Notes on Sabrina

This morning, I dropped Sabrina off at school early at 8AM to a room full of much older kids. It was the first meeting of the Student Council, for which Sabrina is her class' representative.

She explained to me on the way to school, "When you do different things, there's lots to do." This on a day when she also had Brownies and swimming lessons.

I only found out later that not only is she the youngest member of Student Council, but the next youngest student is in second grade. Yes, she's the only representative from both kindergarten and first grade.

Six-year-old Sabrina can barely write, so the notes she took during her first Student Council meeting this morning read as follows: "tolit trees" for "toiletries"; "close" for "clothes"; "baht rob" for "bath robe"; and "swetshit's pants" for "sweatshirt"? "sweatpants"?

Some sort of "drive" is being organized by the Student Council to help needy people. Sabrina isn't sure who these "needy people" are, only that they need the stuff the kids are going to gather. Apparently, she has already solicited the donation of items from specific classmates, but seems familiarly tongue-tied when asked how she managed to obtain these donation pledges. I can't determine whether she made a presentation to her class, or what. She seems to neither understand the question nor remember how it all came about. It all seems a bit like magic. But then, everything about Sabrina is a bit magical.

During bedtime, she suggested the idea of "incentives" to encourage classmates to follow through on their pledges. Then, she second-guessed herself: "Or maybe I shouldn't do that...." She trailed off, looking very uncertain.

"Oh, you definitely should," I encouraged.

How did all this happen? How did she get to this place, and how will I ever know exactly what she's doing? She doesn't seem to understand it herself.

The enigmatic Sabrina strikes again.