Letter Month Fifty-Four
Dear Sarah Graves,
I can't believe that we have made it to fifty-four months or four and a half years. The time has passed in the blink of an eye. You are a lively little girl full of ideas and interested in so many things. Your toddlerhood is far behind you now, but I am really enjoying a lot of the maturity that you have now. wear a size 4 clothes, a size 10 shoes, you like the colors pink and green, and your favorite songs are "This Girl Is on Fire" and anything Frozen. You have been taking swim lessons since the spring and are getting the hang of it. You can keep yourself up in the water without a life jacket on and you are not afraid to go off the diving board.
You are a talker. Your teachers at school tell me how they talk to you like you are an adult and they are impressed by your vocabulary. You like to talk to me and daddy a lot and use the cutest hand gestures and head tilts. My favorite is when you think there is an injustice and become indignant about it. You get particularly worked up if you think that the injustice happened to me. It isn't meant to be funny, but it is a little bit. It is also rewarding to hear you talk to Charlie using some of the same phrases and tones that we use with you. You mirror his feelings and tell him it is alright. You are a sweet sister that way. You sometimes lose your patience when he takes your toy and start to yell at him saying, "Charlie Matthew!", but overall you do a nice job with him.
You are decidedly not a morning person. You resist getting out of bed in the mornings and prefer to ignore the alarm clock or me trying to wake you. This makes our morning routine a little rough at times. Picking out your clothes can be difficult too. For a while you only wanted to wear pants. Then, for my birthday, of your own accord, you put on a dress and since then you only want dresses. You have given up your afternoon nap and seem to do fine without it. You prefer for me to put you to bed at night, but you are getting better at letting Daddy do it. You love it when we finish the story and I lay on you like you are a pillow, a wiggly, giggly pillow! As I lay on you, I try to find the "button" that will turn off the wiggling and giggling. You love this time and ask me for it every night! It is pretty fun for me too. Almost as fun as playing "crocodile" with you and Charlie. You love that time rolling around, tackling each other, hiding under a blanket, being tickled, and just enjoying being together. It is wonderful time that we have together.
You love to play with princess barbie dolls and have a great time making up all sorts of scenarios for them. Most of your ideas for your play come from your passion, which is watching videos on YouTube. Your favorite videos are made by a lady who uses the Frozen princesses to act out some crazy stories about Anna and Kristof and their subsequent children. She has Elsa do some crazy things and Barbie shows up as well. You think they are hilarious and love to tell me about the funny things they are doing or stop the video so I can come watch it with you.
Food is still a tough thing for you. Honestly, I think your food preferences are continuing to become more narrow. Buttered pasta, yogurt, crackers, apple sauce in a pouch, frozen waffles, pancakes, crispy bacon, and buttered biscuits from Chick-Fil-A are you most frequent choices. We have started working with an Occupational Therapist to address issues with muscle tone in your mouth and how you move food through your mouth. You like the time with her and think you are just playing fun games where you handle fruit, sometimes give it a kiss, and finger-paint with yogurt. We also do mouth stretches each day in an effort to build the muscles in your lips and cheeks. We know this will be a slow process, but hope that it will help you to open up to eating other foods.
Preschool has been good for you. You know your letters, the sounds they make, and you can write most of them, and you can write your name. You can count to thirty and miss only a couple of numbers! You are a good listener at school and I am told you are very helpful. You get along well with the kids in your class. Your best friend for a while has been Emmeline. You loved to play Frozen with her, but she didn't share well and insisted that she was always Elsa. It was hard on you when you switched to your new class a few weeks ago and she did not go with you. You quickly became friends with the older kids and have enjoyed the new girls. You have reached an age where you realize that the boys don't want to play the same games as you and feel hurt when they tell you girls can't be superheroes. Daddy has taught you about Wonder Woman and some of the other female superheroes.
You have a tender heart and show so much love. Sometimes you say, "I love you." or "You're the best mommy ever!" out of the blue. You are generous and you care about other people. You are funny and you make us laugh. You are a great kid and I am so lucky to have you.
Love,
Momma
I can't believe that we have made it to fifty-four months or four and a half years. The time has passed in the blink of an eye. You are a lively little girl full of ideas and interested in so many things. Your toddlerhood is far behind you now, but I am really enjoying a lot of the maturity that you have now. wear a size 4 clothes, a size 10 shoes, you like the colors pink and green, and your favorite songs are "This Girl Is on Fire" and anything Frozen. You have been taking swim lessons since the spring and are getting the hang of it. You can keep yourself up in the water without a life jacket on and you are not afraid to go off the diving board.
You are a talker. Your teachers at school tell me how they talk to you like you are an adult and they are impressed by your vocabulary. You like to talk to me and daddy a lot and use the cutest hand gestures and head tilts. My favorite is when you think there is an injustice and become indignant about it. You get particularly worked up if you think that the injustice happened to me. It isn't meant to be funny, but it is a little bit. It is also rewarding to hear you talk to Charlie using some of the same phrases and tones that we use with you. You mirror his feelings and tell him it is alright. You are a sweet sister that way. You sometimes lose your patience when he takes your toy and start to yell at him saying, "Charlie Matthew!", but overall you do a nice job with him. You are decidedly not a morning person. You resist getting out of bed in the mornings and prefer to ignore the alarm clock or me trying to wake you. This makes our morning routine a little rough at times. Picking out your clothes can be difficult too. For a while you only wanted to wear pants. Then, for my birthday, of your own accord, you put on a dress and since then you only want dresses. You have given up your afternoon nap and seem to do fine without it. You prefer for me to put you to bed at night, but you are getting better at letting Daddy do it. You love it when we finish the story and I lay on you like you are a pillow, a wiggly, giggly pillow! As I lay on you, I try to find the "button" that will turn off the wiggling and giggling. You love this time and ask me for it every night! It is pretty fun for me too. Almost as fun as playing "crocodile" with you and Charlie. You love that time rolling around, tackling each other, hiding under a blanket, being tickled, and just enjoying being together. It is wonderful time that we have together. You love to play with princess barbie dolls and have a great time making up all sorts of scenarios for them. Most of your ideas for your play come from your passion, which is watching videos on YouTube. Your favorite videos are made by a lady who uses the Frozen princesses to act out some crazy stories about Anna and Kristof and their subsequent children. She has Elsa do some crazy things and Barbie shows up as well. You think they are hilarious and love to tell me about the funny things they are doing or stop the video so I can come watch it with you.
Food is still a tough thing for you. Honestly, I think your food preferences are continuing to become more narrow. Buttered pasta, yogurt, crackers, apple sauce in a pouch, frozen waffles, pancakes, crispy bacon, and buttered biscuits from Chick-Fil-A are you most frequent choices. We have started working with an Occupational Therapist to address issues with muscle tone in your mouth and how you move food through your mouth. You like the time with her and think you are just playing fun games where you handle fruit, sometimes give it a kiss, and finger-paint with yogurt. We also do mouth stretches each day in an effort to build the muscles in your lips and cheeks. We know this will be a slow process, but hope that it will help you to open up to eating other foods. Preschool has been good for you. You know your letters, the sounds they make, and you can write most of them, and you can write your name. You can count to thirty and miss only a couple of numbers! You are a good listener at school and I am told you are very helpful. You get along well with the kids in your class. Your best friend for a while has been Emmeline. You loved to play Frozen with her, but she didn't share well and insisted that she was always Elsa. It was hard on you when you switched to your new class a few weeks ago and she did not go with you. You quickly became friends with the older kids and have enjoyed the new girls. You have reached an age where you realize that the boys don't want to play the same games as you and feel hurt when they tell you girls can't be superheroes. Daddy has taught you about Wonder Woman and some of the other female superheroes. You have a tender heart and show so much love. Sometimes you say, "I love you." or "You're the best mommy ever!" out of the blue. You are generous and you care about other people. You are funny and you make us laugh. You are a great kid and I am so lucky to have you.
Love,
Momma
Comments
You are right that you are so lucky to have Sarah Graves, but she is also very lucky to have such wonderful parents and of course, her beautiful brother! Nancy