You continue to love Caroline. The other day she was fussing and I overheard you drag your stool to the side of her crib so you could talk to her. I heard, "It's ok baby sister. Don't be scared. I right here. Mommy is coming." It was so sweet. Every time you are in her room and you sit together in her chair you want me to take your picture. As she gets better at sitting up they are getting easier to take. In these pictures you are wearing a Santa suit that you wore for your first Christmas 2 years ago. I pulled it out to put on Caroline but it was a 9 month size and too big for her. It was too small for you but you squeezed in somehow.
You are having more fears lately. You talk a lot about monsters and things that are "scary" and "spooky". Sometimes you are scared of the dark or certain lights or reflections. It is so hard to know how to handle these things because even though I know there is nothing to be scared of, these fears are very real for you.You had a lot of fun learning about and celebrating Christmas. I tried to have a balance between celebrating Jesus' Birthday and all of the other fun stuff that happens at Christmas. That was a much harder task than I imagined and we will continue to work on it each year. At the end of this year though I think you have a pretty good grasp of the Biblical Christmas story as well as Santa, the reindeer and Frosty. We went to lots of parties and made lots of crafts. Here you are working on your foam "gingerbread house". I was pretty glad I did it with a foam kit rather than a cookie kit because your attention span was not long enough to finish the project and I think you would have eaten all of the candy.
We have been having some issues in the area of sleep. You really want to give up your nap. You tell me that you are not sleepy and don't need to sleep any more. Some days you claim to be scared because it is too dark and other days because it is too light. You will do anything to stall. I know you are not ready to give up your nap because even though it is getting harder to get you down, you usually do end up taking a 2 hour nap. I wish you would realize that and just stop wasting our time. When we are laying down to read books and go to bed you love to play with my hair. What a girl thing to love.You are becoming so independent. I think we finally can say you are potty trained. You occasionally have an accident but not often. I think that Caroline came right at the time when it was crucial for me to stay on top of you and I didn't so you had a bit of a regression. Even though it took quite a while for you to go from the point where we gave up diapers to the point where we had no accidents, I am glad that I never put you back in diapers. If you had one accident a day that meant that you still had many more successes. You can also fully feed yourself, dress yourself and do most things without my help. It sure is nice to have you so capable when I am needing to take care of Caroline.
Of course with a baby around it is also fun to pretend to be a baby. You have been caught with a pacifier in your mouth and you try to play with all of Caroline's toys, including the exersaucer. It is a good thing you are petite because you are technically within the weight limit of all of her baby toys.
You love to sing. You have started making up your own songs and it is so cute. Whatever you are talking about becomes a song. You have also become OBSESSED with princesses. It is amazing how fast that took over. You talk about the princesses all the time. If we are shopping and you see anything with a princess on it you say you want it. You point out anything that is pink or purple and say they are your favorite color. I think this is something in the DNA of all preschool girls because we have really done nothing to encourage or even expose you to the princesses until you were interested. We were trying to avoid it for as long as possible but I think we are now at the point where we are needing to embrace it.
Discipline is not fun right now. You are basically a very good child but we are working on improving our first time obedience. It means a lot of tears by you as you are disciplined but hopefully we will start seeing some results. Our biggest areas of frustration are mealtimes. bedtimes and getting ready. You want to do things on your own slow time schedule. We are now setting a timer and that helps some. It is a constant power struggle.One night you said you wanted more to eat. It was one of those crazy evenings where you were eating dinner while I was scurrying around. I noticed you did not have your plate of pot roast and carrots. I asked where they went and you said you threw them away. Sure enough, not only did you throw away the food but also the plate and fork. I put you in time out and then talked to you about it. You said that they were yucky. The carrots had germs on them. To you they looked dirty because they had been cooked in the crock pot with the roast and there were flecks of meat and onion on them. You thought it was germs and I had given you icky food so it made sense to you to throw it all away. We had to discuss the proper way to handle this.
You love to help out by getting Hooligan's food. The problem is that sometimes you feed her when it is not time to get food and sometimes you spill. This was a time that you spilled. You told me, "it's ok mommy, I get the broom and dust pan." You did not do a great job cleaning it up and I had to help you but I did appreciate that you knew you had to clean up your messes.You are learning the meaning of prayer. We have always prayed with you every day before nap and bed. We are trying to pray more though out the day. You are learning what kinds of things we pray for and that God answers prayer. Right now you still like me to say the prayer and you will tell me what to pray for. We have a standard set of requests which include, "pray that I not get any boo-boos, that I not cry, that Caroline not cry, that Daddy's tummy feel better and mommy's back feel better". Even when mommy and daddy feel 100% we pray for these things.
You love to dress yourself. You say, "I do it all my byself". The other day you were all ready for church, including a very cute hair do and bow. Then you saw your bike helmet and decided that was what you needed to wear. It messed up your hair and you would not let me redo it. I think that the turquoise Dora helmet looks great with your Christmas dress.
You are a little confused on Jesus. One thing you are not allowed to do is put your feet on the table. I know, we are mean. Anyway, one night you tried to put your foot on the table and told you that Jesus told you to. I guess it is kind of like saying "the devil made me do it" but you know that Jesus is the good buy and what He says goes. You have several other times blamed your disobedience on God or Jesus. It is an issue we will have to work on.A new phrase that I love is "a hug and a kiss". When we put you to bed or say goodbye, you always ask for "a hug and a kiss." It is so cute and so sweet.
You are so much fun. Daddy and I love the stories you tell, the songs you sing, your imagination and your love.
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