Caroline

I just want to comment on what determination Caroline has. At the beginning of the school year Caroline wanted to learn how to do the monkey bars. She started by getting some kids to show her at recess. Caroline practiced every day. If there wasn't school, she begged me to take her to the park so she could practice. It got to the point that her hands were covered in blisters--some open, and she would STILL do the monkey bars. At one point I was worried that the blisters weren't healing and they would get infected, so I had to contact her teacher and tell her to not allow Caroline to do the monkey bars anymore because she needed to let her hands heal. Within days Caroline was back to the monkey bars. She is amazing at them--if she finds a type that she can't do, she practices until she can.

In January I saw that the YMCA was offering rock climbing classes. I signed Caroline up because she had always talked about trying that. She LOVED it. The first session was 3 classes and at the end her teacher said to move her up a level. The next session started the middle of March (today was the last session) and I talked to her teacher today and she said to sign her up for the 7-12 year old class for the next session (granted she will be 7 in June, but still--she is by far the best in her class!) She can climb to the top of the hard side of the easy wall--no one else in her class can get past the middle. Today after class we were walking to the car and she showed me her hands--the beginnings of blisters on her hands!

She was like this in swimming too--she first passed the swim test when she was 4 and was by far the youngest in all of her swimming classes. They moved her up to the 6-8 year old class when she was only 5 because she had been in the top level of the 3-6 year old classes for over a year.

Anyway, I just wanted to say how proud I am of Caroline--not everything comes super easy for her, but if she finds something she wants, she doesn't let anything stand in her way.

Here are some pictures of her rock climbing a couple of weeks ago: