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| Kindergarten |
| First Grade |
| A few months before kindergarten she came in while I was cooking, so happy, she had just cut her hair. I am sure that no matter how hard I tried that she could tell by the look on my face the I wasn't thrilled. But I did try not to upset her, she couldn't put it back. At least it grew out enough that the beautician could give her a pixie cut. |
| Cara found school to be a very frustrating experience ~~ I found it to be more then frustrating. In kindergarten things went well enough as far as her abilities and readiness for school. Then one day she came home with a picture she had drawn. I thought it was wonderful. There was a Ferris Wheel, Clowns, and all types of carnival activities. When she handed it to me and I said "This is wonderful" my daughter stood looking at me and said "It's not very good, I only got one star and the other kids got two or three." I asked her if she knew why and I was told, "It was to be all happy colors and I used some black in it. Black isn't a happy color." Who in the world has a right to tell a child that black is not a happy color. I sat and told her they were wrong. Black can be a very happy color and her grandmother loved black and purple together. It was to be just the first of undoing damage that they could do. It was in kindergarten she begin to read and write. By the beginning of the first grade her teacher was delighted that when she gave them a sentence to finish, that Cara would make a story out of it. She was encouraged to write even though she could not spell the words. She enjoyed this so much and that is where all the little notes started that she would leave for me all over the house. They are on the Index page with her photo's and I will be forever grateful that I saved so many of them. I am glad they encouraged her but they also created a spelling problem that was almost impossible to undo. It was also in kindergarten that I begin to realize that Cara was very kind hearted. They had a dress up day for Halloween. I made a wig out of red yarn, sewed a dress and a pinafore to match her Raggedy Ann. The pricipal showed up and awarded a prize for the best costume. Cara received the prize. She came home very upset and unhappy. She wanted to know why everyone did not get a prize. This quality of kindness was to show all of her life. In the third grade there was a contest from Seattle Pacific University and Cara won an award for writing a book. She was taken to Seattle with a group from Tenino to spend a day. A copy of her book is at the university, and one is here in the Tenino School Library, and I have the 3rd copy of it. |
| In the 5th grade I removed her from public school and put her into a private Christian School a few miles from here. It was one of the best decisions that I made for her. The class room was quiet, no talking was allowed. She was required to do 4 pages in every subject every day, and anything that wasn't finished was her home work. Nothing lower that an 80% was accepted for a test. Score below that and you redid that section and that test. Here she was doing harder work but making A's and B+ with no problems. People suggest this is to rigid for school, but it is not. She loved going and they had wonderful recess times where all of the class (5th to 9th grade) played together, built forts in the woods, or we took them for ice cream, and days playing at the ocean and picnics. What they learned was school was a place to work, and then there was time to play. By the 7th grade the school was bought by another church and closed almost immediately over religious differences. So in the 7th grade it was back to Public School. During these years Cara still played on the teams from the school, and she excelled in sports. |
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| Baseball Championship |
| Next year, Front Page news. She didn't like this picture because she said she looked mean~ but she just looked determined. |
| Considering her size and lack of height you would not have expected her to excel in Basketball. But it was something she loved. In our living room she had a "Nerf Hoop" set up and when her brother's friends came, and they came often, she insisted they had to play a game of basketball with her. Since they were now in High School and she was still very little she made them play from their knees and she got to play standing on her feet. In the 5th Grade she ask to go to St. Martin's College basketball camp for girls. After she signed up it turned out there were not enough of the younger girls to have a camp but they were allowed to join the high school girls if they wanted to. Cara wanted to. She took the top award two years in a row. |
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| Being short can be an advantage if you are fast enough to slip under someone and steal the ball. |
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| In 3 days time she shot 52 out of 60 baskets from the free throw line. |
| During these years a teacher in town started a mixed team for our kids in Basketball. Cara was in the starting line up with the 4 top boys who played. When they went to a boys school to play a game, the coach called her over during the pre-game practice. The other coach was refusing to allow the girls to play because he claimed they might get hurt. But he told, Cara, he had said that she could play. Cara chose to sit out the game with the other girls. |
| During these years I also managed to get her some tennis lessons and again she found a sport she loved. But in the little town where we lived none of the girls played Tennis so her few chances to play were with her big brother. This is beginning to sound as if all I did was pay attention to Cara. That was not the case. Until my oldest son could drive, I was the constant driver taking him and his friends to movies and activities. I got to sit through "Star Wars" six times. By myself, or at least not with him and his friends. He also was provided with years of Piano and Guitar lessons and I was the mother who drove him to those lessons. I had a handicapped son that I drove to school daily for a couple of years and my baby Clint. He too would excel in sports and I would also drive him around to games and activities. But a friend reminded me after Cara's death, of something I had said when she was little. I had told her, "Cara always requires so much more attention. It is so much more important to her that I help her with her school work, listen to her problems, and just pay attention to her." My boys were usually to busy to want my attention, but with Cara it seems she was always in the living room with me. Making me laugh, asking for help on something or telling me about what was happening in her life. For some unknown reason Cara developed a fear of Butterflies and Moths. Just the sight of one would upset her and all of her life she had a real fear of them. I would have understood a fear of bees as she was once attacked by a swarm of hornets. But it was not the bees that frightened her, it was moths and butterflies. I use to laugh and ask her Why? She always yelled they were scaly? A few months before her death we were watching something on TV and they spoke of the scales on a butterflies wings. She immediately started to yell, " I told you......" |
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| A trip to the Ocean with her class |
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