My Mary

Where to begin?

Mary Evelyn is one of those children that makes you feel deeply...whatever the emotion. She makes us laugh so hard. Sometimes, I weep over her. She can make me crazy some days, but on a good day, my heart swells with gratitude that she is mine, at least for this season. With Mary Evelyn, there is rarely any middle ground. She loves something...or she hates it. And you can't always guess if something will be loved or hated. Like schoolwork, for instance. Recently, she told me she could just wait until college to learn to read. Then there are days like today when we had FUN doing her reading lesson. What a gift of encouragement God gave me today.

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We are using Reading Made Easy, which is a wonderfully gentle approach to teaching reading. However, Mary Evelyn can get easily bogged down by the amount of reading she is required to do. Even if it's not that much, but just looks like a lot to her, she will take a long time just to get warmed up and get going. There have been many meltdowns over just looking at the page in the book. So...I have broken the lessons into smaller segments. I have covered up the parts she is not reading right that minute to make it less overwhelming to her. I thought I had tried everything. However, recently we got a dry erase board for our school that I am LOVING. I started writing out her reading lessons, one line at a time, on the board. She just reads what is there and we keep going until I can tell it's been too much or until we finish...whichever comes first. The great thing is that we usually finish because she ENJOYS reading this way. Hallelujah! If I could only describe what a blessing this is! Today when we had finished I showed her the manual so she could see how much she had read. Her eyes got huge with surprise that she had read so much. It was fun to tell her how well she had done and that I was proud of her. (insert happy tears)

Mary Evelyn is also my bug lover. I'm not sure if I'd call her a tomboy because she loves her dolls and stuffed animals and wears a dress almost every day. But she loves to be outside and she ADORES creepy crawly things. She can catch most anything too. And she can identify most of the bugs she finds. When she was 2 or 3, she used to sleep with insect field guides. Seriously. Now when we want to reward her, we just hand her a washed out plastic peanut butter jar and she is beaming with joy. I think I might just stuff her stocking with bug jars this year. Just watch...it'll be her favorite present. In fact, family members, if you need a cheap gift for her, that's my suggestion.

Mary Evelyn is also my very compassionate girl and my very thoughtful girl. One morning she decided to make Jason's coffee for him before he got down to the kitchen. She had never done this before but figured it couldn't be that hard. She had seen him do it many times. All she did was put some water in the coffee maker and turn it on. Jason had left the old filter and grounds in the last time he made coffee so she was thrilled when "coffee" came out. She had a cup all poured when he came in the kitchen. I wish you could have seen his face when he drank it! He gave her a quick how-to-actually-do-it-right lesson right then.

There is so much more I could say, but I want to give Mary Evelyn a chance to tell about herself, so I am going to conclude with a little interview. I hope you enjoy it! By the way I asked her these questions after I said she was an animal lover. I think this interview proves that point in a big way.

What are you good at?

catching animals, finding stuff, and I have good eyesight

What is hard to do?

to catch a scorpion

If you had ten dollars, how would you spend it?

spend it on a real live animal

What are you afraid of?

ummm...scorpions, but I still like 'em. I'm just afraid of 'em.

What do you like about our family?

That you let me go on dates with Daddy and catch frogs and turtles and snakes.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I'm gonna be a bunch of things. Work at Hollywild, work at the zoo, work at the aquarium, work as a veterinarian, and a doctor for people. And a dentist.

What is your favorite thing about God?

He made everything. And that he made animals.

What is your favorite book?

Animal books

What is your favorite food?

Pizza

What is your favorite thing to do?

Go to Furman and catch snakes and frogs and turtles

How do you show your family that you love them?

By serving them when they are sick. I bring you water and set out food for you for when you get up...like apples.

What are you thankful for besides animals?
My family

Where do you like to go?

The beach and Furman and the park

Yep, when she loves something, she REALLY loves it!