It would be too obvious to write that I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe how fast four years has gone, so I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll skip that and other sentimental stuff and dive right into the good stuff\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Overall, Zoe is a fun and bubbly four-year-old (who, until today, loved to tell people she was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153three-and-three-quarters\u00e2\u20ac\u009d). Her teachers recently told us she spends a lot of time at school acting silly and jumping around \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which sounded pretty accurate to us. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always running around the house, making up games, playing pretend (she likes being a doctor, a teacher or, in a recent development, a baby), or directing me or Q (or whomever else is around) to do certain things. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Okay, guys,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll say before launching into her instructions. <\/p>\n
She loves art (she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s constantly drawing or doing little craft projects, and when I ask her to tell me one thing she did at school that day, she usually answers, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Draw\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) and music. She often comes home singing something she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s learned at school, and she has several non-kid favorites, like Black Eyed Peas\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Imma Be<\/a> (to which we sing, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Zoe B\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) and Sixpence None the Richer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Kiss Me<\/a>. (We recently started listening to the latter; her favorite line is “Kiss me down by the broken tree house,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and she told me one day, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My heart loves this song.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) She likes a lot of different games; she plays Candyland at home and school, for example, and she loves playing memory on our phones.<\/p>\n As mentioned here before, she and her sister have gotten a lot more interactive. (When I used to ask what her favorite thing was about Avery, she would say her ears. The other day I asked and she told me, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Playing with her.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still a really good big sister, updating us on things related to Avery (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Daddy, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s crying,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Avery\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s quiet!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) and putting up (for the most part) with Avery when she tries to take her things. She does get frustrated, of course (we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had to do quite a few reminders about not pushing), and she now often tells me to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Save my spot\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when she gets up to leave something she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been doing. I know what she really means is, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let Avery take my place!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s generally a happy, easy girl \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and also fairly polite. She routinely says \u00e2\u20ac\u0153thank you\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153please\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at the appropriate times, and I always have to fight back a laugh when she says \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no thanks\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when we ask her to do something (e.g. clean up) that she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to. I want her to listen, of course, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s difficult getting angry when she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so polite about *not* listening! <\/p>\n With that said, she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always listen (do any four-year-olds?), and she has her difficult moments. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stop doing that!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a bad guy,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not going to be your friend!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll yell out when particularly upset. There are times, too, when she reminds me of a teen-ager: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Fine!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll say or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I already told you!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not a huge fan of her outbursts, but earlier this fall, she had a tantrum-y moment that actually made me laugh: She was acting out and I commented to her, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh, I get it \u00e2\u20ac\u201c you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re tired.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No, I’m not tired! You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get it!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she yelled back at me.<\/p>\n Speaking of bad moods, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had our ups and downs with bedtime; luckily, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in good phase right now. For many, many months she wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go to bed before hearing a book, a story and a song, but we slowly got her out of that (rigid) routine. (Now she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more flexible about what is being done at bedtime, and who puts her to bed.) She also started sleeping with her stuffed hippopotamus, who took the place of her past bedtime partners \u00e2\u20ac\u201c her brown dog, panda, and white bear. (And, interestingly, she likes to pretend that the hippo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gender changes. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Today he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a boy but tomorrow he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a girl,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll tell me.)<\/p>\n There have been two big developments since her last update: She has practically given up<\/a> her nap (she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll nap maybe one or two times a week), and she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in a new class<\/a> at preschool. She went from being one of the oldest to one of the youngest in her class, but the transition has been fairly smooth. She has made a few new friends, and she picks up new things (words, stories, ideas, etc.) a lot faster than she did last year. Whenever she tells us something new and we ask where she learned it, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My own self,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My mind\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which makes me laugh. <\/p>\n A few random things: She recently started calling people \u00e2\u20ac\u0153silly\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a lot. (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not right, silly,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll say.) She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very into secrets; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell Daddy, but\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll say before whispering something in my ear. She calls the weekends \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Family Time.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Since meeting<\/a> her cousins at Dan and Jenny\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wedding, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been talking about them non-stop. Starting a few weeks ago (totally out of the blue), she began insisting that she pick out her own clothes each day. (Lucky for us, given what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in her wardrobe, her favorite colors remain pink and purple.) <\/p>\n And a few stories: Watching me put on my contacts one day, Zoe said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153When I grow up I want to put those \u00e2\u20ac\u02dctings\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 in my eyes, too.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d When she was sick a few weeks ago, I slept on her bedroom floor; when she woke up and saw my lying there, the first thing she said was, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I love you.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Around the same time she was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153reading\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a Disney book to me. One side was Beauty and the Beast and the other was Cinderella, and she asked, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do you want the story about the girl and the hippopotamus, or the girl dancing with Daddy?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n -M<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It would be too obvious to write that I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe how fast four years has gone, so I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll skip that and other sentimental stuff and dive right into the good stuff\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Overall, Zoe is a fun and bubbly four-year-old (who, until today, loved to tell people she was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153three-and-three-quarters\u00e2\u20ac\u009d). Her teachers recently told us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-52-two-kids-november-10"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6689"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6753,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6689\/revisions\/6753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}