Emma at 4 years old

(Originally written in early October, but just now getting posted!)

Emma is at such a fun age.  She is becoming more inquisitive, and yet she also has really developed some good reasoning skills too.  She is really like a sponge!  She is such a sweet and caring girl, and still loves being a helper.  She likes cleaning up, and baking/cooking (pretend or real, though without a kitchen the past few months there haven’t been many opportunities for real cooking!), she loves to play pretend and has a great imagination.  She can play in her room with her dolls and toys for a long time all by herself.  You can hear her off in her room talking and singing and making up stories.  She often will pretend to review or introduce and play with toys like she sees people do on YouTube kids. 

Baking with Daddy in her new Easy Bake Oven that she just got for her birthday

She is really starting to learn her letters and some phonics to go with that.  She knows her numbers up through 10 pretty well.  She can recognize her own name in print, and can write it, though sometimes her M’s look more like N’s.  She knows her colors and most shapes pretty well.  These are all things she’ll develop more in preschool though too.

Painting at preschool

She doesn’t like her hair being brushed, especially by me, as her head is pretty sensitive to if her hair gets pulled too hard.  I try to hold it and brush just the ends on the other side of my hand from her head, but that still isn’t good enough and she’ll cry.  She still likes her hair long though, but she probably needs it trimmed up soon.  It has gotten quite long!

On some days, she demands to pick out her own clothes, and she does a pretty good job of picking out cute and matching outfits, but not always. J  I think it’s cute to see what she puts together though.  She picked out her own tennis shoes during our back to school shopping trip and they are so flashy!  They have gold glitter and sparkles all over them, and they also light up in the toe area when she runs (they literally are flashy!).  When I first saw them in the box I wasn’t sure, but when I saw her try them on and run around in them, they were too cute on her not to get them.  She’s gotten many compliments about them too!  I tell people they were all her choice, so she must have some great style!

Wearing her "sparkle" shoes as we call them

Emma is wearing size 4T clothes now and size 101/2-11 shoes.  At her 4-year check up she weighed 39 lbs 4.8 oz (80%) and was 41" (78%) tall.  She had to get a few shots at her appointment this year.  She was mentally prepared for them and isn’t as scared of shots as Evan, though once she saw the needles she did start to get more scared and we did have to hold onto her more than I thought we would.  She calmed herself down alright with the idea of getting tattoos and stickers, but later in the day she must not have been feeling well from the shots, because she complained and got kind of whiny about it.  She’d say things like “I wish I hadn’t gotten needle shots”.  She was pretty sensitive on her legs until she decided to take the bandaids off, after which she didn’t really think about it or mention it much anymore.  But she wasn’t ready to take the bandaids off for awhile (like at least a day or so).

Emma is a very empathetic girl.  When we watch TV or movies, she is very much like me in that she must really feel for the characters.  If something is sad or scary, she feels like very much.  This past summer we watched an older live-action movie with dogs and a cat called “Homeward Bound.”  It was a cute movie, but it was sad and a little scary at times, especially at the end when you thought the older dog wasn’t going to make it home.  After the movie, even though she saw the older dog make it home, she kept asking about him being stuck in the hole, and during the credits she cried…hard!  She must have bottled up all her sadness and then it just flowed.  Poor girl, I know how she feels, because I’m the exact same way.  I just don’t remember feeling that way until I was older, but who knows, maybe I started that at her age too.

Snuggling Daddy while watching a movie

Even though we had a rough phase with her at 3 ½ years old, I think we’re mostly over that now and back to normal Emma.  There are still a few times when she’ll refuse to make a decision though, which reminds me of the 3 ½ phase, but either we learned tricks to get her out of that, or she’s learned that when we have to put our foot down that she’ll have to give in a bit, but it’s not as bad as it was before. 

Emma also tends to be bashful when she’s first placed into a situation.  Even though she’s been in preschool a month now, she still is this way in the morning.  Her teachers will say “Good morning Emma” and she’ll pretty much snub them and make a grumpy grunt sound. She’ll hide behind me sometimes too, but when it’s time to go inside she will go without much of a fight.  Then she gets into her routine and things go fine, but she just has to learn how to get over the goodbye/drop off change.  When I ask her why she does that she says because she’s shy, but we all know she’s not really shy.  I think she just needs time to warm up to things, as I do as well.  However, I hope she’ll learn to be respectful and respond to people politely soon, because it is actually kind of rude what she’s doing now.  Her teachers understand all kids have different ways of dealing with the new transitions, so they don’t seem to mind, but I hope she’ll get over this phase eventually.

Emma still mispronounces a few words, and I still love it.  Oatmeal is still “opymeal” and wasp is still “waps”.  It will be a sad day for me to hear her so grown up that she’s corrected those cute mispronunciations.  Another unique thing she says is that she refers to people as "humans". For example, instead of saying "there were two people there", she'll say "there were two humans there".

Favorite toys/characters/activities: Trolls, Moana, Barbies, Puppies/kitty cats, Shopkins, Play food/kitchen, Baby dolls, Tea parties

Favorite TV shows: Bo on the Go, Spirit, Mia and Me, The Gruffalo, The Gruffalo’s Child, Room on the Broom, YouTube kids shows where kids play with toys

Favorite books: Hoot (counting book), The Gruffalo, Spot loves Mommy

Emma still loves puppy dogs!

Overall, I feel like Emma grew so much in the past few weeks, and that suddenly she is so much thinner and taller and has longer legs.  This is partly fact and not just my impression, because that’s what prompted the move from 3T to 4T pants, but it is also something I seem to notice more when I see her in photos. She is certainly growing up fast, but she is still my sweet little girl. I love hearing her tell me at bed time “I love you too, ma ma.”  And when she wants a kiss, she wants one on the lips! There is something so precious about kisses from her sweet little lips, and I’ve come to quite enjoy this even though that was not something I had ever intended.  She is such a delightful, spirited, and smart little girl and I love her to pieces!