Marian, May Love ~
This precious, fun girl serves (tea, treats, vitamins, gum) and gives to our family and our guests with flare and spectacular generosity. I don’t think she’s got a penny, or a mao, in her allowance envelope because she’s so eager and speedy to spend her money on gifts to give to others. Once, she paid eleven million monopoly dollars for Isaiah “just because she had it and he didn’t.” A super beautiful thing... that, ah... will need to be tempered with real cash at some point (later).
And she’s smart. Matt says he has a little bit of dyslexia (maybe just a mild degree- is that possible?) and if that’s a real possibility, I think Marian’s got it too. Reading has been a bit tough for her... but any drip of dyslexia with letters hasn’t touched her numbers. She flies for math and “number games” and is almost as eager to do her math work as she is for a tea break from class most the time. Math comes easy for her (I’ve got to figure out how to stoke this gift in her) and she can think through long, hard (for an elementary schooler) word problems that Matt gives her (a small business scenario) with a thorough grasp on how and why the math works like it does. It’s so cool to see her enjoy excelling at and exercising this gift. And I don’t know if this would count as altogherther math-y, but this girl WON, the very first time she played Clue on her own. She had been on Daddy’s team once before, but as soon as she was on her own, she beat her own Dad and her big bro! She’s 6.5 and yea, she had a bunch of room cards so that part was easy for her to figure out... but still, pretty good!
For Marian, a word is usually going to be a better word, nicer, and more to her approval, if it ends with a "-y" sound. Settler of Catan’s Development Cards are her “develies.” The number games she likes to play on her bed before sleep are “plusies.” And Vivi isn’t just her sister, she’s “sissy.” They both call each other that now. The boys are jealous because maybe “bro” doesn’t ring with the sound of affection or coolness like “sissy” does.
Her Daddy often says about her, Marian really knows how to have fun. Her brothers and sister almost always want to play with her (even though she is quick to jump on an opportunity to visit a neighbor or play at someone else’s house.) She can turn any little stretch of waiting or playing into super-fun with a new rule to play by or a twist of some kind. And, maybe you can guess, sometimes the sad side of this is that she can be pretty darn bossy/selfish too.... But let’s move on.
She wants to be a teacher- she’s gone from Sunday School teacher, to ballet teacher, to just teacher.... and she always wants to be a mama too. She’s already a sweet and loving mama to her “kids” the stuffed animals and dolls of the highest ranking that get to sleep on her bed with her. And she takes care of her siblings when they need their beds and kids organized too.
A dear friend of mine sat at a table with Marian and I while Marian was talking about homeschool. Marian asked me "what is that place, where Geogre Washington lived?" "You mean Mount Vernon?" "Yea, I want to take that moon thing, after I get married there." "Your honeymoon?" "Yep, I want to have a homeschool honeymoon." Alycia remarked that it seems to be good evidence that Marian is enjoying homeschool enough if she wants to plan a homeschool honeymoon! We'll see what her one-day husband thinks about that plan.
She loves music. She's doing well at piano these days, especially loving Swan Lake, and also always ready to sing…. My favorite is hearing her make up her own worship songs while she stares out the window for a ride (car, ferry, airplane.) All of it brings out musical worship from our girl. She's deeply concerned to share the Good News with friends too… Man, we just adore this girl. Just can’t put in words how exceedingly grateful or delighted we are to get to be her mom and dad.
UPDATE: I just remembered a few more things that really must get slipped into this record of our girl. How she signs for packages…. I've just gotten into buying some groceries online here so we've been getting more packages lately. The delivery bikes have to park at the front gate of our complex and wait for everyone in the complex to come and get their stuff…. so when we get a call, Marian is usually the quickest to go down and she's very proud to sign her name for a package: M A R I A N. Nobody fusses about it b/c they can't read it either since it's not in Chinese characters.
And this too, about gift-giving. Recently we had boys at our house while I picked up our girls to bring them back and Marian wanted to buy gifts for them. I told her "I'm sorry dear I didn't bring any money. We'll have to do it another time." She replied emphatically, "But mom, you can't spend all your money on stuff for us every time! I brought my own money to buy lollipops for them." And yesterday, when I took May and John shopping to buy a gift for Isaiah's birthday, she never found a gift worthy of him so we have to go to a little store near us today to finalize the deal. But as she looked, she preferred gifts that were smaller, that she could pay for with just her money and John's rather than getting a bigger gift that would require a contribution from me. This girl…. so super thoughtful about her gifts!
Last… A little while ago I read to the kids a beautiful biography of Abraham Lincoln. This telling of his story ended with his glorious achievements as president, the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War and plans for Reconstruction. And as the last happy page closed, Marian remembered what was next. "I remember from Caddie Woodlawn (a story I read aloud to them nearly a year ago) that Abraham Lincoln was shot." I'm so glad to know she's catching these details and that the significant pieces are sticking with her...
