Charlotte at 7
Charlotte is in first grade this year and loves school. She has become a very good reader this year and can now read small chapter books independently with good fluency. Unfortunately, I struggle to find books that she is very interested in reading. After a trip to the library, Isaac will read in his bed for hours, but Charlotte usually needs to be reminded to read a book. She does enjoy reading books to her little sisters, especially Ila, but she chooses books that are well below her reading level to read to her.
Charlotte enjoys math and talking about numbers. She likes to find number patterns or different ways numbers work together. She’ll say things like “Ila plus Nicole equals Charlotte” ( if you add up their ages: 3+4=7). She says that she’s a “mathematician” at school. I’m not sure how she has qualified for that title, but she’s proud of it. Her favorite joke is” “Why is 7 afraid of 9?” “because 7 ate 9.”
She likes her teacher and she makes friends easily. Her best friend is a boy named Ander, but she also likes to play with “The Girl Club” and a few other kids at recess. Whenever we go out somewhere to play and other kids are around, she will approach them and start a conversation.
I love hearing her talk about all the social dynamics of school. She’ll tell me who draws the “cutest drawings”, who has the “cutest hair,” and who wears the “cutest clothes.” She knows who everyone’s best friend is and who is best at each subject. If I do her hair differently she’ll say she looks just like another girl in her class and then get a big smile on her face as she imagines the teacher being confused all day about which girl is which.
Charlotte loves to play outside and run. I took her to a pioneer day event last July and she really enjoyed the races. When they got to the last race they had so few adults who wanted to run it, that they invited any kids who wanted to run to race with them. Charlotte outlasted every kid and amazed everyone as she kept running lap after lap around the track without stopping or slowing down.
She enjoys ballet most of the time and loves to dance around and be silly.
Some of her favorite things are rocks and sticks and dirt. She’s a like a girly tomboy. She loves pink and dressing up, but she also likes to play in the dirt. She likes spiders and cats too.
She’s surprisingly strong willed and opinionated. At one point she decided that her grandmother’s favorite color is red and she would not be convinced otherwise. Even grandma couldn’t convince her that her favorite color is actually more of a blue/green. Charlotte is very particular about semantics. If I tell her to stop playing in the dirt, she’ll often correct me and say: “I wasn’t playing in the dirt, I was playing in the SAND!” Charlotte and I once had an argument over the difference between a burrito and a taco because she thought that they were both made with tortillas, but one is flat and the other is round and she refused to accept any other distinction. I bought taco shells on my next trip to the store so that maybe she would learn to accept that she might actually be wrong sometimes. 
Charlotte loves to anticipate things. She’ll ask when the next birthday or holiday is and then count down the days. Often she’ll anticipate fun things at school or find things on the calendar to anticipate. Lately some of the things she has anticipated haven’t been as wonderful as she had imagined. When I asked her to clean up some toys that she got out on Christmas, she declared that it was the worst Christmas ever, despite all the wonderful gifts she received and the fun times she had playing all day.
Charlotte loves candy. Her dad keeps a “candy bucket” in our bedroom stocked with sweets and Charlotte has been caught stealing from his bucket several times. One thing she really wanted for Christmas was her own candy bucket. We bought her a locking money box and filled it with fun, interesting candies. She was probably more excited about that candy bucket than any of the other presents that she got for her birthday and Christmas. I thought the candy would last her a while, but she ate and shared almost all of it by the end of the day. She only ate one non-candy meal on Christmas day. On her special birthday outing, she traded almost all of her tickets for candy, choosing only one small toy.
Charlotte is a budding artist. She enjoys drawing. Her favorite things to draw are hearts, rainbows, and flowers.
Charlotte loves to be the leader. She often encourages all her sisters to participate in an activity with her. She’ll pick out dress-ups for everyone to wear so that they all match or have them all participate in the same scenario.
Her favorite show is My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic. Her favorite foods are apples and chocolate.
Charlotte is a night owl. We put her to bed at the same time as the rest of her sisters, but she is often still awake hours later. She is the hardest one to wake up in the morning and will sleep in the latest on a day off.
She also loves to bake and cook with me.
Here is what I wrote about Charlotte last year.