Fifty-Seven Months

Dear Peeper:
I've been pretty busy lately, with a big web design project, so it's taken me a while to sit down and write this letter, but about a week ago, you turned fifty-seven months old. Four-and-three-quarters. I've even found myself referring to you as "almost five" pretty often.

This past week, you attended a "Kids in the Kitchen" YMCA camp. You seemed to enjoy it, and it was great practice (for all of us) at getting up and out of the house in the morning, and for you at being away all morning, all week. Somehow we kind of thought the YMCA would be focusing on healthy snacks, but not so much. You made a traffic light snack, of graham cracker with icing on it and red, yellow and green Skittles, blue Jell-o, "dirt" made from chocolate pudding and crushed Oreos, non-edible "Gak," and chocolate-dipped pretzel sticks. So not such healthy snacks, but you certainly enjoyed them.

The last few weeks, you've been having something of a potty regression, with several daytime accidents; sometimes multiple accidents per day. We're not sure what's going on there, but are considering a visit to your doctor to rule out any physical causes. On the assumption that it's got more to do with just not wanting to stop what you're doing to go to the potty, we started a sticker chart. You get a sticker for each completely dry day - from wakeu-p to bedtime, and when you've gotten ten stickers, you will get to go to the bouncy-fun-place. It's been almost two weeks, and you have five stickers. Sigh.

The start of school is just around the corner - three weeks to go. You are very positive about it, and seem to be excited about going to the Montessori school. My biggest concern, I think, is that part about getting up and out of the house every day, and needing to actually be there on time. We really need to work on our getting to bed earlier.

Of course, that will mean getting started with our evening routine much earlier, to be sure that we leave plenty of time for reading at bedtime. Lately, we've been reading chapter books - we're on our fourth Little House book, and we detoured a bit to read a Civil War book that was set in our town.

You've really been enjoying the Little House books, and have stopped me several times to ask questions and make comments. I've found it interesting how concerned you seem to be with whether Laura and Mary are obeying their parents, or whether they have permission to do something.

In Little House on the Prairie, the first one that we read, there was a scene in which Pa had told the girls not to go in the creek, but Laura was really hot and started thinking about how it would't hurt to just put her feet in. You yelled "NO! Pa told her not to!

If only you were as concerned about whether you have parental permission to do things.

So, what other interesting things have you had to say over the past month or so?

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Mommy and I were standing in the kitchen, when you came in, holding her empty Goldfish bowl. You didn't say a word to us, just went and stood in front of the (upper) snack cabinet and started jumping up and down, "Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!"
What are you trying to do?
I'm trying -ugh- to get some -jump- more Goldfish.

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Well, hmm, I don't seem to have actually posted anything else on Facebook this month, and you know me and my memory.

Oh well.

Happy 3/4 + a bit birthday, little girlie. I love you.


Love,
Mama