Five-year update

So, our sweet, silly and sassy girl is five today! Is it even possible??

These last six months have brought so much growth in Avery. Yes, her interests are mostly the same as our last update (playing “pretend” with her sister, playing with her dolls, and running around and dancing and generally acting goofy – plus belting out Frozen songs and obsessing over anything Frozen), but she seems just so much more confident in herself these days, and I feel like her true personality has finally really emerged.

When Avery had her kindergarten screening six months ago, I thought she would be ready for kindergarten – but now I know. She loves school, she really absorbs things she learns (she remembers Hebrew songs in a way that I don’t remember Zoe doing at her age, for example), and she has taken a recent interest in reading. (She has been able to read names of friends at school for many months, but she recently said she wanted to start reading books. The one she chose as the first to tackle? A Frozen one, naturally. Oh, and she loves it when Zoe reads to her – which happens often.) Like her sister before her, she seems to like numbers and math – we do flash cards at dinner sometimes, and she has a good grasp of simple addition and subtraction. Bonus: the proud look on her face when she gives the right answer.

She, like many other children her age, is very imaginative. It’s common for her, for example, to point out that an ordinary object looks like something else. She’ll be eating a waffle or sandwich and say (based on the odd shape she created with the bites she took), “Look! It’s a bunny” And she loves using a flashlight in a dark room to create shadow objects on the wall. (Q suggested we take her out and have her stare at the clouds someday. Unfortunately, those big puffy clouds don’t appear that often in San Francisco.)

Though she has at times had difficulty with transition, or been clingy with us when we drop her at school, that is now the exception and not the rule. And it’s also encouraging to me that, while she has historically been shy in public and especially in new situations, she’s now more comfortable in new settings and more likely to respond right away when someone addresses her. (I’ve been working with her on saying “hello” when a teacher or parent greets her in the mornings, as example.)

Despite her somewhat quiet public persona, we consider Avery our wild child: At home, she’s usually running around, being silly, dancing, belting out songs, telling jokes and/or climbing all over her dad. She has a funny sense of humor and likes making people laugh; she’s been known to call me “Silly Billy” and also say “Mommy is chopped liver” (after I asked her once, when she wanted her dad instead of me, if I was chopped liver. She thinks it’s hysterical). If she had a catch-phrase, it might be, “Are you KIDDING me?” (which she says in response to many things) – and she makes me laugh by asking, almost every time I call her one, “What’s a drama queen?” She also has a naughty streak – let’s just say that talk of certain bodily functions (though she knows she shouldn’t do it) give her fits of laughter.

She’s been known to be defiant and get in trouble, and she also can get antsy/jealous if she thinks we’re paying too much attention to her sister (as discussed here earlier). But in general she’s a great kid who gets along really well with her sister (something others have taken notice of) and who often showers us with sweet words and big hugs.

Some random things: She really likes swimming and, after a few months of classes, finally began swimming under water. Despite her love for water, she hates taking baths and often gives us a really hard time (running through the house to avoid us, crying and complaining, etc.) when she has to take one! She loves listening to music (especially in the car), and we alternate between the Frozen soundtrack and our Alphabet Rockers CDs. One of her new favorites, though, is “Five Bears in the Bed” (which reminds me of Aunt Sandy, since we also liked this when we were little). Avery does help around the house, but she’s not the natural helper that her sister is – let’s just say I get a lot of dragging the feet or heavy sighs when I ask her to make her bed or empty the dishwasher. We’ll work on that!

-M

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