The other night, as we watched Zoe play, Q said to me that he doesn’t think “toddler” is an accurate word for Zoe anymore. “Little girl” seems more like it!
Indeed, we now have a preschooler – not a little baby – on our hands. Since our last update, Zoe left Elena’s and started at the JCC, and the transition has been fairly smooth. Though we’ve had a few separation issues (she still occasionally sniffles and clings when we drop her off in the morning), she seems very happy with school – and often comes home and sings songs or plays games that she learned there. (She’s often instructing me to “line up” like they do at school, and she likes to ring a pretend bell, which signals that it’s clean-up time.) She enjoys giving me reports on which kids were sick or on vacation on a particular day, and one of her favorite games is to pretend that she’s “Teacher Jamie” and read or give lessons to her “children” or “peoples” (as she calls them).
We recently had a parent-teacher conference, and her teachers reported that Zoe is a pretty easy-going kid. She’s calm and sweet, they said, and she has a lot of empathy towards the other children – especially the younger ones. (When I innocently asked if Zoe ever threw fits or lashed out at other kids, one of her teachers’ eyes got very wide. “Zoe?? Oh, no!” she said. I had to laugh – I guess Zoe saves the “colorful” side of her personality for home!) Zoe likes knowing what’s happening next, her teachers said; she often comes up to them and asks what they’ll be doing after this particular activity. As mentioned here before, they also said that Zoe spends a lot of time doing art projects and playing in the kitchen.
As for favorite activities at home, Zoe still loves playing pretend. She likes playing “doctor,” “cooking” for us, taking us on little trips via airplane or train, and – as just mentioned – pretending she’s a teacher. In recent weeks, she’s been very into “reading” stories (usually very elaborate ones) to us; and she has a fondness for puzzles. (She has two long train puzzles – one of the alphabet and the other of the numbers 1-20 – and they’re really helping her with her letters and numbers.) She doesn’t watch a lot of TV, of course, but she’s now a big fan of Dora the Explorer, which she calls “Dora and Boots.” And Imagination Movers is still an old favorite.
Zoe’s speech and vocabulary have gotten quite advanced, and I’m still sometimes amazed that I can have a normal (practically adult) conversation with her! She does a good job with pronouncing most words, but there are a few words that still come out in a Zoe-way. For example: huge is “hooge,†Muni is “mooney,†and “hood†is “hoot.†I don’t correct her – just for now – because I think they sound so cute!
Zoe can be quite funny times. I always ask her in the afternoons what her favorite part of school is, and she routinely says, “Naptime.” She thinks it’s hilarious – I guess because of my reaction the first time she said it – and now says it just to tease. And recently, after I said something that she found funny, she said to me, “You’re a silly goose, Mommy.” (I often call her a silly goose, and it was cute to have her say it back to me.)
Zoe can also be a bit of a boss. When she wants us to play with her, we’re likely to hear a “You stand here, Mommy!” (We have to remind her to get a “please” in there.) Recently she started telling Q (who always puts her to bed) what he should do after he leaves her room. “You go watch football and eat and then go to bed and just wear your t-shirt, okay, Daddy?” she told him one recent Monday night.
She’s not always so sweet and cute, of course. She still has her share of temper tantrums (especially in the evenings, when she’s tired) – though Q and I have noticed that she’s quicker to say “Sorry” than she used to be.
Zoe remains quite fond of her little sister (the jealousy issues I keep waiting for haven’t arrived yet), and says the sweetest things to her at times (“You make me happy,” she recently told her). She occasionally wants to hold her (though not for long), and she’s always interested in “checking her” – especially with her new doctor’s kit. She’s also quite patient with Avery: the baby likes to pull hair, and Zoe doesn’t even get that upset when Avery pulls hers (and I know it can’t feel good). Recently she started talking about what she has to look forward to as Avery grows: “Soon she’ll walk and run and crawl and sleep in my bed and play!” she said to me the other night. (I don’t want to rush these things of course, but I think it will be pretty fabulous when Avery is older and can be more interactive with her sister!)
And lastly, a milestone. As Q recently reported, Zoe is now nighttime potty-trained. We weren’t even trying to potty-train her (pull-ups at night really weren’t a bother), but it just happened naturally. Eventually she was dry for so many nights that it seemed like a waste to continue using diapers. It’s been a few weeks now, and she’s only had one accident. We’re pretty proud!
-M
