Ila at 9
Ila loves people and wants everyone to feel happy and loved. She continues to nurture her relationships with adults in her life. She searches out her previous teachers at church and school and gives them hugs every time she sees them. Some of them she’s been searching out and hugging for many years. She hugs her grandparents every chance she gets and makes sure to tell us all that she loves us everyday. Since her dad has been traveling to Portland every week, Ila has figured out how to send him messages from her computer. Sending messages to beloved adults has become a favorite activity of hers. She’ll send loving messages, emojis, and memes to every adult she has access to then sit at her computer excitedly awaiting their responses.
Ila is also loving and kind to all her siblings. Thomas and Charlotte have always been the siblings she plays with the most, but in the last few months, she’s been playing with Nicole more as well.
Ila’s very best friend is Cecily. Cecily comes over every week to play and they always have a wonderful time together. Cecily and Ila have formed a Kitty lover’s club where they pretend to be kitties and play with stuffed cats and talk about all things cat. This year Ila has also added AngelKay and Joshua to her list of very best friends. In the fall they created “the leaf crunching club” which met at recesses to crush leaves.
Ila adores babies. Often when I tell her about an extended family event, her first question is “Will there be babies?” When she has a chance to care for a baby, she will diligently love and care for the baby. She will patiently feed the baby, give the baby toys to play with, or read books to the baby. She craves chances to take care of babies.
Ila has a strong connection to the past. It’s perfect because she’s named after my beloved grandmother and she loves to learn about her namesake. She also loves stories, videos, and pictures of family members throughout their childhood.
Ila is doing well in school. She’s in the 3rd grade this year. She loves to read and has joined Battle of the Books this year where she is on a team with other children who all read books from a book list then compete in a trivia contest based on the books on the list.
Ila still loves to get up early. She is usually up more than a full hour before I would wake her for school. On the occasions that she sleeps until I have to wake her up, she wakes up very sad that she wasn’t up earlier.
Ila is still taking piano lessons. She’s been more diligent this year at practicing, partly out of fear that her little brother will catch up to her. She still doesn’t love practicing, but this last week she requested a copy of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and she has been so excited to master that song that she has practiced more this week than usual. Here she is playing at her last recital.
She continues to eat a very limited diet (you can read more about that in previous posts). This year she has started to really like Salmon and has been more accepting of unbreaded chicken at times. She will sometimes eat pieces of rotisserie chicken and sauceless pulled chicken. She had started eating a variety of pepperoni pizzas, but will now only eat the kind that comes from the freezer.
She is a very sensitive child who will cry when anyone is cross with her or scolds her. She just can’t stand the idea that anyone is mad at her.
She is still an animal lover. Her favorite animals are Iberian Lynxes, cats, and bunnies.
Here is what I wrote about Ila last year when she turned 8.