I wonder why I took so long to write here. I had things to say but couldn’t bring myself to write anything.
Hollace turned 10. She is quite the character. For her birthday she was asking for a box of saltine crackers, a bag of limes, erasers and a kimono. She got all of that except a kimono. Hollace is into erasers as in making community of people out of them. She says she has over 100 of them now. She has kids in her class donating to her collection. Last weekend she drew an elaborate 2 page map of the land these eraser people live.
I bought some half sized index cards last week and Hollace has now seen the potential of those and started drawing what she calls creature cards. I guess they could be compared to Pokemon cards. She draws a picture on the front and some facts about them on the back. She is always asking how to spell words for them. She now has a few from other kids in school that she invited to make a card for. Apparently she has turned this creature thing into a club and has collected 15 names of kids from her class. I ask her what her club is going to do and she doesn’t know, nothing. She just likes collecting names.
Hollace is trying to be that quirky kid. So far it seems like it is going well for her and that kids like her. She wants to be known as weird. I don’t know about that though. Whenever we go to a store, Hollace feels compelled to go all Forest Gump on me by just blurting out to the sales clerk, “I like erasers” (or whatever she likes that day) in this out of touch voice. Like I said, it is Forest Gump like. She told me tonight after we left Target that she doesn’t care if that comes off as weird. She likes weird.
While Hollace seems to be liked (she likes all the girls in her class except one that is mean) and has several friends in class that are boys, she has yet to be invited to a birthday party.
We had her party 2 weeks ago. We only invited 4 kids and 5 of he cousins. We went to the ceramic place we went last year. Only one of the girls showed up. Two of them said they forgot and one forgot to tell her parents (we didn’t have her address to mail hers). The one that showed up lives in the neighborhood and her mom dropped her off at our house since they were expecting a party there for Daytona 500. I am so hung up trying to avoid Super Bowl Sunday for a party that I bumping into Dayton 500 instead.
Meghan, the girl that did show up, gave Hollace money for a gift and an invitation to go shopping with her to Black Market Minerals for gems which is Hollace’s other obsession.
The next day (Monday, no school because of Presidents Day) Meghan came over for a playdate. I was excited that she would have a friend who could come over regularily. Then that afternoon the did the shopping trip.
Not a good thing. They were gone for 5 hours. Meghan brought another friend and they spent most of the time at the mall hitting all the clothes store. Hollace hated that, so not her thing. When they brought her home, the mother said she didn’t think Hollace had a good time.
I just Hollace can hold her own in middle school where being different like that and wanting to be weird will make you a target.