When I picked up Zoe from school on Friday, she was laughing and joking with one of her little classmates. As I watched the two of them through the window I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but think how *big* Zoe looked and acted – it was if I was picking up a teenager! Indeed, she is way more mature than ever before.<\/p>\n
Among Zoe’s favorite things these past few months: playing school (she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always the teacher, of course), playing with or throwing Hippo<\/a> elaborate birthday parties, drawing (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to be an artist,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she often tells us), making houses and other objects with her ABC\/123 Lego set, playing hide-and-seek (often with her sister), dancing and performing little schools (which she also does at school<\/a>), filling up and running around the house with bags, and being \u00e2\u20ac\u0153swung\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (I take her arms, Q takes her legs) into bed at night. She is very social \u00e2\u20ac\u201c \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Will you play with me?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she often asks me or Q \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but she has also become more interested in being by herself at times. (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I need alone time,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll declare, before instructing people \u00e2\u20ac\u201c especially Avery \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to knock before entering her room.)<\/p>\n In terms of skills and developmental stuff, she has been able to write letters and her first and last name for some time now, and she can also spell\/write numerous short words (e.g. cat, dog, love) and the names of family members and some friends. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always coming home from school with little pieces of paper (often party invitations) containing the names of her family: Mommy, Daddy, Avery, Zoe and (of course) Hippo. For the past several months, she has asked the meaning of words that she hears and doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t yet know. (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mommy, what does \u00e2\u20ac\u02dclayering’ mean?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) In terms of her own words, she still mispronounces a few: yellow is (still) \u00e2\u20ac\u0153lellow,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d feet are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153feets,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d hospital is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hostelbull,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d remember is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153revember\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and instead of saying \u00e2\u20ac\u0153that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where it is,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where it bees.” She still likes math problems \u00e2\u20ac\u201c she can do simple division and multiplication problems and she recently got down the concept of half (i.e. half of 10 is 5). <\/p>\n Some other milestones: She gave up sucking her thumb during the daytime at the beginning of the year (though she is having a tougher time giving it up at bedtime). And she officially gave up her daily nap in late March, though she still naps occasionally on the weekends.<\/p>\n In terms of personality, she is normally pretty happy and well-mannered. She has emerged as a bit of rule-follower (much like her mom!) \u00e2\u20ac\u201c she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll usually wait for me or Q to give the okay when she asks for something, for example. (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Did you say yes, Mommy?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she’ll ask me, and she often ask if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s okay if she sucks her thumb – since she knows she’s not supposed to.) She is also really loving, often telling me, Q or Avery out of the blue that she loves us or saying things like “I’m going to love you forever,”<\/a> or “I want to be with you always.” And she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also sentimental \u00e2\u20ac\u201c feeling sad after we get home from a trip, for example, and saying she wants to go back. <\/p>\n She is not, of course, an angel \u00e2\u20ac\u201c she can be sassy and mean at times and though her tantrums are less frequent than they used to be, they do still happen. (She had one of her worst episodes ever just last month.) But yet, her bad moods (usually) don’t last long. You can often rationalize with her to calm her down and she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s known to do \u00e2\u20ac\u0153do-overs\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and apologize fairly soon after getting upset. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I love you all the time \u00e2\u20ac\u201c even when I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t listen to you,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she recently told me<\/a>, after an awful blow-up.<\/p>\n As written here before, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good big sister, looking out for Avery, comforting her at times (“Are you okay, sweetie?”) and alerting me or Q if she is upset or needs something. (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Avery\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s awake \u00e2\u20ac\u201c she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s crying!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll tell us after her sister\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s naptime.) She is quite patient <\/a>with her \u00e2\u20ac\u201c rarely getting that upset when Avery, for example, knocks down her toys. (When it kept happening one recent day, she just said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Again??!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) But like any sister she does get irritated at times – usually lashing out by squeezing Avery’s face (something she knows that Avery dislikes). She also made me laugh last week when she said she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to take a bath with Avery that night, per me. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153She is annoying to me,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. <\/p>\n In closing, I often tease Zoe by telling her how little she is. “No, I’m a big girl!” she’ll say in an insulted tone, and she likes to reminds me that she’s the biggest (i.e. tallest) in her class. Indeed, at her official half-year measurement this morning, she came in at 45 inches. <\/p>\n -M<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I picked up Zoe from school on Friday, she was laughing and joking with one of her little classmates. As I watched the two of them through the window I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but think how *big* Zoe looked and acted – it was if I was picking up a teenager! Indeed, she is way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-58-two-kids-may-11"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8643","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=8643"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8705,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8643\/revisions\/8705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}