Happy 7th Birthday, Curran!

I can't believe my first baby is 7 today! She has grown up so much over the last year. She loved first grade, and it was a wonderful year of growth for her, especially with her reading. I was so proud of how hard she worked. She genuinely seems to love school {and her teachers} and never complains about going to school or having homework. There were only two times when she got in the car after school and said she had a bad day, and it was when someone hurt her feelings about something. I did not have a good first grade year when I was her age, so I don't take for granted how easy-going and happy she is at school.

She started speech therapy this summer for her 'r' speech impediment. I got them to test her at school, but she didn't qualify for their services, so I took her to a private place for an eval. Her impairment is qualified as moderate to severe, so she started doing lessons for 30 minutes weekly. She works really hard and has a sweet therapist. I'm hopeful that by the end of her 2nd grade year that her speech will be corrected, but we shall see.

She has been under the care of a nephrologist since the beginning of the year after repeated UTIs in the fall damaged her bladder. There was an eight week period when she was on six different rounds of antibiotics. It was miserable for her, but I'm hopeful that things finally seem to be improving.

Curran is still really enjoying ballet and is about to start her 5th year of classes. She is planning on trying out for the Nutcracker again this fall. She has decided not to continue with gymnastics, which I have mixed feeling about. It will certainly make my life easier as ballet and speech after school are enough, especially with me having a newborn to take care of too. I tried to talk her into fall softball because it's pretty laid back, but she was not interested and wants to wait until Spring. She really wanted to try soccer again and asked multiple times, but with games being on Saturdays and Nutcracker practices being on Saturdays, I told her we just couldn't do both.

While Curran is still super sweet most of the time, we have been dealing with a lot of sass and "know it all" behavior this year. It was bad right after she turned six, and then seemed to get better until around the time school got it. I'm sure it's the fact that it's summer and there's a lack of a routine, but her attitude has been driving me nuts. We have had a lot of battle of the wills around our house, and a lot of rebuttals like "But I almost SEVEN!" implying "so therefore I know more than you." But thankfully the majority of the time, she is responsible, thoughtful, and pretty easy to parent. Right after she turned six she started getting really anxious and fearful and would follow me around the house constantly. It drove me crazy because she didn't want me to be out of her slight. That slowly got better, but she still won't go up to her room by herself and is always trying to trick Sallie into going with her or going to get her things.

Two things that were goals before she turned seven were learning to ride her bike without training wheels and learning to tie shoes. She had no interest in either for the longest time, but finally in March she learned to ride her bike. And just a few weeks ago she mastered tying her shoes, which she basically taught herself.

She just got back from her first time at overnight camp! She was a tad nervous about missing me but mostly just really excited about going. It helped that she was going with her best friend, otherwise I probably wouldn't have sent her yet. She had the absolute BEST time, and I'm so thankful! She says she wants to stay the full week next year. Her favorite activities were swimming in the river, horseback riding, and ropes.

She has gotten into her American Girl dolls more and more, and she still loves to play dress up with Sallie. They are both girly and love to put on make up when they play. We have gotten into a BAD TV habit this summer that I'm trying to break now that school is drawing closer. It doesn't help that Curran wakes up so early and knows how to turn on the TV and use the guide to find what she wants to watch. She doesn't have any sort of device like an iPad or tablet, but whew, that TV may be the death of me.

She's lost six teeth and has a couple of more that are loose. The grown up teeth kind of break my heart. I'm not ready for my baby to look so old. :( She typically goes to bed around 7:00/7:30 and wakes up between 5:30 and 6:15. She has slept a tad later some of the time this summer, but she most often is our very early riser. And going to bed later doesn't help her sleep later- never.- she will wake up early regardless. So I prefer to put her down early so she gets a full night's sleep.

Overall Curran is a very sweet, responsible, compliant child, and we are so thankful for all that she adds to our family! We are so blessed to be celebrating another year with her!

Happy 7th birthday, sweet girl!

Edited to Add:

We had a fun day celebrating C on her birthday. We started the day with donuts, then headed to McWane {the children's museum} per her request.

 We had lunch at Zoe's {her favorite}, and then Sissy took her on a special shopping trip to pick out her present. That night we went to the park to have pizza and cookie cake. C is not having a party this year, but I wanted to do something fun to celebrate, so cousins and two friends joined us at the park.