Persistence

Perhaps because so many things came easily to Aubree from such a young age, persistence has never been a strong point.  When faced with a challenging or time-consuming task or situation, she'd often throw up her hands in frustration and refuse to continue to try.  

In the last few months, however, I've seen tremendous growth in Aubree's ability and willingness to persist even when faced with these types of difficult tasks.  

Here are a few recent examples:

In May, she came home from school excited to tell us about a Speech and Debate tournament for 4th-7th graders sponsored by the high school speech/debate team (Aubree was invited to attend as well because she's in a 3rd/4th combo class).  Of course, I was thrilled that she wanted to participate in the tournament.  A child who enjoys public speaking?  Yes, please!  

Aubree chose to compete in the storybook reading category (a special category for the elementary levels, in which the child reads a picture book of her choice aloud as if reading to a group of children).  In the weeks leading up to the tournament she practiced on her brothers without prodding.  The day of the tournament, she dressed herself up, and marched confidently into the building.  

She had to read three different times in front of different judges and competitors, and each time she did so calmly and enthusiastically, excited to have some of her friends there to listen as well.

She had no expectation of winning, but was willing to put herself in the novel situation as a personal challenge.  The tournament was held on Thane's birthday, so after the competition rounds, we almost bailed before the awards ceremony.  Good thing we didn't, because despite being the youngest competitor, Aubree was awarded 3rd place in the storybook reading category (she read "Some Dogs Do," one of our favorite books)!  What's even more impressive to me, is that she immediately started planning for next year's competition, this time saying she wanted to try the (much more demanding) category of sparring. 

Other kids from her class who also competed

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Our Stake puts on an annual 1K/5K/10K fun run.  All the kids participated in the fun run last year and were pretty excited to do so again this year.  

Unfortunately, Bryce had been really sick the day before and was still feeling weak, so he only ran half the race.  I ran with Thane, but 3/4 of the way through he decided he was "done!" and would run no more.  

Aubree, however, ran wonderfully!  She knew she wouldn't be one of the first kids to finish, but that didn't deter her from giving her best effort.  She finished with a smile, and announced that next year she wanted to try to do the 5K.  

All the kids were pleased with the lollipops handed out, especially Graham.

Finally, we've been working on the chore challenge for a couple weeks now and Aubree almost wearies me with her requests to practice/work on her chores.  The results of this challenge don't come quickly or easily, yet Aubree has remained consistent and committed.  I couldn't be more pleased with how hard she's been working lately, and wanted to make sure to take the time to acknowledge and document her efforts.