5.5 going on 15

Disclaimer : If you don't want to hear totally nonobjective ramblings of a proud Mummy. Don't read any further...

A couple of things happened with the kid this week that I just have to record for posterity. Am still trying to work out how I should react to them, but have decided that for the time being, I'll just channel Yoda (small and silent unless he has something profound to say)...

1) Kiddo has 2 favourite dresses and a shirt/shorts combo that she will wear in preference to absolutely anything else. I'm not kidding. We've tried hiding them, delaying the washing... Nothing works. She will very calmly ask the maid to please wash it today so she can wear it tomorrow. Anyway, I was gazing upon her stuffed wardrobe, eyeing the lovely (expensive) clothes she has and decided that it was time for a little chat about this clothes issue. We went through colours ('it's not about the colour, mom'), flowers ('I just like the flowers on these, mom'), beads ('this one has pretty beads')... Finally, she just looked at me and said, 'Mom, you just can't POSSIBLY persuade me to change my mind...' Accompanied by an exasperated eye roll!! Uh. Dumbstruck mummy. Do I laugh at the statement, or yell about the eye rolling? That night The Man and I had a little discussion on how we would have worded this differently... 'Oi! I'm not changing my mind-lah!' was the general consensus on how we would have responded. Proud mummy was on one hand thinking what a grammatically elegant statement that was, on the other thinking 'Oh no, my kid can out-talk me at 5 and a half!! And what's with the whole eye rolling thing?! '

2) I've always known that kiddo is an advanced reader. After all, she read our Bill Bryson Aussie commentary when she ran out of books on holiday. So I decided to test her using the Sonlight homeschool reading assessment. My biggest worry is always selecting books with the appropriate content for a 5-6 year old. And Sonlight does provide some guidelines on book selection based on age/level. So there we were, reading through lists of words that are supposed to gauge reading readiness. 5 minutes later, kiddo had read all the words including those for level 7 (roughly age 13). The test stops there as beyond that, ability is no longer the limiting factor. Again, befuddled mummy. Then she turned to me and said, 'Mom, what's dominion, and sundry, and capillary and condescend...' Out of the 10 words, she understood none of them!! Ok, ok, some of them even I would have trouble explaining, but my most immediate thought was, 'Crap, what happens if she hasn't understood ANY of the gajillion books we've spent so much money on??' Response to my suddenly rabid insistence that she ask my about ANY word she doesn't understand from now on, 'But I haven't come across a word I don't know in a really long time mom.' So, I've decided that I shall be guided by the Sonlight curriculum and we shall have 'together' reading time so I can make sure she understands at least some of what she reads.

After all this,I feel like a totally inadequate mother. Either I'm complaining she's too mature and out talking me, or that she behaving like a toddler and whining. Poor kid...

I can picture Yoda in my head, perching upon a rock, swivelly ears, walking stick, googly eyes... 'Calm, you must be... For, though smart, child, she be...'