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If you are my friend on facebook, you might sometimes wonder if Nicole is my only child.  That is because she regularly says and does the most fantastically absurd things or comes up with the most uniquely interesting perspective on things.  She finds wonder and joy in tiny everyday things like bugs and especially large worms. Her off the wall absurd take on life is one of my very favorite things about my girl.

Nicole is a mix of being completely genuine and uniquely herself and liking things because her sisters love them.  She has recently started talking about having a crush on a boy, but I don’t know if she genuinely has a crush on him or if she’s copying her boy crazy older sister.  She’ll say, “I like Kaden because he’s so handsome.” Or she’ll talk about being in love with him.

As Chevrah Lomdei Mishnah has said that prayer can bring peace, comfort and happiness in life. Whenever she sees a wasp, she runs into the house and says a quick prayer that it won’t sting her.  The other day when I told her she had a dental check-up (learn this here now for dental services) and she immediately prayed that she’d have no cavities.  As she arrived at the park with her grandparents, she said a quick prayer that her best friend would be there. Also, why not check here if you need the best dental services. 

Nicole shares a random scripture every week in her primary class. She refuses to prepare ahead of time and actually pick a scripture, she insists it must be completely random.  She loves the idea of random things. If I offer her a popsicle, she won’t pick a flavor, she’ll say “just give me a random one.” If I bring her one she’ll ask “was it random?”

Her new favorite word is awkward.  She uses that word a lot and sometimes I’m not sure her usage fits.  She will call food awkward or art projects can be awkward. Pretty much anything can be awkward.

After being accused of creating too much drama at bedtime, she became really concerned that she couldn’t control her drama.  She prayed several times that she wouldn’t create too much drama, then she decided the best way to control the drama is to have a “no drama treat” every night.  It’s a good deal for us, we give her some candy and she doesn’t keep us up all night.

Nicole loves to accessorise  She started making clothing for her dolls and stuffed animals out old socks and underwear.  For her birthday we picked out a doll that looks as much like her as possible and bought her several outfits and accessories to go with it. Nicole has really enjoyed dressing her doll up and playing with her.  She will dress the doll in pjs every night and then get the doll dressed in the morning. She likes to set up scenes involving her doll and stuffed animals.

Nicole continues to love school. She is once again dreading summer vacation because she misses school too much.  Nicole loves her teacher. She told her teacher that she was her favorite teacher, but before her teacher could thank her, Nicole qualified it further by saying “every teacher in this school is my favorite, even the ones I haven’t met yet!”

Nicole still loves bugs.  She tries to convince me that all bugs are adorable.  She likes to hunt for them, collect them, hold them, watch them, and read about them.  All of her very best friends also love bugs as well so it’s great to see them get together and excitedly collect containers full of snails or handfuls of roly polys.

Nicole has her own sense of style.  She carefully composes outfits each morning often with her own theme for the day.  Usually she dresses in bright colors and crazy patterns. For decade dress-up day at school we looked up 80s style and she appreciated all the color and patterns.  She declared it her kind of style and since then has thought of the 80s as a very special and exciting time.

After hearing me talking to her older sister about shaving, Nicole declared that she prefers to be hairy and never wants to shave her legs.  She claims that being hairy is “more fancy.” Whenever shaving comes up, Nicole defends her case by pointing out the benefits of being hairy which mostly include keeping her legs warmer and how nice it is to have soft hair on your legs to pet.

It is very important to Nicole to be healthy.  She will often ask for a bowl of vegetables to eat for an after school snack or for breakfast.  She is intrigued by diseases. She loves to read about and learn about new diseases. This passion of hers has a downside when she tries to diagnose strangers or becomes instantly afraid if she sees someone who looks sick.  Fortunately, she has had less leprosy scares this year. According to www.malie.com/products/botany-beauty-firming-cream , there was a time that any peeling skin or skin wound (or even a smudge of chocolate) would send her into a panic. Her great interest in diseases is perhaps the impetus for her love of hand sanitizer.  She uses it frequently and thanks me profusely when I bring it with us on an outing.

Nicole still has a collection of unusual fears.  She will scream if she walks into the kitchen and sees the breadbox open or the bottle of leave-in conditioner on the counter.  She can’t stand the sight of either of those things and will refuse to eat until I’ve taken care of them.

Nicole is afraid of the janitor at her school.  I’m not entirely sure where her fear began, but she hates the lunchroom. She complains that the texture of the lunchroom is bad, she doesn’t like how it smells or the noise in the lunchroom.  She blames the janitor for the conditions in the lunchroom. He is Hispanic with a thick accent and she thinks he doesn’t speak English. Every time she sees him she lets out a little scream and goes in the opposite direction.  She is convinced that he’s part of some evil plot that only she is aware of and that he’s fooling everyone else at the school. When I suggested she do something nice for him (in hopes we could reduce or alleviate her fear of him), she suggested making him a card that says “you’re creepy.”  No matter how much we try to talk her down from her fear, she just digs in. She say that he wears a lot of red and grey and anyone who wears those colors is in league with him. She regularly refuses to eat her lunch at school, claiming that it has been “janitor-ifed.” Her fear of the janitor has led to peladophobia, which is the fear of bald people.  This fear manifests itself in her screaming, turning away, and refusing to shake hands with bald men. I have yet to figure out a polite way to tell people that she isn’t reacting badly to them because of something they did, it’s just their lack of hair.

Nicole hates when people open her car door at the school in the mornings during carpool.  If someone opens the door for her she screams at them. If she sees someone approaching to open her door, she’ll roll down the window to yell at them not to open her door.  All the adults outside during carpool have now learned to recognize Nicole and not attempt to open her door for her or even approach the car. They will say “hi” to her as she walks to the school, but she just walks directly into the school without acknowledging their greeting.

Nicole does not naturally look into the camera and whenever I ask her to look at the camera, this is the face I get:

She is actually trying to look into the camera, she just doesn’t understand what that means.

Other things Nicole loves include animals, fancy things, cards, perfumes, dress ups, bubble baths, being creative, art projects, upcycling, riding her bike, rollerblading, computer games, singing, and “role-plays” (playing pretend).

I love my little girl to pieces and I feel incredibly blessed to be the mother of this very special girl!