That Social Whirl Called Daughters

Oh how I could laugh in the face of “how will they ever learn to socialise?” Our feet are not touching the ground for a moment, so busy are we hurtling from one social or sporting occasion to another. Just call us taxi drivers, quite frankly.

Amelie had a lovely few days with her friend Buttercup here and also went off to a gym competition in Ipswich. It was a regional final and she competed on bars, vault and beam. Felt sorry for her on vault as she did two lovely warm ups then fluffed the real things, on bars she apparently made a mistake but I couldn’t see it but she did brilliantly on beam. There were 25 girls and she came 5th, missing Bronze by 0.1 and Gold by only 0.25. You can’t really argue with that. Ams also did the PMC challenge and got a very creditable 15/25 – its a tough paper, so that was a Bronze Award but honestly? I’m not sure I would have done much better 😆

Josie is loving her 4 hours a week of gym and blossoming yet more into a talkative, confident kid. She’s whipping through a Reading Eggs book scheme (more on that later) and doing masses of craft and maths and goodness knows what. Max and I seem to be permanently looking at her in surprise-  she got so big without us seeing. At last nights show we walked in and a bevy of little girls all called out “Josie!!!” and started waving – it was VERY weird.

Maddy has been very busy with her normal works and normal activities. She is never idle and gets on so well with everything. last night she performed “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in the annual talent show they have at their theatre arts school. She didn’t get a place, though she was absolutely note perfect and adorable, but did win a prize for her costume, which she made all on her own and adapted from a t-shirt and gingham school dress. It was lovely.

Fran is mentally busy; we just don’t see her. She turned an ankle badly at gym last week, which scared the wits out of me and her (and was annoying as she did it landing from her first totally unsupported tuck back in months) and she went so white I think we all thought she had done some real damage. Luckily it was just a twist  and a bit of bruising and she’s been careful since, within the confines of a timetable that had a lot of dancing in it every day! On Thursday we went to watch her dance in the school dance, drama and music showcase, having been picked as one of the most able dancers. I also got a letter to say she had been one of 30 kids from the whole school to be picked for a workshop being done for them by a local dance company. She loved that (but had very stinky feet!) though I think she felt it beat even her Tim Noble days for sheer hard work. She also performed in the talent show last night, a dance she and a friend choreographed together. Max and I were slightly gob-smacked to be honest, we’ve never seen her dance so well and the dance they’d created was superb. They were beaten by girls with more technical expertise, but they looked completely right there. And she looked so grown up; her hair was up and her cheekbones and eyes really stood out (I assumed she had make up on but she didn’t) and she looked such a young woman.

School is suiting her, though combined with panto it is proving a bit of a feat to get everything done and homework didn’t amuse her at all. She’s doing generally well and generally getting good marks. She came unstuck in a geography test, mainly because reading the question and using more that a few words are not skills she feels particularly relevant to her required life skills 😉 but she’ll get there. She seems to learn from her mistakes quickly and the staff are very supportive of her.

Onward. The next couple of weeks have holidays, dancing exams, 16 pantomimes, all the normal stuff, costume fittings, late night dress rehearsals and goodness knows what else. I’d like time to just ‘be’ but at least with all the rush, the weeks are going quickly.