Big Girl

Last night, while Diana was at her Back To School night, Allison and I went to watch some of the Slap Chop basketball game.  She didn't like the gym buzzer, but otherwise liked watching everyone run around.

 

On the way home, we were talking about how she's three years old now.  And we remembered that her friend Shane was four years old.  I told her that in a year, she'd also be four years old. 

 

Allison:  Yeah, we'll both be four!  (I didn't have the heart to tell her that Shane would be five by this time).

Me:  Yeah!

Allison:  Two fours… that makes eight!  (My heart leapt.  What a smart girl!)    Orrrrr…. Six.

Me:  How much is two fours?

Allison:  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8…. 9.

Me:  Great work!  I like how you tried to figure it out.  Try again!

Allison:  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9… 10

Me:  I don't think that's quite right.  Try again…

 

It was dark, but I could see her silhouette in my rear view mirror.  She had four fingers held up on each hand.  This time, she touched each one to her mouth in turn, using her lips as a pointer to count each finger.

 

Allison:  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7… 8!  (This time said with finality).  Eight!

 

Praise was heaped.  Clever girl.

 

She also remembered what we'd told her a while back, which was when she was three years old, she wouldn't have to wear a diaper to bed.  We had tried this before a few weeks ago with predictable results (middle of the night sheet changing).  But we gave it another shot last night.  She woke up with some crying at 3am, and by the time I got out of bed, she was in the bathroom on the toilet.  I went to her bed and found that it was all dry.  She returned without any pants on, so I put on some reserves and got her back in bed.  I found her pants in the bathroom, and found those were also dry!  A full night, no diapers, and everything dry. 

 

Have I changed my last diaper without knowing it would be my last?  Maybe not, but I remain cautiously optimistic.

Happy Birthday Allison!

"Welcome to one of the most exciting days of your life."  -- Email from Gabe exactly three years ago upon hearing that we were on our way to the hospital to give birth.  He wasn't kidding.

Today, Allison is three years old.  It feels simultaneously like a short time and a long time ago that she was born.  I certainly can't describe her completely in a single post, but I'll try to hit some highlights.

Physically, Allison is tall and lean.  My mom has measured her against the wall in the garage (where my brother and my own 30+ years of growth is charted).  Since February, she's grown about 2 inches.  I think she's about 38 inches tall and about the same in pounds.  I don't notice it on a day to day basis, but if she runs around the house without any clothes on, I'm struck at how tall and long she looks.

She's very coordinated.  Still loves to run and climb and jump and play.  She can catch and throw a big ball.  She's taking a gym class and does a good job balancing and bouncing and all the little activities they do there.  She's also taking a swimming class and generally loves splashing around and is quickly becoming a good swimmer.

She's big into letters.  She knows the alphabet and the sound of each letters.  She knows the concept of sounding out words, and can read basic three and four letter words like HAT, TOP, PAT, etc.  She tried to read "AGE" the other day, and sounded out "A" (like "at"), "guh, eh…  Aaa-guh-eh."  English is confusing.  A couple weeks ago, we were out at a park and she shocked me by picking up a stick and writing her name in the dirt.  It's totally scrawled, but the intention of making each letter is totally clear.

Math-wise, she recite the numbers to 29, before wrapping around to "twenty-ten, twenty-eleven", all the way up until "twenty-nineteen".  Otherwise, she can count actual things well, and can count smaller numbers by sight alone (without having to point at each one).  She knows all the dice faces by sight, and can count the spots to get the sum of two dice, or count fingers to add two small numbers together.  She doesn't seem particularly interested in the concept of math, though (as opposed to letters/words/reading, which she really seems to enjoy).

I don't know how to measure her logic ability, but she knows conditions and consequences.  She'll frequently say things along the lines of:  "Daddy, I have an idea.  First we'll play cars, and then we'll have dinner, and then we'll watch the Cars movie."

Her memory is outstanding, and frequently surprise us.  When we go to a park, she'll remember some thing or little detail she saw there months in the past.

Emotionally, Allison is a little bit of a mixed bag.  On one hand, she's not "clingy" at all.  At a playground or supermarket or whatever, she'd happily run off without looking back.  She can still be a little nervous around older boys, but not nearly as much as she used to.  In her gym class, when it's time for the kids to use the drinking fountain, she doesn't try to muscle her way up front, but instead lets everyone else go ahead of her.  She's not being polite, but I think is easily intimidated by bigger kids.

She's in daycare with Dorrie three days a week, and preschool two days a week, and I think both are going really well.  Dropoffs were sometimes a little teary, but now that Diana is back to work and we're in a more regular schedule she runs off happily.  At home, she loves to play with us, and still isn't very interested in playing by herself.  We try to encourage that, but it's tough.

She's very good at controlling her emotions and using her words to tell us how she's feeling.  She'll still get pissed and throw a toy or two, but then she'll stop and say "I'm sad.."  When we ask her why she's sad, she'll say something like "I'm sad because I wanted to do (something) and you didn't let me!"  We then explain why she couldn't do whatever it was she wanted to do.

She loves playing with her cars and trucks.  She LOVES the Disney "Cars" movie.  She likes Disney princesses to a lesser degree, and was enjoying watching "A Bugs Life" for a while.  She likes doing little jigsaw puzzles.  She loves wearing her mom's flip-flops.  As she gets more into toys, I'm finding the disparity between boy and girl toys a little aggravating.  I don't really want to steer her towards totally girly stuff, like Barbies and whatever, because the concept of the toys feels so material and shallow.  The boy options are things like superheroes and Transformers and cars and stuff, but I don't want to seem like I'm intentionally raising a total tom-boy, either.  For example… we were looking at shoes the other day for her.  She loves everything with Lightning McQueen on it, but they don't make any shoes that are even remotely feminine with him on it.  They're all blue tough-looking boy shoes.  What's a Cars-loving girl to do?  :)

She doesn't like some loud noises, and will clamp her hands over her ears in public bathrooms because the toilets automatically flush.  She's beginning to be scared of the dark at night, and wants to sleep with the lights on.  She doesn't like clothes with buttons (no idea about this one…)

She sees Yaya Dawn and Bapa John on a pretty regular basis, and Yaya Carole and Bapa Roger when they are in town, and loves seeing them all.  Various grandparents have various methods of playing with her and paying attention to her, and she seems to enjoy them all equally.

She's still in diapers at night time, but otherwise very nicely potty trained.  She eats well, and weekend naptimes have been pretty regular when I'm around to rock to her sleep.  Her health is generally good, with occasional colds, sinus infections, ear infections, etc.  I'll take a respiratory illness over a gastrointestinal bug any day of the week.  Thankfully nothing more serious than that.  She sleeps well through the night, generally around 8:30pm until 6:30am, plus or minus half an hour on either end.

That's about all I can think of for now.  She's a happy kid, growing and learning and doing everything pretty much by the book.  It's fun to take this opportunity to reflect on the past three years, and think about the next couple years to come.