A few weeks ago, for a school assignment, Sydney was asked to write down what she wanted to be when she grows up. "How am I supposed to know that?" she asked. I told her it's just for fun. For guessing. Not for anything she had to commit to.
She thought and thought.
We made suggestions. Ballerina? Nope. Teacher? No. Musician? Meh.
Well, we said, let's think about what you like. You like roller coasters.
Yes. She likes roller coasters. A lot.
And people have to design roller coasters. They're called engineers.
It was as if we'd spoken the magic words. Roller Coaster. Engineer. That's what she wants to be.
She looks very engineery here, doesn't she?
No?
How about here?
This is her new costume that's for her end-of-the-year ballet recital, and she wanted me to take a picture of her wearing it so that she could give it to her teacher. I suppose all engineers have to be almost eight years old and adore their teachers at some point in their life. (For the record, I'm not at all convinced that engineering is the field for Sydney. Certainly, I'll encourage her, but I'm thinking she'd have to develop some serious boldness to push her way around in a male-dominated field like engineering. Boldness is not one of her strong traits. Math and science are, though, so who knows.)
Future roller coaster designing plans aside, I can tell you what she is good at right now. Right now on the cusp of turning eight, my little Syd is good at making me laugh and ridiculing my lame attempts at ballet positions. She is good at playing the piano, and dancing, and singing. She is good at reading, good at avoiding eating meat, good at knowing exactly where her glasses are.
Some days she wants to focus on what she's not good at, and I tell her that no one is perfect and not to worry that she fights with her sister or that she doesn't like school or have many friends. It's hard for her though. Figuring out how to grow up. It's messy work.
Today, however, was not a day to focus on what she isn't good at. Today she got to do what she loves to do.
She got to compete in her classroom's speech meet.
She knew from the moment she got the assignment how she wanted the competition to turn out: I want to win it again just like last year.
And you know what? She did.
First place.
I can't imagine where she gets her flair for the dramatic (*cough*), but speaking from experience, there are a few times in life when the melodramatic personalities get kudos instead of eye rolling. Speech meets happen to fall into that category.
Only God knows how my little dancer's life is going to turn out. Engineering? Maybe. Artsy creative type? Possibly. A love for public speaking no matter what her profession?
Yep. Pretty sure she's on her way toward that.
Proud mama. That's me.
