Strong Leadership Skills

This is how we describe that part of Ali's personality that is intense, particular, bossy and slightly over-bearing. This is the part that made the "terrible twos" really terrible. Now that she's five, it's a little easier to deal with. Usually. Take, for example, this afternoon at the park... Ali manages to gather a group of about ten playmates ranging in age from three to seven and instruct every aspect of their play for about 45 minutes. She had them lining up along the see-saw, boys this side, girls this side - "Okay, okay, now you move and come over here. You sit here. This is what we're going to do." Then sitting along the play equipment - "Girls sit on the benches, boys sit on the floor. We're going to play the quiet game. I need everybody to sit very quietly, nobody talks." What astounds me is that they listen to her! For 45 minutes!! I finally had to call her off and ask her to just let the kids play whatever they want without instruction when I noticed the other parents looking around the playground like, "who does this child belong to??" Joe and I say that with the right guidance, she is going to be president of something.

And here's a Kindergarten update - Ali is doing fabulously. She finishes a week's worth of homework in 20 minutes and has no trouble staying focused. She is expected to finish five lists of "sight words" by the end of the year and she is on list three already! And tonight we began to read a couple little booklets her teacher sent home expecting Ali to take a couple weeks to learn them - and she read them without mistakes the first time! Not bad for the class's youngest student, eh?