Last night we were reading Todd Parr’s “It’s OK to be Different”. We get to the page with a person in a wheelchair. We talk about wheelchairs, and why some people use them. Bean says “How do people in wheelchairs drive cars?”
3.5 year old brains are amazing little things.
Bean’s first year of preschool is done. The school she goes to operates on a regular September-June calendar, so she is having a summer vacation just like the big kids. She is having a bit of a hard time with the transition, and seems none too happy about no school until the fall. Not a terribly hard time, just her usual MO – potty related accidents, waking a bunch of times in the night, etc. I feel for her, looking at things through her eyes makes me realize how much of ‘how things work’ adults just know. We are on the first full week of no school and she is getting better. As of the first of July we settle into a schedule of me working from home on Monday (WOOT!), then two days with her sitter, then a day with daddy, then Fridays with the sitter. I know the routine and rhythm will help settle her – she does really well with hectic schedules as long as they are just that, scheduled/predictable. And well, me too. I never realized how much I like to have a routine before she came along.
Bean is growing more and more confident. Not just with people, but also physically. She has really become much more inclined to take some risks – well, the three year old variety – calculated risks, but risks all the same. We were at my parents in NJ for a family party this weekend, and she was standing on my moms chair that has an ottoman. I could totally see in her face that she wanted to jump. I suggested she ask Grandma if it was OK to jump on her furniture. Grandma replied that she could until she was 14 (random? yes.) That seemed to be just the encouragement she needed and off she went. Boy was she proud of herself. Back and forth for quite a while.
And at the party, well, there were many high-fives given to relatives, one of my aunts even got a kiss. She and cousin Z got along famously as well. He was pulling all kinds of stunts to make her laugh, and she did. She was also Aunt D’s super helper, even with diaper changes. She is growing into such a fun little person. It was just she and I this weekend (Daddy had to work), and I really truly had fun.
