Four Year Checkup

It truly seemed like four years old was a lifetime away when Em was 2 and getting her last round of shots, and now it's here!

We went on a Thursday afternoon after school, and she was in great spirits--she got a gown to wear this time, and the technician was a young guy, who she thought was very handsome (and told him so).  She showed off her crazy vocabulary and did well with the vision test.  He redid one part of the hearing test a couple of times because she didn't hear the deepest beep--we weren't overly concerned about her hearing since she had a couple of pretty advanced hearing tests when she was seeing the ENT specialist.  I think she just has very selective hearing, so if the beep took too long, she found something more interesting to do or talk about while she waited.

As usual, she went straight for the reading material.  They always have books in the exam rooms, but I sometimes take a few of her favorites too, just in case we wait long enough to go through all of them.

When the books were done, she put on a little dance show.

And I got her to stand still long enough for one smile :).

Overall, she's perfect--she regained the weight from when she was so sick last month and weighs 41 pounds now (82nd percentile).  She's 43.25 inches tall (95th percentile).  She did fantastic until it was time for shots--she had two (boosters for MMRV, Polio and DTap), and is now done until she's 10 years old!  Now that had better take a little longer to get here.  She put on a pretty good screaming/crying show for the shots, and even limped around after we got home, saying her leg hurt.  Funny that it really only hurts when she's not jumping, playing or doing something she wants to do.

Em can write all of her letters, and can spell some words--usually, she'll ask me to tell her the letters of the word she wants to write, and she'll do the writing on her own.  We're working on beginning reading, and when we really take the time, she does a great job with sounding out some very simple words.

Nighttime potty training has been a much better experience than we imagined--she's so happy to be out of pull-ups completely!  I still get up once in the middle of the night to take her to the potty, and she almost never wets the bed.  Once in a while, if she drinks a lot of water later than usual, there will be an accident, but the sheet protectors have been great, since they prevent having to change the whole bed out at midnight.

Em's personality continues to blossom, and she makes friends so easily.  She is truly a leader (her teachers have told us this repeatedly), and always knows the right thing to do.  Of course, she doesn't always make the right decision, but typically responds pretty well to correction, and fully understands the concept of rewards for good behavior.  We've struggled a little bit with consistency in our discipline, but I think we're getting much better.  She sometimes makes it tough to stick to our guns when we threaten to take something away as punishment, but we're improving.  Honestly, the most valuable thing we have with her is books, so when she doesn't cooperate at night or won't listen, she gets her bedtime stories taken away. That's a tough one for me too though, since that's one of my favorite times of day!

We still struggle with brushing teeth more than any other routine--hoping we'll get over that eventually, but that's one that I'm not willing to back down on, so it makes it easier to be consistent.  Now we are working on some simple chores and helping with routine things around the house--she doesn't have an allowance, but loves to get loose change for helping with things, and we both feel strongly about teaching her that she needs to earn money instead of expecting it for nothing. It's nice right now, because she values a penny as much as a quarter :).  So we're working on things like different values of money, starting to understand how to tell time, and some other basic concepts like those.

She loves board games and card games, so we'll sometimes play games for an hour or so after dinner at night when it's not too late.  She loves Crazy 8s, Slap Jack, Old Maid, Candy Land and Go Fish, but has some other cute games too, and will play for as long as we will!  She really enjoys the time she has playing with us (or with other kids), but can also play by herself so well for a long time--we'll sometimes hear her in her playroom singing, reading or acting out scenes with her different "friends."  She's a fun girl :).