Every time I sit down to write one of these things, the temptation is to start with "it's hard to believe that this kid is this old." Probably because it's true.
Emily has today turned fifteen. It's a scary proposition to have your youngest entering the back end of high school. I've been conscious along the journey with the kids so far of not wishing life away. It's wonderful to celebrate the milestones as they get older and sometimes it's truly joyous to see them in the rear vision mirror. The temptation is of course to look forward and want to knock the next one off the list. As the youngest goes through her paces though I find myself wishing this less and less, because every time that she achieves one, it's the last time for Caroline and I as parents (Because there's no way I'm going back to start again!) I'm sure before too long we'll be watching them all start to move out of home and wondering what we used to do with our lives.
To Emily though. Emily has had a good time over the last 12 months.
She has done extremely well at school and it's always nice when she takes pride in her achievements. She may groan about the fact that she got stuck in the top maths class, but I think she is secretly (and justifiably) proud of the achievement.
I can't say that I know exactly what Emily might be looking at doing beyond school, but given she's in year ten she's far from an orphan in that regard. It's the first time that they've had elective subjects though I don't know that they gave any particular insight into where she might end up. She's talking about following in Michael and Sam's footsteps in terms of tackling IB in her last two years, so we'll have to see how that pans out and influences her future decisions. With so many options these days, I wonder if anyone get's it right straight out of the gate off high school.
One thing that has happened recently is that Emily has joined the choir. She's always sung around the house and enjoyed her music, but any suggestion of joining a choir or doing anything signing wise with the school to date has been met with a certain level of scorn (she's exceptional at that - you won't die wondering what Emily thinks on a topic!) But this year apparently one of her teachers has suggested that she do so and she's actually joined. I'm looking forward to whatever opportunity eventually presents itself to hear her perform. It's certainly influenced some of the things she's been caught singing around the house compared to her usual fare.
Sports wise she has indulged in tennis, table tennis, netball and softball, making finals in both softball and tennis. The Softball fell short of the ultimate goal, but the tennis team plays in their grand final this coming weekend, so hopefully she gets that sweet taste of victory.
Emily remains enamoured with her fan fiction, continuing to both read it excessively and write her own which if anything makes buying a book for her a challenging prospect. I'll never complain that she's reading though.
All in all, Emily is developing into an intelligent, beautiful, strong-willed woman and I look forward to see the mark that she makes upon the world. I'm grateful that she's lucky enough to be entering into it at a time when we're making more and more progress towards equity so that she can hopefully achieve all that she dreams of.
Happy Birthday Em.
