Sadie and Ryan's Blog: Dear Hazel (Age 7)

Happy 7^th birthday to my sweet Hazel Francis!

Gah, seven. For some reason seven feels like a real turning point. No longer a little kid, you’re getting older too fast for my liking. Can you slow it down a little bit?

In the last year you seem to have grown up so much. You lost 3 or 4 teeth all about the same time and now that you’ve got your big kid teeth on the top your face and smile has changed so much. You’ve gotten taller and stretched out like a sting bean making you look more and more like Abby every single day. You’re whip smart and funny. You can be a little sneak sometimes and we’ve been working on doing the things you KNOW you’re supposed to do. You know what’s right and wrong, and sometimes you make the wrong choice intentionally – I have a feeling you’re going to be the one keeping Daddy and I up at nights when you get older.

You say the funniest things – I honestly don’t know where you get it sometimes. Here’s a good example:

One night after Daddy had already put you to bed he came down saying that you wanted me to go up as well (always a delay tactic with both you kids!).

· Me: “Haze - Daddy can put you to bed and I don’t always have to.”

· Hazel: “But I need my lullaby.”

· Me: “Daddy can sign it to you.”

· Hazel: “But he’s a little pitchy.”

· Me: “You don’t even know what that means!”

· Hazel: “It means he doesn’t do it right.”

See – where do you get it from?? You keep us on our toes, that’s for sure!

Favorite Food: pickles and marshmallows

I don't know, this might be an arbitrary answer. LOL! You do like pickles and honestly, who doesn't like marshmallows? Your favorite way to eat them is a microwave smore, which, admittedly we do quite a bit, especially in the summer when we have all of the ingredients at home for camping trips.

Favorite Toy: “Zoey, my bunny”

This didn’t surprise me in the least! Your obsession with rabbits continues – even my attempt at distraction with Fern and Olive didn’t get you off the bunny train. Zoey is a little stuffed animal rabbit from Hazel Village – the same store where Erin got dolly way back for Abby’s first Christmas. Dolly one and Dolly two have long been favorites, but it seems like Zoey might have taken the new top spot. Last year during our family pictures I had both you and Abby bring along your favorite animals to be featured in just a few shots. I think that your time with stuffed animals is so short that it’s worth capturing and remembering. You had a near meltdown when I asked you to select just two. I caved and in true Hazel fashion, you ended up bringing 2 Dollies, Zoey and Stripes.

Fears: “The bad pigs and thunder.”

This has been your answer for the last few years. You do have that recurring “bad pigs” dream even still but truly I’m not so sure that the thunder really bothers you. I’d answer this by saying you really are quite fearless. You’re the most willing to try new things, new foods etc. You are still a little gun shy about biking down hills but even that you’ve been working through with Abby. She’s got you riding down the driveway a little bit at a time to get you used to it and you’re doing much better about it overall.

Favorite Color: Purple

A sweet story about you:

Probably about 6 months ago Daddy decided it was time for you to start cutting your own Bubby’s pancakes at breakfast time. In true Hazel fashion, as soon as you decide on something, you decide it at 150%, and there is no convincing you otherwise. This character trait will serve you well in life, but sometimes, when the thing you decide on is at odds with the choices we’d like you to make, it’s nearly impossible to help you course correct. Enter, cutting pancakes!

Daddy told you one morning “Hazel, today you are going to cut your own pancakes” and for whatever reason you decided that this was just a bridge too far. There was no way in the world that you’d be able to do this simple task, that you’d probably just starve instead. You refused to even touch the knife or to even try. If you could convince you to hold the knife you’d just sit there unwilling to even apply the slightest pressure to your pancake. It was weeks and weeks and weeks of you and Daddy fighting about it, him teasing you, you getting angry, me getting annoyed and just cutting them for you so we could move forward. I’d guess we went on like this for a full 6 months with the topic of “Will Hazel cut her pancakes” being a topic of conversation most Sunday mornings.

One Sunday morning Daddy asked me “do you think today will be the day Hazel cuts her own pancakes?” to which I replied, “I bet I can get her to cut them…I’ll give her 50 cents and she’ll do it”. He laughed but I was serious! We’d been doing pretty well with our task-based chore charts – where I’d give you a set amount per chore you completed and we’d learned that you, in particular, are motivated by coins. I said “Hey Haze, I’ll give you THIRTY FIVE cents if you cut your own pancakes today” and you looked me straight in the eyes with the biggest grin and asked “Can I have a knife please”. You cut those pancakes like a champ and you’ve been doing so since that day. I handed over the coins and everyone got what they wanted.

I think this story speaks to your personality quite well. You can be singularly focused and given the right motivation you can accomplish just about anything you put your mind to. You do not care about peer pressure and you sometimes don’t even care what Dad and I want you to do – once you’ve made up your mind, that’s the route and getting you to chance course can be difficult. The trick (for Daddy and I) is to gently nudge you in the right direction before you’ve fully made up your mind.

Bears or Packers? “Both”

Influenced by your sister – you answered ‘both’ this this question. But I think your true answer would have been “I don’t care”. LOL! Abby is forever my politician, my make everyone happy girl. But you sweet Hazel, you just march to your own drum. And that means that you don’t give a single care about Bears or Packers. But…I’ll continue to stack your wardrobe with Packers gear…because it makes me happy.

Some firsts this year:

Cutting Pancakes – ha! See above.
Reading and Spelling – this year, in first grade, I watched you really start to excel at reading and spelling. It was admittedly a slow start to the year (I’m sure COVID schooling had a lot to do with it), but by the end of this year I watched your confidence and ability truly blossom. You ended the year with chapter books and I know that we’ll be practicing hard with reading all summer long. We’ve made it too far to be victims to the summer slide!
Confident bike riding – you were riding your bike without training wheels last summer, but a poorly timed hill at a campground last summer scared you into thinking you could only ride on flat surfaces. Daddy worked really hard with you in the driveway last summer to get you comfortable starting and stopping on your own, but it wasn’t until this spring that you truly felt confident enough to try hills. Early this spring Abby convinced you to try a small part of the driveway hill (near the bottom) and then worked you up, slowly, a few more feet at a time until you were zooming down the full driveway just as fast as she was! The wiggle waggle bike is still your all time favorite to zip down the driveway on – and you do it in the most hilarious way – with both arms fully extended in front of you and your chin and head pointed forward…as if you were going to crash into a wall with your full force, not a care in the world. You crack me up whenever you zoom past doing it.
Sewing with needle and thread – both you and Abby took a craft class through the park district this spring and one of the activities was to sew your very own stuffed animal or doll. Abby’s done a few sewing projects in the last year or so here, but this was a first for you. I was so impressed by your stitches and your tenacity to finish the project. I think you worked on the same doll (a hamster, like Fern) for 3 weeks, even bringing it home to work on between classes. You needed help to thread the needle and knot it at the end, but I don’t think you even pricked yourself once.

Favorite TV show: Bluey

I’m pretty sure this was the same answer you gave me last year, and truthfully, Bluey continues to be a household favorite. Though, I think The Lion Guard puts up a pretty good fight. I think if left to your own devices you’d watch Lion Guard over and over, never picking a new show. You both really love it, though you must have seen the 4 seasons at least 3 or 4 times over at this point. Anytime we get out the noodles or Magnatiles you guys set up a Pride Lands and reenact scenes from the Lion Guard.

Favorite Movie: Sing 2

I’m not sure if this is really a favorite, or just what’s top of mind right now. Sing 2 came out around Spring Break this year and Daddy and I were in Jamaica at that time, so Grandma and Papa, looking for a way to keep you guys occupied for a few hours took you to your first post-pandemic movie which happened to be a Sign 2 sing along. It sounds like the whole group had a lot of fun with it and honestly, just this morning you were singing a Sing 2 song in the car. You do like watching it on your iPad but, the last time we were in the car you just kept replaying one song, or rather, one PART of one song signing it out loud to us as we drove. You had your headphones on, so I don’t even think you knew we could hear you. You have been signing a lot lately and even told me today “When I grow up I’m going to put a radio on my art desk and everyone is going to think I’m also a signer, but really, I’m just moving my mouth when the radio sings. They will think I’m a really good signer”. You are so funny sweet girl!

Favorite Outfit: “The dress grandma got me with the turtles swimming on it.”

Nicknames:

HayHay
Franny

Probably the two most common nicknames for you continue to be HayHay and Franny. Abby started calling you HayHay when Moana came out, what, in 2016. That one stuck and she and Ryan continue to call you HayHay to this day. I trend toward Franny (my personal favorite) or more generic names to group you and your sister together like Beebops or Kiddy Cats. As in “Hey Beebops, get your shoes on” or “I have to get the Kiddy Cats off the bus at 3:30”.