4.75 Years Old

My girl is almost five years old. Sometimes she acts like a baby (crying and screaming instead of using words to say what is bothering her), and other times I think she's already acting like a teenager (stomping off in a huff and showing quite an awful attitude), but most of the time she seems like a preschooler who will soon be a Kindergartener. I love my little princess dearly. I am so grateful the Lord brought her into our family! Here are some of the ways she's changed over the past three months...

1. She spends FAR more time playing in her room. She usually has the CD player on. Sometimes she listens to music, but most of the time she's listening to a book. This last week one of the books she listened to was Stuart Little. Sometimes she's playing on her bed, and other times she's in the pink castle tent with her stuffed animals. Many times she's wearing a princess costume. On Wednesday she invited Paul into her room for Ariel's wedding.

2. She had finished the pre-k handwriting book a couple of months ago (minus the numerals). Recently I started her on the Kindergarten workbook. Also I've started having her write in a journal a few times a week. Her stories are all about princesses.

3. She's been putting random things in her mouth lately - something she hadn't done in a few years. I have no idea why, and I hope she stops asap! Is she trying to imitate Oliver???

4. I've read her 13 chapter books in the past 3 months. The last one we finished was Ramona Quimby, Age 8, and now I'm reading her Little House in the Big Woods.

5. She's obsessed with Annie lately. She's often singing either "Tomorrow" or "It's a hard knock life." Nadia and Ian often are acting out the story together. Ian is usually Daddy Warbucks.

6. She's spent more time playing with Ian's train table the past three months than the previous 12 months put together.

7. She's now working on 150 piece puzzles. I'm hoping once yard sale season starts up again to get her a few more as the 100 piece ones don't challenge her any more.

8. Her favorite thing to watch lately has been Angelina Ballerina.

9. Her sight word vocabulary has greatly increased. Words that she should learn by sounding out she learns through memorization instead.

10. I've started teaching her some Spanish. She loves it!!!

11. Her cutting skills continue to improve as well as her coloring skills.

12. Some of her favorite picture books at the moment include Amelia Bedelia books, Berenstain Bear books, Pinkalicious books, Little House books (picture books based on the Little House on the Prairie series), Lyle the Crocodile books, 101 Dalmatians, and Henry's Freedom Box.

13. She always has cold cereal for breakfast, but her selection constantly changes. It was Raisin Bran yesterday. Her favorite lunch lately has been some pretzels, half a banana, a glass of skim milk or apple juice, a grilled cheese sandwich, and two cookies.

14. She's no longer using a booster seat at the kitchen table.

15. We are working on teaching her not to make unkind retorts when she's reprimanded for something. In reality some of the "threats" she makes are funny, but the attitude is not funny at all.

16. Lately she's been wanting to wear jeans far more than she did over the previous year.