“A portrait of my children once a week, every week, in 2014.”
Lillia: This week as been very difficult for you in a lot of ways. The expectations for fifth graders are so much higher than for fourth graders, and I think you are a little overwhelmed. You are such a bright girl and so far you have been able to succeed by doing a minimal amount of work simply because you are smart. But, I feel this year is going to be very different for you, and you’re going to have to decide how hard you are going to work, and how important your grades are going to be to you. Of course, as your mother, I would love for you to be a stellar student. I want every door to remain open for you. But, I can’t do the work for you, so from this point on you are going to play a much larger role in your destiny than I will.
Zane: You’ve only been at school for a week and already you’ve picked up a virus! Having been sheltered at home with me, you weren’t exposed to as many germs as you will be now that you’re in school. Thankfully, it has been a very mild cold and you’ve done well. This week you also seem to have had some sort of developmental shift and you are now REALLY enjoying having people read to you. You always enjoyed books before, but you didn’t have much of an attention span. This week you’ve been bringing me stacks of books and sitting through each one attentively; you remind me so much of Lillia when she was your age.