The likes and dislikes of Gracie at 7 years old.

Gracie delights in being dramatic. But for all that, she isn’t very complicated. In fact, I’m waiting for her to change her personality completely any second now because I’m pretty sure I have a decent handle on who she is. And how long do you usually get to enjoy that feeling, moms? Exactly. But at the moment, I give you…

10 Things Gracie Thinks Are “OFF THE HOOK!”

1. Being dramatic. This means big eye rolls, uttering a very nuanced “Oh my GOSH, Mom!” (whine and glare included), loving things to pieces and saying such bits of awesomeness are “OFF THE HOOK!” Gracie, you are my All Caps girl, love.
2. Showing off your spelling skills. You can’t just answer questions like a normal kid anymore. Nooooo – you must spell out your answers. Which is great, really. How else would you learn that horse isn’t spelled h-o-r-e-s? You are learning a lot this way, and even if it means I have to wait e-o-n-s to get an answer, I am mostly okay with it. (Having completed the 1st grade vocabulary and spelling curriculum a month ago and now being most of the way through the 2nd grade curriculum might have something to do with that.)
3. Being right. We’re going to have to work on this a bit this year. (Sigh. It’s good to have goals, right? Even if you’re sure you won’t have any luck because your daughter is stubborn as a mule?) If you happen to give a wrong answer, you say, “Oh, I knew that. I just forgot,” when you’re corrected. You tell others that actually they said <insert made-up wrong answer here> even if they didn’t. You are desperate to not only be right, but to be more right, to be smarter, to be better than everyone else around you. I know you hear this hundreds of times, but Gracie – it’s okay to be wrong. It’s how we learn, sweetie pie.
4. Being sneaky. If I let you stay up five minutes past your bedtime, you try to devise elaborate stories so Bee won’t catch on. The problem is – you’re horrible at it. Downright awful! It’s hard for your mama because I want to teach you my tricks of the trade; it’s instinctual. But then I catch myself and think, Woman, what are you doing? It’s great that she can’t tell a lie to save her bacon!
5. Speaking of bacon – you lurve it! Chocolate you can take it or leave it, but bacon you would run over your entire family to get. In fact, many mornings in the kitchen, you have.
6. Other favorite foods (bacon so totally deserved its own category, so deep and true is your love for it): my meatloaf, salmon, steak with A1 Steak Sauce, spicy chicken wings, baked beans, and pastrami. Oh, and since this practically proves you are my mini-me, I’ll add black jelly beans.
7. Dance music. You like all kinds of music genres, but right now your tastes are leaning more towards Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Rhianna, and lots of other music I have to carefully pre-screen before I let it play out. Thankfully, you are honest to a fault and will tell me when a song comes on, “This has bad words, Mom! Dad lets me listen to it, but you might want to change the channel.” So full of information you are. Heh.
8. Playing Dr. Quinn, reading Little House books, and all things frontier-related. Your eyes lit up when you opened your present from your sister and it was a frontier dress, apron, and bonnet for your fake American Girl doll. You loved that she could look just like you in your old Laura Ingalls Halloween costume that you wear when you play Dr. Quinn. (Pssst….Gracie, it’s almost spring! You can bring your tent outside and play for hours now!)
9. Cheetahs. They are your favorite animal, dude. I hear all about predators and prey; I have to listen to entire conversations in cheetah growls and hissings; you are constantly underfoot as you try to run cheetah-fast on all fours (you do practice – a lot - I’ll give you that). You have a Cheetah book from Auntie Rhi that you have read a million zillion times. Half the time you earned on your read-a-thon was due to that single book. And what movie did you choose to see for your birthday? African Cats. I wasn’t surprised.
10. Reading chapter books. We recently finished reading Beezus and Ramona, which you loved because it depicted the struggles you’re going through with your own little sister. Bee liked hearing us read it because it’s also about being “stuck” as the little sister. Just wait and see how many other books are out there that you will love! And I don’t even mind that you want to be the one who reads aloud now.

Ten Things Gracie Really, Really, Really Dislikes (I mean it!)

1. String beans. Yes, all the things I could have chosen to list first and I went with string beans. I get a fight every single time I make them. She’ll eat them raw – sometimes, with enough Ranch dressing – but will not eat them on a train or in the rain. She does not like them, Sam-I-am.
2. Bedtime. Every night she begs to stay up late. And every night she’s asleep 10 minutes after her head hits the pillow. There’s just so much the girl wants to do!
3. Being wrong. She will make up elaborate stories about why her answer is really right, even when she’s faced with overwhelming evidence and cool, rational logic (and that girl loves her some logic).
4. Not catching on right away. Gracie has an incredible aptitude for thinking around corners. Seriously. The girl could be a code-breaker. If it’s something she’s not supposed to know – like if I’m being sneaky right in front of her – the girl will patiently try to work out the problem. If it’s something she can’t be bothered with – like homework – she pouts and whines and throws down her pencil, declaring she just can’t get it! And why don’t I understand! And urrrrghh! Whine! I just don’t understand how hard it is to be her! Thankfully, I have highly developed skills in both sarcasm and tuning her out. I use both as necessary.
5. Hurting my feelings. Gracie is such a tender-hearted girl with more empathy than is probably good for her. She tells me she doesn’t want to go to her dad’s house because she’s afraid my feelings will be hurt. (I assure her she should have a good time and I am more than okay, don’t worry.) She never feels the reprimand more than when I tell her I am disappointed or that my feelings were hurt. Her pout during such discussions isn’t out of anger or resentment, but disappointment in herself. I think we’re all thankful this doesn’t happen that often!
6. Being told she can’t talk. The need Gracie has to talk is almost equal to her need to breathe. If I tell her she can’t talk until her breakfast is finished, her head just about explodes holding it all in. If I cut her off because I’ve told her I don’t want to hear any more (tattling, justifications, etc.), I get an extra loud AAAAGGGHH! She hates it. Usually I’m pretty annoyed if I’m at the point of making such a proclamation, but I kinda chuckle inside at her reaction. That girl does love to talk.
7. Having to hurry. Gracie, dear, I love you – but you have one speed and one speed only. S-l-o-w. If I tell you to hurry in the mornings, you not only don’t (or can’t) go faster, but then you get annoyed at me for getting annoyed at you for not hurrying. Yeah, our mornings pretty much are guaranteed to dissolve at the mere mention of hurrying.
8. Having to share the television. If I let them watch TV, Gracie doesn’t understand why it can’t be all Dr. Quin, all the time. Bee doesn’t love that show (as she would say), so there are frequently arguments about what to watch. The girls are at great ages for playing together, but television and movies choices seem to be one area where they can never agree.
9. Having to help when she doesn’t wanna. This one is tricky because usually Gracie revels in being my helper, my second little mama. But if she’s not in a mood to help – look. out.
10. Not being able to negotiate her way out of trouble. If Gracie isn’t recruited as a code-breaker, she will definitely go into professional negotiating. The girl loves to justify and argue and wheedle her way out of trouble – and the stinker is good at it. The problem is that sometimes I can’t let her beg and plead her way out of losing a privilege; she needs to learn that doing things that she’s supposed to do (or not, as the case may be) is what she needs to do the first time instead of just “fixing” it later. She hates that. Maybe even more than string beans.

There you go, Gracie-girl. That’s you in a nutshell. (Help, I’m a nutshell! you would laughingly act out. Jokes! I should have added that to the Likes list.) Don’t worry too much over the Dislikes list, even though I know you will. If it helps ease your mind, I whipped through the Likes list and could only think of five Dislikes. I really had to struggle to think of the rest. And that? Means you are just as awesome as ever.

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Tags: birthdays