How do you describe a girl like my Lainie K? As the most petite member of our family, she carries the most contagious and joy-filled laugh of us all. Lainie is full of life, persistent, opinionated, sincere, determined, helpful, loving, hilarious, curious, observant, cuddly, smart, friendly, gorgeous, honest, fashionable, driven, and passionate. Being her Mommy is such a blast!
Lainie officially joined the ranks at Team Bassett Academy this year for Kindergarten! She has been such a rock star with her school work. On the advice of her preschool teachers, we started with first grade math to give her a challenge, and she has soared! Her brain just thinks mathematically, so the concepts have come quickly for her. As for her reading, she is doing fantastic! She can figure out what most words are using her phonics and context clues, and she is beginning to really enjoy reading on her own. At CC she is doing well with her memory work and is enjoying making new friends!
We have seen something really fascinating with Lainie over the past year or so. When she was 3-4, she would have some pretty significant meltdowns. We are not talking the occasional fit or typical tantrum. We are talking about this little one being totally out of control of her own body and really scaring Justin and me, to the point that we were afraid to say, "No." in public for fear that one of these would transpire. Something very interesting occurred though last January. Our family did a round whole30, during which Lainie did not have a single meltdown. Now, if I am being honest, this happened in January 2012 as well, but I refused to make the changes permanent. I had baby Liv and was honestly just lazy. This time though, it was just TOO obvious to overlook. Having done some research, I found gluten to be a huge behavioral trigger. Armed with this information, our family went gluten free at home. Now, at preschool, Lainie ate whatever was served as a snack. At a birthday party, she had a cupcake. At Chick Fil A, I didn't make her eat the grilled nuggets (gross!). However, in our house, out went the wheat bread, pancake mix, Cheerios, canned biscuits, graham crackers, and all of that other sneaky stuff where gluten hides itself. Guess what? We have a different kiddo on our hands! Not an ounce of her spunk has disappeared, but her ability to practice self control and accept an answer opposite of her desire, and to be reasoned with has taken a phenomenal shift. She feels better too! Her once rumbly tummy is now happy as well, and she grew 3.5" in the 12 months after we made this change! We haven't done any kind of testing regarding an allergy, but we are confident that God chose to show us a clear course of action that has been life changing for our family!
Lainie is quite the dancer! This is her second year taking a combination of tap and ballet. She LOVES to dance, and would be quite pleased if her life was a musical! Unlike her Mommy, Lainie is graceful in her movements and excels on the dance floor. I love to watch this girl perform.
Lainie is my domestic diva. She LOVES to clean, hence her personalized, bedazzled dustbuster as a Christmas gift from Aunt Cheryl. She also has taken over my kitchen. She is heartbroken if a meal is cooked without her assistance. I don't remember the last time I scrambled an egg. Lainie is teachable and a quick learner, and we have a lot of fun together over the stove. One of her Christmas gifts was a cooking date with Ms. Vivian! They shopped at Central Market together and then made and served us an amazing dinner of taco salad, black bean soup and cinnamon ice cream with cinnamon and sugar tortilla chips on top! WOW! Ms. Viv also taught her the best rule of cooking, "You always have to taste test!" I am looking forward to many more years by her side and eventually learning from her in the kitchen!
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