Joyful Jenna

Months ago, I did a post all about Micah. Decided I'll do one about each kid, Jenna being next.

I titled this "Joyful Jenna", and that is so true-- she has an overall personality of being cheerful, agreeable, joyful. She smiles a lot when she is around people she knows and loves. She is very social. A few weeks ago, Chad had Jenna, Katie, and me do a little test-- Jenna tested fairly high on the extrovert side (I think higher than Chad, Katie OR me). Hmmm. She acts very shy in many public instances, but she also doesn't really want to be alone much. Never has since she was little. Katie and Claire would want to be off pretending by themselves when they were little, but not Jenna (or Micah much, either, for that matter). Jenna would rather be in on what someone else is doing.

Jenna loves to play games, likes puzzles (helps me with large jigsaw puzzles), enjoys word games and Sudoku. She's very gifted at thinking thru math concepts, has beautiful handwriting, and good grammar/spelling. She's pretty academic and not real excited about physical pursuits. In fact, she still struggles with flinching when people throw balls toward her. However, she likes to jump rope and swim. Lately, she's been more interested in volleyball, but I haven't seen her play-- maybe playing it will help her get over her fear of the ball hitting her.

Jenna is extremely conscientious, in fact bordering on perfectionist sometimes. Those of us who are adults have seen the good side of perfectionism and the bad. This may be a blessing and a disadvantage for her all her life.

Within our family, she can be very dramatic-- does some hilarious things when acting out words for Guesstures. She did find out she enjoyed having a drama part in the Christmas musical at church, so maybe she'll pursue more drama in the future. She also sings very nicely on pitch, but I've not been able to convince her to sing a solo for anything.

Jenna loves to play piano, tho. She's been plowing through her piano books, and playing lots more than required. She really seems to enjoy it, and has ideas of maybe one day being a piano teacher. She's happy to play piano in public.

Jenna's always been a little fearful. Now her fear of bugs is a bit of a joke. She's even been called Jenna The Fierce. Which, if you know her at all, is hilarious. I offered her $10 if she would kill a cricket in our house last fall (there were 3-5 each day or so, so it wasn't hard to get an opportunity), but she never did manage it. She doesn't even have to touch them. I usually swing at them with a flipflop, so that I can get them before they hop away.

Her best friend at school is McKenzie Foster, whose nickname is Kenzie. Jenna has an interesting class with a few difficult boys, a lot of girls, and a really nice teacher, Daneen Murphy, who just got engaged. For this month, they even have an exchange student named Dong Wan (I think) from South Korea. His English isn't too swift, so he uses a little handheld translator a lot.

Jenna loves to bake with me, and she's pretty agreeable about doing most chores around the house. She's looking forward to being a mother someday.

She doesn't LIKE to keep her room clean, tho. She's been doing this lately because she knows I'm watching for signs of responsibility if she's going to be able to get her ears pierced sometime. :) I'm a little afraid that we could let her get her ears pierced, and the next day her room will go downhill!