rarely leave our house without at least one drawing from Jane.

She woke up on her birthday to find a very fancy birthday breakfast of doughnuts and raspberries.

To celebrate that night our family went with Grandma and Grandpa Griner, cousin Paris, and BFF Abby to Cornbelly's.

The three girls had a lot of fun.  They went down this huge slide over and over and over again.

Jane learned to ride a bike back in August.  I had accidentally gotten her an 18" bike at the beginning of the summer and it was much too big for her to learn on.  The day I brought home a 16" bike from a garage sale she learned to ride it that day.  By the next day she was able to turn and start all by herself.  After a couple more days she was ripping around like a pro.

Jane has shown some parts of her personality that make me so, so pleased.  When her cousin Paris was coming to her birthday party I explained to her that her family didn't have much money and probably wouldn't be able to bring a birthday present.  She said, "I think I'll give her some of my nickels."  On her birthday her best friend gave her a BFF necklace.  We didn't make a big deal out of it and I really don't think Paris noticed or cared at all.  But Jane was so concerned.  She cried later and said she felt so bad for Paris and thought maybe they should find her a necklace.

In a not so proud moment Jane and Jack sat on the couch and Jane had Jack try to throw things over Hank.  This was before Hank could crawl and he was just sitting on the floor.  Jack hit Hank in the face several times before Jane came and told me about it.  Jane told me that Jack threw the car at Hank.  It wasn't until much later, after I had put Jack on time out, that Jane admitted to being the instigator and not doing anything to stop it the first few times.  But she did end up feeling so bad about it that she was still upset about it at bedtime.  She told me, "I still feel bad. I wish this was all a dream." A great opportunity to talk about repentance.

She started Kindergarten this year, or course.  Before school started I talked to her about how she was feeling.  She said she was most excited about recess, and most nervous about if people wouldn't want to be her friend.

I was quite nervous myself.  I felt like she was going to be bombarded with all the horrible things I try to protect her from.  So I think I may have overdone my pre-school talks.  Like I remember telling her if she ever heard any words she didn't understand she could just ask me about them.  She wanted to know what I meant so I explain that there are some "bad" words out there.  One of the first things she said to me after her first day of kindergarten was, "No kids said any bad words!  Actually, they hardly said any words at all."

I also spent a lot of time talking with Jane about making sure to be nice to every one.  I was so happy when Jane told me about how all the classes were lining up after recess.  A little girl named Maddie was standing by Jane when a not-so-nice girl came by and asked Maddie in a mean way, "What are you doing in this class?"  Jane said, "So I put my arm around her and said, 'I know you're in this class.'"

It wasn't until several days later that Jane told me about how on the first day of school that same not-so-nice girl had pinched her on the playground after Jane accidentally bumped into her on the slide.  She also pinched her in line for no reason.  I was not very happy about that and not happy at all that that was the girl Jane kept telling me she was playing with every day.  But any time I would suggest that maybe she wasn't the best girl to be spending her time with Jane would explain, "But you said to be nice to EVERYONE."  Point taken.  Then, one day this girl told Jane that she liked another girl better, and then pushed down on Jane's head for good measure.  It made Jane sad, obviously, so we talked and role-played what she could do if that happened again.  About a month later Jane reported that the not-so-nice girl told Jane she didn't want to be her friend anymore.  And Jane, just like we rehearsed, said, "That hurts my feelings."  That ended the conversation but later that day not-so-nice girl told Jane that she was now her BFFFFFFFFFFFFF.  (Gag).

Jane told me that on the first day of school they played a game where she had to hold hands with a boy.  She told me, "I said, 'This is odd.' And he thought it was odd too."

There's been some other talk about boys too. She's told me all about a boy named Erick that sits at her table.  "Erick is a handsome name, right?  Do you wish that you named Jack, Erick?" Also, "Did you know that girls are sometimes too shy to ask a boy to be their friend?"   I said, "Do you remember when you and Annie tried to kiss all the boys at preschool?"  She said, "Oh, yeah, can you believe I remember that?  I tried to kiss Kai.  Kai is so handsome I can't even stand it!"

The next day she told me she had a boyfriend.  "Erick?!" I asked.  She said, "No, Tyson.  He asked me if I wanted him to be my boyfriend and I said, 'You don't have to ask me that, we're already friends.'"  So I asked, "Who's cuter?  Erick, Tyson, or Kai?" She said they were all the same cute then started to admit, "Well, Tyson is this much (fingers and thumb held up together) not as cute....never mind....Jesus can hear me."

Based on our conversations I knew that Jane thought "boyfriend" meant having a friend that was a boy and that you could have any number of boyfriends.  I thought that was cute and chose not to correct it.  So I felt pretty bad I didn't do my motherly duty of explaining that before the following happened.  "I asked Erick if he wanted to be my boyfriend and he said no.  Then I heard him telling someone that I wanted to marry him but I totally don't."  Luckily Jane wasn't too upset by this. I said, "Well, did you know that boyfriend doesn't actually just mean friend?"  Then I explained.  She said, "I had no idea it meant that!"

One day she came home from school and exasperatedly asked, "Does drill mean practice?!!!"  Then she told me about how the teacher said they were having a fire drill, but she thought that meant there was a fire.  She said, "My heart was racing so fast."

Jane wanted to make her teacher a book.  The story was, "The cat wanted a friend.  So the cat went to find one. The cat found a friend. It was a dog."  The day she gave it to her teacher, Mrs. Harding, she made her read it in front of the class.  Jane said she was so embarrassed.  I asked her how she read it and she said she just looked straight down and read it.

Jane lost her top tooth shortly after turning six.  She was so excited.  After looking in the mirror she said, "Did you know sometimes people look really pretty when they lose a tooth?"

One time I told Jane about a very bad choice I made when I was little and how I still felt bad about it.  In sixth grade a friend and I were jumping on my trampoline when a neighbor boy asked if he could get on.  We said no but he got on anyway.  I pushed him and he hit his mouth on the metal bar, knocking out all four front teeth.  Jane looked so wary of me and said, "You wouldn't push me on the trampoline because I'm your kid, right?"

One day I made a sighing noise out of my nose and Jane turned around and said, "Your breath sounds just like daddy!"

When showing me a picture she said something about it being so cute and my pants falling off.  I asked her what she said.  She explained, "You'll pee your pants they'll be so soaked they'll slide right off."

Jane was trying to talk about an "American" but it took me awhile to figure out she meant, "mannequin."

At the table we started playing the game where we mouth words to each other and guess what they said.  For example, "olive juice" instead of "I love you."  Then Jane suggested we mouth either "pineapple" or "bag".  We explained why that wouldn't work.  Then she suggested we try "watermelon" and "swatermelon."

Jane proposed the question, "What if there were two rainbows and they touched and magic came out?  And it was Jesus's nephew?"

Jane and Jack were outside and Jack was sitting on a big bike without training wheels while Jane walked beside him moving the bike along.  Matt said, "You guys are making me nervous."  Jane said, "Then don't watch and don't think about it."

Matt asked, "Jane, who do you think seems nicer to hang out with, Junie B. Jones or Fancy Nancy?  She answered, "Of course Fancy Nancy.  Junie B. Jones is AWFUL."

One day Jane asked me what a romantic dinner was.  I asked her what she thought and she talked about flowers and candles and when people get married.  I didn't do much clarifying.  So when my parents were here they babysat while we went out to dinner.  We told Jane where we were going and she said, "Have fun people who are going to have a romantic dinner again."

The clean laundry was out in the family room so I had to go out to get some while holding up at T-shirt to cover myself.  After getting what I needed Jane said, "Bye, mom that's nervous about her boobs."