Four Years Old

My little girl is four.

She's happy to finally be four like Caillou (one of the shows she watches on Netflix streaming --I love not being a slave to TV schedules). She's been "pretend four" almost the entire month. She couldn't wait to be "real four."

She was so excited for it to be her birthday, especially when she had to endure it being Phaedra's birthday first. It's probably a good thing I moved up her friend party by a week. Even with moving up the party, she was anxiously waiting for it to be her real birthday so she could be four.

Last Sunday, she had a part in the primary program in our ward. She went right up to the microphone and delivered her part that she had memorized. "Family prayer strengthens my family, and I pray for my sister." She was so excited to talk into the microphone. She didn't hesitate at all. For the rest of the program, she could be seen waving her feet around in the air and finding new and interesting ways to position herself on her theater-style folding chair. She's four; what do you expect?

Eleanor plays so well on her own. She's very good at entertaining herself. I love to listen in when she's playing with toys, because you never know what scenario she'll be imagining for them.

She loves to clippety-clop around the house (crawling without using knees or taking actual steps --it looks more like an awkward frog), pretending to be a horse or a dog. Practically every day, she has spent some portion of the day pretending to be a horse or a dog. It can be challenging because she always seems to be underfoot when she's doing this. I have tripped on her or nearly stepped on her many times.

She is so unpredictable when it comes to food. I don't think she has a favorite food (excluding desserts and soda). I can never predict whether she will eat something or not. One day, she might love tacos, but the next time we have them for dinner, she won't touch them. Not even peanut butter sandwiches are an actual garauntee, and she eats a lot of peanut butter sandwiches. We tend to offer them as a back up any time she doesn't want to eat a meal that is being served. She loves berries and most fruits, but I can't think of one actual meal that I can feed her any given time and she will happily eat it. Her preferences are constantly changing.

Several months ago, she finally figured out how to buckle her own seatbelt on her carseat. Now, she insists on doing it herself every time, and we can't move the car until she is buckled (my rule, but she picked up on it). She would get in a big panic if you started the car while she was still doing her buckles, so we developed a policy that we don't start the car until she says, "Ready, get set, go!"

She has found her competitive side, and we are using it to our advantage as much as possible. She likes to race Phaedra to get jammies on at bedtime, and then they race to brush their teeth. Of course, Phaedra always loses; poor girl. One time, they were getting dressed in the morning. I hadn't chosen anything for Eleanor to wear yet (she is just barely showing the slightest interest in choosing something for herself --believe me, I've offered to let her choose for a long time). So as I was dressing Phaedra, I was telling Eleanor to get out a pair of panties, shorts, shirt, etc. I hadn't said anything about them racing because I wasn't going to wait around for Eleanor to get dressed when I was almost finished with Phaedra. Just as I was slipping Phae's last arm into her shirt, Eleanor declares, "I'm going to win first!" Then, she looked at Phaedra and lost it. I don't even want to talk about how long she cried over that one. Eleanor needs to learn to lose. Now, if I know she won't win, I make it very clear that we are NOT racing. I won't even let her think about racing at mealtime, or we would all be stuck waiting for ages to finish our food after her. She says we're pretend racing when we eat, and I don't bother to care who pretend-wins.

Four must be the bragging age, because anytime Eleanor wins a race, she likes to point out how Phaedra lost. She hasn't seemed to brag about anything before this month. Also, as soon as it was getting close to Eleanor's birthday party, she told Phaedra, "I'm the birthday girl now, Phaedra. Not you."

Eleanor has been so lovey-dovey lately. She randomly wraps her arms around me when she's sitting next to me. She gives us kisses on the cheek, the head, and any odd place that might get a laugh out of us. She wants to hold Phaedra when she's sad even though Phaedra only wants Mommy.