Miss Zina

The other day Liz and I were watching old family videos.  There was one where Liz seemed to be exactly Zina's age and Liz commented on what a bizarre experience it was to watch herself at that age and realize how young she really was.  You see, she has distinct memories of being 6yrs old but in her 6yr old mind she was the maturity of at least 20yrs old. :)

And that in a nutshell is my Zina.

6yrs going on 20yrs.

 She started piano lessons at the beginning of January and is eating it up.

As long as I am there with her helping her along.

Maybe it's Mom's undivided attention she is eating up.

Although when she has friends over the VERY first thing she does is go straight the the piano and perform for them. :)  She's very proud of her piano skills.  

The other day I was helping her and for some reason she just could not get a certain sequence of notes.  I was getting impatient and frustrated.  Wilson was laying underneath the piano bench begging for attention.  Finally I decided to just move on to another song - which she played seamlessly and all the sudden I had a moment.  

And I wanted to hit myself over the head with a frying pan.

I saw her trying to play the song over and over in my head and I heard her giggles had we laughed about her trying to get it over and over again.  Then I looked at her and instead I just saw her big brown eyes looking up at me trying to be perfect.  

She is a perfectionist and loves to please.  Especially me.  

Next time we will giggle together and my undivided attention will be full of love instead of impatience.

I have a lot to learn.

 Zina loves to learn.  One of her homework assignments was to write her sight words in shaving cream.  We opted for chocolate pudding instead.

 She begs to have school and loves to color, read, do worksheets that I find online, do word puzzles etc.

Zina has a soft spot for her Papa.  She loves to snuggle with him and is very aware when he misses their nightly routine of snuggling and reading her library book.   She loves to read and I love when she reads to her brothers.  She is a huge help to me and is usually very quick to respond to my requests.  She is such a blessing as a first child and I'm afraid that sometimes I take her for granted.   She smothers Sam with motherly affection and bosses Wilson with motherly....something.  The days when Zina forgets that she is 6 (or 20) and he is 4 and that he is that little brother that is always in the way are beautiful days. Those are the days when their imaginations are running wild and they play for hours in their make believe world.  I hope that those are the days they remember.  Sometimes Zina gets angry and wants to play alone or excludes Wilson but not Sammy and it makes me so frustrated.

And then I remember

that she's only 6 not 20.

And I love her 6yr old self very very much.