The Lee Family: Sofia at 8 1/2 years old

Sofia is at a really fun age right now and we love watching her develop her interests and grow. She is now 4'6" (54 inches) and weighs 70 lbs and wears size 10 or sometimes even a size 12 clothes. She really loves reading and reads at every opportunity she has - during every meal if allowed, for hours before bed and at school. Other moms tell me that when they meet their child for lunch, Sofia's nose is always stuck in a book while she eats. Her favorite book series has been Percy Jackson for a few months now and she has re-read them all several times over. She is now reading them to me each night and she does a great job getting the right inflection when reading as if one of the characters is talking. She recently got into FableHaven, and tore through the first book, but said the second book is a bit boring. She has also developed a love for Star Wars after CK finally convinced her that she must watch the original movies and then see the new one in the theater. From the very first movie, she was hooked! She now checks out books from the school library on Boba Fett (her very favorite character) and books on the different characters and space ships from the movies! She honestly knows more than I thought you could know about Star Wars.

Sofia has always been one who loves to read as much as possible on a subject she loves and completely throws herself into it. She is drawn to science fiction, dragons, Greek and Roman mythology, unicorns, and anything fanciful. She has absolutely no interest in princesses, dress up or "girly" stuff. Right now she can't decide if she wants to be an author, marine biologist or a librarian. She loves books, reading, writing but also loves research and learning as much as she can on different subjects. For Mrs. Feaster's class she spends time writing stories and is a great story teller and writes in complex sentences. She's very clever. She still loves to play with her horses or other little plastic animals and create stories and can do so very easily. At night, before she reads to me she will often tell me a story that will go over several evenings and she is really clever and very quick at figuring out plot lines. Her most recent story was of two sisters who went with their parents to a museum of magical creatures and once they were given a potion to drink so all of the magical creatures came to life for the girls. Not only were there fairies and unicorns but also several creatures that she just made up. It was really a great story and I thought at first she'd gotten the idea from a book she's read, but she said she just thought it up.

She enjoys 3rd grade and loves her teacher, Mrs. Feaster, but is also bored in class. She often complains that Mrs. Feaster will explain something that she understands the first time, but there are several kids in her class who need Mrs. Feaster to explain it a few more times. She is learning basic geometry, multiplication and the solar system. For her spelling tests, she is in a small group of kids who has an advanced spelling list to study from, although we've never actually had to go through the words with her since she just knows them. Because of all of her reading, spelling tests are very easy for her and she almost always gets 100% on her Friday quizzes. Her favorite subjects are writing/spelling/reading and science. She doesn't love math and feels like it's a struggle, although she does well. We try to work on math and multiplication at home so she's more comfortable with it because it will only get more difficult as she moves ahead in school.

Sofia is not much for activities, although she did ask to be signed back up for the Pink Pirates soccer team, which I'm excited about and think it's a great way for her to have time with a great group of girls and get some exercise. Her season starts in a few weeks and she did go to the first practice (after much fussing) and loved it. She plays her piano and has a lesson with her instructor, James, on Tuesday evenings. She enjoys piano and plays and practices without prompting nearly every day. She sounds great when she plays and has improved so much in the past year. If given an option to stay home in her pjs and read or play or go out somewhere (the park, a museum, to meet a friend, etc) she will generally decide to stay inside. She still loves to ride her scooter around the neighborhood, although it's tough when it's so cold outside. She's not a fan of her bike because she's afraid of falling. Once it's warmer, I plan to drop her bike off at school so we can ride bikes home once in a while. Sofia does love to play with her sister and they generally play very well together. Of course, lately they have been pretending to be Jetis in training, using their light sabers (each $10 from Target that I'm surprised have lasted as long as they have). I also bought the girls their Halloween costumes from Amazon - Boba Fett for Sofia complete with jet pack and gun, and Queen Amidala for Olivia. I figure they can get a lot more use of them instead of just one night and both love dressing up in them! When they play Star Wars, Sofia dictates the story line, but thankfully Olivia goes along with it. They also like to pretend to be baby animals and create very detailed stories. Lately, Sofia likes to set up her stuffed animals to play "school" too, with Olivia as one of her students. This year Sofia joined the Girl Scouts, which has been a good experience. Her school doesn't have a troop in her grade, so she joined up with a troop out of Bransford with her friend Lucy, who she knows from soccer. All the girls seem to be very sweet and inclusive and Sofia convinced Shivani to join with her. Her troop has visited Grace and worked in the food pantry, made blankets for homeless shelters and visited Colleyville City Hall to meet the mayor and city council members. Soon we'll be selling Girl Scout cookies, but thankfully our troop is very relaxed about how many are sold.

Sofia remains a strong personality who will argue a decision she doesn't agree with. She's not a fan of "transitions" from going from one place to another or one thing to another. For instance, her frustration with soccer is getting dressed and getting there and she'll fuss over it, but once she's there she then doesn't generally want to go home after the practice or game. The exact situation happens when leaving the park or anything fun, despite giving her a 10 minute warning. It's aggravating, but also I appreciate that she has her own mind and would prefer to discuss something she doesn't agree with rather than go along with it easily. A few weeks ago I picked her up from her Girl Scout meeting where the girls were able to play for a bit and agreed to play a make believe game in which they were all teenagers or other people. Sofia declared she wanted to be a dragon. The girls told her there wasn't a dragon in the game and wouldn't fit in, but she was undeterred. She apparently ended up playing by herself because she wasn't willing to go with the flow. When I picked her up she got to the car and was really upset. Part of me wants her to go-with-the-flow and not get so upset by such things, but then I also appreciate that she has an opinion and is willing to stick to it. Such playdate issues don't seem worth getting so worked up over but we do hope this persistence serves her well in the future with bigger issues.

She's nearly too big for the photo chair!