i love this picture of you. it captures you so perfectly. dressed up as belle, holding sleeping beauty and deep in thought. you are my pensive little girl. you always have been. your mind is always working. you have no problem sitting quietly, but you're always taking everything in. you hear everything i say, no matter who i'm talking to or how softly i'm talking. you remind me of myself in this way. bar bar and gigi used to call me elephant ears :)
i think the 2 words that best describe you at this stage are "pretend like...." i hear those words about 1,000 times a day :) we are usually pretending that we are princesses or teachers or animals or characters in a movie. you have a great imagination and you get ideas to fuel your imagination from friends, school, TV, movies and books. today while eating lunch you said, "where does a cow go on a date? to the moooovies." i think that is the first time you've told a joke. you said you learned it from your new pinkalicious book. you love for us to tell you stories at bedtime, and you always beg for more. you also like to interject your own ideas for the story as it's being told :) i can often get you to tell me a story, and i love to hear how you string many different thoughts together into one story.
you think you can get anything by sweetly saying, "extra special super duper please with sugar on top." i think you learned this from angelina ballerina. you love to watch angelina, curious george and super why on TV. your favorite movies right now are shrek and toy story, but you also rotate through all of your princess movies pretty regularly. you recently also became interested in strawberry shortcake after being introduced to her through a library dvd. now you have a strawberry shortcake doll, memory game and multiple dvds. it's surreal to see you playing with something that i loved as a child. that smell hasn't changed a bit. but at the end of the day, the princesses rule the house around here. i think you must have over 20 of them now. and you think you can never have too many :) you also have just about every princess "dress up" dress. some mornings you wake up and come out of your room already dressed as a princess. other days you might be 3 different princesses in the span of 1 day. to think that when you turned 2 the vast majority of your gifts were "cars" themed because you loved the movie so much... who would have thought that 2 years later it would be all princesses all the time?
you still love ballet and often dance around the house. you've recently begun singing along to songs and will even grab the remote to pretend you're singing into a microphone. you have a very sweet voice. you're 2 weeks into ski lessons, and i'm so proud of your willingness to learn. you're doing great! we're on a break from gymnastics, but it was a real joy to see how much you grew through your experiences at the little gym. you loved your teachers, and you had so much fun in class. you also overcame your fear of the balance beam and the high bar. you've been taking swimming lessons off and on for over a year now, and you have come such a long way. you aren't quite ready to go under the water, but you are much more confident in the water - blowing bubbles, putting your nose in the water, jumping in the pool, climbing out unassisted and swimming with a dumbbell float. you eventually do everything, but only on your own timing and under your own circumstances. you continue to be a very clear communicator and strong negotiator. like i said, you want everything to be on your own terms.
you enjoy going to school and spending the day with your teachers and friends. you always come home with lots of energy! you imitate your teachers and really look up to them. you love to play school and have pretend "circle time." one night at dinner you casually said, "when i grow up, and i'm a teacher, i'll be able to cut out really good hearts." you said what we already know... you love to be the teacher. who knows, you just may be one day... or life may take you in a different direction. either way, you will know that your first instinct was to be a teacher. i think you have many qualities that would make for a great teacher - you are smart, you are kind, you are compassionate and you want everyone to follow the rules :) like you, i loved to play school as a kid, and i always insisted on being the teacher. i have always loved school, and i have often thought that at some point, my life would lead me to teaching. i guess it has, and you are one of my students.
your very best friend in the world is hanna, and she is a big influence in your life. the two of you have a love-hate relationship, but you're both maturing and learning how to play together very well. lately, the two of you seem to be on the same page more often than not.
you are an amazing daughter and such a loving sister. your relationship with gavin has become even more nurturing, and the two of you seem to be forming a little team of your own. you are very sweet to him, and i love to watch the two of you together.
it's a little unbelievable to me how much you have grown up in the past year. i don't see any traces of baby anymore. you have grown and matured into a young girl. you make us so proud. we love you so much.
love,
mommy
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