except she chose the activities that she has decided that are crucial…

This is handwriting, mirror handwriting, upside down writing, left-hand writing, and handwriting in her own personal code. The words are from her Shakespeare insults calendar. “Now I am doing my ds the right way all the time..” Joined up writing to follow! Handwriting is on her must do list, along with cello, duolingo (Latin), and te reo.

She also has a list of any three from:

• set
• writing
• Shakespeare
• workbooks (that she gets me to buy her then loses interest)
• typing
• photography
• journal
• flutes
• miniatures
• non fiction

I do not know what lots of those involve. What I do know is that she has got really good at mirror writing – fast and attractive! She is also so pleased with herself when she gets a sticker having done the assigned tasks. When she has got 10 stickers, she gets some Lego that I had tried bribing her with  ges ago to read some book about maths. Me doing sticker charts is a running joke with my friends, it use to be; I run I get a sticker, but what would happen was on the occasions I ran I got all excited about getting a sticker but never actually got a physcial sticker..that’s how I am remembering to floss my teeth at the moment….there was never a treat at the end. Helena seems way more into it. Sometimes, I think we need some kind of psychological trick to get ourselves to do things. Maybe we are making our own dopamine hits.

I did have a discussion with her about these weird self set tasks when I found her writing about Charles Darwin in a workbook about whether it was interesting and if she actually wanted to do it and she said with the great insight of the self directed that her “lists were only for the days that she felt at a bit of a loss”, and if she had a “better idea that is what she would do!”

I am more into the separate list that says: but the dishes away, tidy room, plants watering (also mandatory).

I bet her she couldn’t write mirror writing upside down. It says  I win the bet…..

This is my handwriting at her age, not what my handwriting is like now! But I do include full stops now.. and Helena writes in a more interesting, poetic, and everything that is good in writing way than me. It sounds like Helena’s lived life, but she doesn’t feel the need to have a “use” for her FIMO making.