Four

Yesterday, our darling girl turned four. How did this newborn baby four years ago:

Turn into this cute, vibrant, big girl?:

I can't believe what a big girl she is now. We'll know the official figures tomorrow at her Well Child visit, but at last check she was 40 inches tall and 33 pounds. She's grown three inches and gained three pounds in a year. She looks long and lanky, even though I don't think she's very tall for her age (her feet are still tiny). But I do know that our little goose is skinny. She has so little body fat that she violently shivers and shakes each time she gets out of the pool after swimming lessons. And it's no wonder, of course. She eats huge breakfasts, but very little at dinner (we serve her whatever we're making and it's up to her as to whether or not she wants to eat it - most times she'll eat a few bites and declare she's done).

Apart from physical growth, we're both blown away by how much she's learned in the past year.

Here are some of the things she has learned/learned to do:

• Write, spell and recognize her name
• Write both upper and lower case letters
• Write and read simple words like cat, Dad, Mom, and several others
• Simple addition and subtraction
• Ordinal numbers (first, second, third, etc.)
• Recognize and put objects into patterns
• Draw simple objects like smiley faces, stick figures, trees, shapes and suns
• The days of the week and the months of the year
• The words and melodies to dozens of songs, both children and pop songs: Call Me Maybe, Somebody That I Used to Know, Gangnam Style, I Love You Like a Love Song, and many more.
• The states and cities where her grandparents live, including recognizing the states on a map
• And probably countless other things that I can't recall right now.

She's been in the fours class (pre-Kindergarten) all year, while taking Phonics in Junior-K part-time. Although she's been in classes with kids who are one or two grades above her, she's more than met the challenge. In August, when the new school year begins, Charlotte will be in Junior-K full-time, although they're already keeping her in that classs more and more. Suffice it to say, I think she'll be prepared for actual Kindergarten in August 2014.

Of course the past year hasn't been all smiles and rainbows. Between her two year and three year well child visits, Charlotte didn't visit the doctor once. Since turning three, unfortunately, she's been to the doctor's eight times for illnesses - pneumonia three times, scarlet fever twice. It's been challenging and heartbreaking to see her sick, but I think I felt worse for her than she actually felt, barring the times she spiked high fevers.

She's also been testing our limits lately like crazy. Charlotte does not seem to have a great deal of resiliency for adversity. Like I mentioned, she's been taking swimming lessons four days a week at the local high school. Unfortunately, in at least half of the classes, she decided part way through that was too cold and dissolved into tears. No amount of encouragement helped. Luckily, her newest teacher is nice, but tough and makes her keep doing the lesson even when Charlotte begins to complain. It's paying off because yesterday she actually swam, in the water, without the assistance of either the teacher or a kick board! Still, the nightly tantrums have been hard to take, whether they're about swimming, wanting crackers when we're about to have dinner, not wanting to go to bed or whatever. Whereas, she breaks down in the face of adversity, she has no trouble being completely stubborn when it comes to backing down from a tantrum. I think we need to start examining some new strategies.

That being said, most of the time, Charlotte is so much fun to be around. She's inquisitive, she plays by herself really well, and she's a great big sister to Phoebe. The two of them were playing a simple version of hide-and-seek the other night before bed and it was just too cute for words.

Ms. Cheryl, Charlotte's pre-K teacher and the sweetest lady alive, told me yesterday that the change from four to five is really amazing to witness, and also kind of sad. When I heard that, I started tearing up because she's already changed so much in the past year, right before our eyes. Is she really going to change so much again in the next year? I'm not sure I can take it!