In a Million Words or Less...

I was given a homework assignment by Glo's homeroom/science teacher this past week.  Here's what the sheet said that she brought home:

Yes, you are getting a homework assignment!  It can take us some time to know your child.  Some things about your child we may never know unless you tell us.  This activity gives you a chance to tell me what you think I should know about your scholar.  In a million words or less, tell me about your child!

Well, if anybody knows me, this is JUST my kind of assignment!  It isn't perfect (I know I'm forgetting some stories), but I wanted to keep it as a reminder to myself in later years of what Glo was like when she was 11.

Hello Mr. McAninch,

I just love this assignment.  I've been thinking long and hard about it.  I think the best way for you to get to know Glo is for me NOT to make a list of qualities she holds.  Instead, I'd like to share a few stories from her life that will allow YOU to figure out what she is all about.

Glo is the youngest of four very accomplished children.  Her three older siblings were rather serious as children--musical, smart kids.  I really wanted one of those kids that is funny and outgoing (besides being smart and musical).  Some family member told me that if I PRAYED for specific qualities in my yet unborn child, the child would have those qualities.  I prayed for a funny, outgoing child.  Funny thing?  My prayers were answered.

Our children are performers, through and through.  They have been taught from a young age to perform on stage.  I will never forget the first time Glo performed in a dance recital.  She wouldn't look out in the audience during rehearsal--she looked to the side of the stage.  Her dance instructor finally turned to me and asked, "Does Glo suffer from stage fright?"  Nooooo.  It couldn't be!  Not one of my children!  Over the next 24 hours, I worked with her on looking out at the audience, and she learned to do it.  Until the performance.  All that "learning" went out the window.  Since then, Glo prepares every word and detail of any public speaking she has to do.  It terrifies her, but she has learned how to deal with it.  And she no longer dances.

Glo has a natural gift for playing the violin.  She plays it because I make her, but she is a natural (I know this because I have learned much from her three older siblings--some naturals, some not).  She puts in hours of practicing a week, and her teacher adores her because she's quick to learn and she's really quite good.  My hope is that someday her ability is going to meet up her love of music.  That collision will make for a happy day for me.

Our family raises Australian Shepherds on our 11 acres of land.  We have five of them, and Glo is the leader of their pack.  After she dumps her backpack on the kitchen counter and says "hello" to me, she's out the door to go play with them.  When there's snow on the ground, she takes her sled outside and sleds down hills while they chase her.  She also throws snowballs for them--they jump in the air and bust them apart.  When there's no snow, she climbs on the trampoline, and they jump up with her.  She enjoys bouncing one or two of them on the trampoline while the others run around underneath the trampoline, waiting for their turn.  She throws the frisbee for Dash, and the ball for Cherry.  She brushes them when their hair gets tangled and she feeds them at night (quite the challenging task).  They adore her, and because of this, she is known around our house as "the dog whisperer".

Another aspect of raising puppies is removing dew claws and docking tails when the puppies are three days old.  Much to the delight of Glo's physician father, she is right there, helping him with those rather unpleasant tasks.  She doesn't feel any "gross factor" and finds it all fascinating.

You can't go on a walk with Glo without hearing about the different trees, or looking at the clouds, or without smelling some plant that she can identify as having an unusual smell.  We spend our summers at a music camp in Northern Michigan, and despite playing music 5-6 hours a day, her favorite hour is an elective class called Environmental Science.  She has taught me why there is "swimmer's itch" in the water in the lakes (something to do with goose poop and snails).  She has explored a beaver dam.  She knows all the varieties of plants that she can eat, and she attempts to convince me to eat them.  She can find Petosky stones like no person.  Her ES teacher actually approached me and told me, "You know, Glo is very good at science.  There are lots of jobs out there besides music."  

Here in Pennsylvania, she keeps binoculars by the side of her bed so that she could look out the window at different birds in the trees.  She heads to the opposite side of the house after she wakes up to look at the sunrise.  When we walk the 1/3 of a mile to the bus stop, she spots ground hogs, and goldfinches, and bluebirds along the route.  Her newest find is a wasp nest hanging in a tree that is the size of a basketball.  She frequently asks me questions that I can't answer, and she heads to the internet as soon as we are home to find her answers.  There are moments (especially on mornings where we are running behind) where I wish we could just WALK to our destination with no distractions.  Not with Glo-she enjoys the journey.

Glo is tough as nails.  This past year, our family took up scuba diving.  I worried that Glo wouldn't be able to pass the written exam with questions about pressure, and charts to fill out about allowable dive times.  No worries--she earned the same score as the rest of us and passed the first time she took it.  Certifying was a nightmarish experience, diving in a lake in February in West Virginia with the air temperature at 38 degrees and the water temp at 50 degrees.  Only three of the five of us certified due to the harsh conditions (Glo being one of the three) with the other two finishing a month later.  When we went diving in Mexico in May, we were headed out to a wreck dive.  The wave swells were 10 feet high, and we were riding in a banana boat (that I'm convinced was a drug dealer boat in its former life).  We were all nauseous by the time we reached the site with most of us vomiting over the side of the boat.  Our dive master told us that as soon as we were in the water, we were to head to the back of the boat so that we could find each other.  I hoped as I fell off the boat backwards that we would indeed actually all meet there.  We did.  Glo turned to me, right as we were about to submerge, and said, "I don't feel...." and she began vomiting.  Right there, behind the boat, in 10 foot waves.  Before I could say anything, she turned to the dive master and said, "I'm good.  Let's go." She put her reg in her mouth, deflated her BCD and headed down.  If only she could appreciate how good (and brave) she actually is!

Glo has a soft heart.  While at Interlochen music camp this summer, she came to me (while working) and asked, "Is it okay if I just walk to class tomorrow?" (instead of riding her bike). "There was a girl who plays bass who got lost to ceramics.  She was crying.  I think I'll walk with her so that she doesn't get lost again."  She gives her treasured Petosky stones to conductors she has loved (wrapped with a note of thanks) before she leaves camp.  She remembers birthdays.  She even lets our one cat who drools when you pet him sit on her lap and drool away (versus pushing away with revulsion like the rest of us).  When I'm out on the tractor, mowing our swaths of land, she hops on the Phoenix, her small riding mower and edges the lawn for me.  I don't have to ask--she just does it.  She climbs in our pond to capture fish before the winter, and she writes weekly letters to her brother who is currently living in Poland.

Glo is self-motivated.  When she is given a challenge, whether that be fundraising, or reading a book, or scuba diving, she does it!  I was surprised to find out that she's been keeping a journal for quite a while now, writing in it every night.  Being a family historian myself, I can appreciate how valuable that writing will be to future generations.  The life of 11-year-old Glo.

People (especially teachers) tell me Glo is a leader, but I can't verify that.

Glo loves genealogy.  When she knows that I'm headed to any historical society, or the state archives, or a cemetery, she begs to go with me.  She spends entire days with me during the summer, sitting at microfilm readers, helping cut my research time in half.  It pains her to hear that I headed off some place while she was at school, although she always wants to know what I found.  She is perfecting the art of reading handwriting from the mid-1800's, seeing as she reads the wills we find, out loud to me, at the readers, in the libraries.  I can only imagine what the other patrons at the locations think.  If nothing else, they know that our family didn't have much to leave to anyone else :-)

Glo is a friend.  A good friend.  And she doesn't subscribe to teenage girl drama.  She has chosen friends that are "real" much to our delight.

She loves making faces, and reading Calvin and Hobbes.  In fact, she can quote just about any line from any strip Bill Watterson every created.

Her favorite foods?

Gum.  It tops every birthday and Christmas list.

Steak.  She likes it medium.  Just enough pink to still be juicy.

Cranberry juice.  And string cheese.

And just so you don't think Glo is perfect....

Yes, she's impatient.  Mrs. Menard, her math teacher last year, implied that Glo would have scored an A on her report card (math was her only B) if she had just slowed down on her tests and quizzes.

I can't even begin to tell you the emotional agony Glo goes through in the morning, waiting for her father to take her to the bus stop.  He is a late person.  Late to everything.  She stomps around the house, calling his name, hoping he will eventually walk out the door.

When she forgot to remind her dad to take in the cookie-dough order form, she got mad at ME that it was still sitting on the counter.  And then she got mad at him for not taking it.  When I took it to Altoona to his work (I was already headed there anyway), she apologetically came up to both of us and thanked us for taking care of it.

She gets frustrated with me when she's asked me to look over her homework and I find an error.  Like it's my fault!

She doesn't like her sister very much which is terribly unusual in our family.  We're one tight unit, with her older brothers being best friends.  My children never feel the need to invite friends over because we do so much fun stuff as a family.  But Glo and Johannah?  I'm not sure what happened there, but those two are very different people.  We work on NOT sending laser-beam-eyes at each other, and can we refrain from HUFFING about everything Johannah does?

Am I up to a million words yet?

I hope that gives you a feel for Glo.  In case you couldn't tell, we absolutely adore her.  And yes, feel free to share any of this with anyone.

Larisa Kennedy