April, 2018

Niki is really beginning to flourish as an artist at the young age of 10.

She’s really taken to photography – she received a compact point-and-shoot for Christmas, but prefers the larger SLR with the zoom lense. After returning from a 3 day trip to Utah for her XCel Regional Gymnastics competition she had taken nearly 700 pictures – some of which show she has an eye for photography by seeing things from a perspective which is not intuitive.

She’s also taken to poetry – she calls them stories but they really are amazing poems. She sat down and without hesitation or writers block wrote 2 poems which were just beautiful. Here they are (spelling hers :)).

The Land and the Sea

The land hoverd with light as bright as the sun
while the animals creapt back home like a cheta hunting it’s pray
The trees hushed the animals to sleep
while the wistiling wind sang with the trees
while the wavews made a druming sound
while the grass blew like a flut
while the moon shaderd light on the animals
everything sang
the sand crunched like a soft moraka
the land was full of sound
buitiful sound
while the animals slept something happened under the water
a whale and a shark fought
niping hurting
the water was an ice cube
the skin as a coat
the eys like a eagle
waching a fish tails waging
soon both wher gone
gone in the light

The Buitiful Bear

The sun was a bright as a flashlight in the dark
the trees skreamink with the wind like a babby crying
the darkness was as dark as a black cat
the fur was as soft as a wool coat
the eys wher as buitiful as a birds song
the claws were as sharp as a sharpend knife
the legs wher as strond as a rock
the heart was as warm as a fire fild with kindness
the mity bear roared
he stood on a rock as buitiful and sturdy like wood
his ears wher as good as an owles
the water was as if it was a lether mirror
the sun pushed away the clouds filled with anger
and brought the sky full of love
the love spreaded out as fast as lava running
the bear wached the suns shimering sole fall into the lake
while the moons white face apered
the wind picked up like a fire blowing
the grass sang like a huming bird
the “fires turned wood to ash”
the snow fell
the bear went into the cave
all quiet with no riot

Yesterday Britta was at the dentist, to look at her broken tooth (the result of an errant iPad flying out of the Westfalia cabinet while driving to Utah for the XCel Regional gymnastic competitions).

While in Utah, Niki and Britta bought new extremely comfy shoes. The shoes are identical, so while at the dentist I noticed Britta had written a “B” on the side of each sole.

I pointed out to Britta that she and Niki could have limited this approach to a single shoe each.

Britta hesitated, but only for 1-2 seconds – thinking it through. She then flashed a huge smile and correctly pointed out that if she had marked (for example) her right shoe (only), and Niki had marked her left shoe, they would have been able to correctly know which pair of shoes was whose.

This young lady is bright!

I see it in numerous instances, week after week. She’s insightful, logical, diligent and thorough. It’s characteristics which are uniquely, beautifully Britta.