Three-and-three-quarter-year update
Exactly three months shy of Avery’s fourth birthday (!), here’s a rundown of what she’s like:
Interests: Like mentioned last time, Avery loves playing make-believe games: doctor and “baby” are two things she plays both at home and school. In the latter, she usually pretends she’s the mommy – and at home she often throws a doll or stuffed animal under her shirt so that she’s a pregnant one. She has a small group of girlfriends at school and she often requests playdates with them; other frequent requests are to go to the playground, where she loves running around, or the beach, where she enjoys sitting and digging in the sand. She likes being read to a lot, with stories in a Dora the Explorer book (a gift to Zoe from Dan and Jenny) among her current faves. Also like last time, she likes doing pretty much anything her sister does!
Temperament: In a recent e-mail to Avery’s Safta, I described Avery as our little spitfire – so devilish and energetic. Avery does, indeed, like running around acting silly, and also being naughty and pushing boundaries. If she does something she knows she’s not supposed to do (like last night, when her sister “frustrated her” and she tore apart the wooden train Zoe had just put together), she’ll quickly say, “Sorry, sorry!” with a smug smile. And if she’s being reprimanded, she’ll often tilt her head to the side and bat her lashes, hoping that her cuteness will get her out of it. (It doesn’t!) She likes to comment on when her sister does something wrong - “Zoe said a bad word,” she’ll say (she knows “yuck” and “stupid” are off limits in our house) – or point out that Zoe is tired when she’s acting grumpy. She’s also very inquisitive, often asking things like, “What’s that sound?” or “What does that word mean?” Her sweet side continues to show: Zoe was having a rough morning and started crying on the way to school recently and from the backseat I heard Avery quietly comfort her. (“It’s okay, Zoe.”) And one night as I was putting her to sleep she rubbed my arm and told me, “Your arm is pretty, Mama.”
(Pre)school life: At the beginning of the school year, as I’ve mentioned before, the teachers asked parents to jot down their wish this year for their child; I said I wanted Avery to feel at home, be able to show her true self, and to shine! Several months in, I think she’s (finally) shining. Her teachers report that she consistently contributes in class and interacts with her little group of friends, and she’s constantly talking at home about her good friends Naomi, Avery (another one!) and Margaret. (“I only like gools,” she’ll tell me when I ask if she has any boy friends.) She brings home a lot of things she learns at school, like her teachers’ sayings (“That is not okay,” she’ll say, and she also comments on people’s choices), songs and little class traditions (like being rewarded for doing a “mitzvah”). She can still be clingy (“Mama, stay!”) when I drop her off in the mornings, but our tradition of having her wave to me as I walk out has helped. (She likes it so much, in fact, that she now asks us to wave to her from the window between her room and our room at night!)
Other stuff: Her speech is much improved, to the point where I understand almost everything she says. She’s down to one (two if we’re lucky) naps a week. She is a bit more demanding at bedtime than she used to be – routinely asking me to put my “feets” on her bed and lay next to her “just a little bit longer” (no matter how long I’ve been there). She is increasingly independent (able to dress herself on her own) and willing to help out around the house (cleaning up her toys, helping empty the dishwasher, gathering the laundry for me, etc.). And whenever she helps she likes to ask, “Did I earn a privilage?” Two recent milestones: her move to a “big girl” carseat (something she had been asking for for awhile), and her first movie in the theater. (And since that one, she has seen a second as well.) Though she fights with her sister on occasion, the two girls are very close. “Good reading, Zoe!” Avery now calls out (parroting me) when Zoe reads a new word on, for example, a sign outside. And she really relies on her sister: Something frightened her in the car recently, and when I turned around to see if she was okay, I saw that she had grabbed on to Zoe’s hand. I love that they have one another.
-M