Brooklyn: 10 Years Old – Trav and Erin + 3

Our oldest baby girl is now in double digits. So crazy to think about! It doesn’t seem like that long ago that Brooklyn was born, and somehow 10 years have gone by. Being her mom is a true blessing!

Brooklyn won’t go for her yearly checkup until early April, but I feel like she has definitely gotten taller over the last year. Somehow she is still very short compared to most of her classmates though! I feel confident she won’t end up being short as an adult, so I figure she’ll hit a big growth spurt eventually and catch up to her friends. But for now, she has several classmates who are a head taller than her, and she was on the front row for her class picture last month ;) Her feet, on the other hand, continue to grow like a weed…haha. This year, her back-to-school tennis shoes were a size 5.5 in kids. I took her shopping a few months ago for some new winter shoes to wear to church, and she picked out her first pair of women’s shoes…size 7!! She is still wearing size 10/12 clothes, although some of her pants are starting to get a little bit short. I think she has now lost 9 teeth total if I’m remembering correctly. She still has freckles on her nose (which are more prominent in the summer, but still there year round), and her freckles are one of my favorite things about her! Brooklyn would love to live in pajamas/sweatpants or shorts and a t-shirt every day if she could. She wears her hair in a ponytail every day unless it’s picture day ;) She definitely cares more about comfort than anything else at this point!

Brooklyn will tell you her favorite food is SUGAR. Whew…that girl. She definitely has a bad sweet tooth. While she does love sweets, she is really a very good eater overall. She continues to eat almost anything I fix for meals–meats, casseroles, veggies, etc. She is eating almost as much as I am at dinner these days! Brooklyn gets to stay up a little bit later than Savannah and Abigail before she goes to bed around 8:20 or 8:30, depending on whether or not it’s a school night. On the weekend, she sometimes will lay in bed and read when she wakes up in the morning, so I never really know what time she wakes up. I would say she is usually up by 7:15 or 7:30 at the latest on the weekend.

Brooklyn is in 4th grade this year, and she actually has the same homeroom teacher as she did for 3rd grade. Mrs. Prevatt moved up with her students, and Brooklyn got her again ;) 4th grade is the first year at Mill Creek that the kids change classes, so Brooklyn actually has 4 teachers this year. She has enjoyed having multiple teachers and rotating around to their classrooms. Next year, she will actually have her own schedule instead of moving around with the other kids in her homeroom. That will be weird! I guess she’ll be ready for middle school after that. This has been Brooklyn’s first school year since kindergarten where she hasn’t had a best friend that’s a boy in her class at school. She has really bonded with several girls in her class and enjoyed hanging out with them instead of the boys. Math has been somewhat of a challenge this year, but Travis has really been good about helping her prepare for tests and go over things that she doesn’t understand, which has helped a lot.

Brooklyn is still a huge bookworm and spends a lot of her free time reading. She always has a book to read in the car, and she likes to read in bed before it’s time to go to sleep. Her favorite book series are usually related to animals (especially dogs) or mystery/adventure books. She reads so quickly that we sometimes wonder whether she is actually just skimming the pages…haha. Her Christmas and birthday wish lists are mostly all books with a few other things mixed in. She also really enjoys writing articles for the Millstone Newspaper, playing soccer, and playing games on the computer.

Brooklyn loves to be a jokester. She enjoys doing silly impersonations of a news reporter, as well as Goofy voices, “sick sheep” noises, and basically anything she can think up to make us laugh. I’m glad she doesn’t take herself too seriously and enjoys having a good time. She is definitely more aware than she used to be of what other people might think of her, but so far that hasn’t cut down on her silliness or just being herself around others. I’m continually impressed that she makes new friends so quickly and easily and isn’t phased when she gets put on a soccer team where she doesn’t know a soul (which is what happened last fall–after the first practice, you would never know she’d just met the other girls an hour earlier.) Brooklyn is signed up for a week-long overnight camp this summer where she doesn’t know anyone her age going and doesn’t seem the least bit fazed. I feel sure she will have a blast and have a bunch of new best friends at the end of the week! I wish I had the magnetic personality that she does.

Brooklyn is still a big animal lover, and she especially loves dogs and wild cats. She adopted two fiddler crabs, Waffles and Syrup, from science class in December, and she has done a great job of taking care of them at home and remembering to feed them each day. She enjoys writing in her journals, doodling on paper, and organizing and re-organizing her room. She is taking more responsibility for helping out around the house these days, including folding her own clothes and putting them away. She isn’t perfect, but she tries hard to be a good example to Savannah and Abigail. She spends more time reading than playing with her sisters these days, but she still has her moments where she will play Lion King or American Girl dolls with them ;) She likes playing outside, but is usually the first one to decide that she’s done and come inside. Even though she is getting older, she still loves to cuddle and put her head on my shoulder when she is sitting by me. I’m trying to cherish those times while I have them!