There She Goes!: Ava: 4 Years and 7 Months

This morning, Ava came up to me and pretended to spray perfume on me with a Lego bunny attached to another Lego block. "Now you smell like a mother!" What do mothers spell like? She seems to think mothers have a special smell or she associates my smell with being a mommy.

Ava tells me that she wants to be a mommy when she grows up. It humbles me because I'm her primary role model and I feel like I fail miserably at being a mother at times and yet she wants to be a mother. I will then ask her how many children she wanted, as I did this morning when she pretended to spray perfume on me. "Three! And then I will have one more. I'll have four!"

Ava's a pretty good big sister but she definitely likes to have her space. Ava has her own room and most of the time, she doesn't mind Darcy being in there and playing with her toys. She will keep her door shut if she wanted Darcy to stay out of her elaborately set up picnic tea party. She cries if Darcy takes a Lego she wants while building something. She will often ignore Darcy but Darcy does her own thing anyway as toddlers do. Otherwise, Ava will play with Darcy if I ask her to and is generous about sharing her treats with Darcy unsolicited. It's fun watching them wrestle on the floor after supper. Right now, their sibling relationship is very sweet and mainly peaceful so I am praying that it will continue. We'll have to wait and see.

Ava is a chatterbox. I know kids talk a lot but this one, man. She. talks. a. lot. It is just chatter without taking a breath, it seems. We sometimes have to tell her to stop talking.

Ava of her own volition is constantly practicing writing her letters and writes on all her drawings. Besides a bunch of random letters, she writes her name, my name, and Greg's real name (for some reason, he spelled his name to her instead of "Dad") on every single drawing she makes. She likes for us to spell out words and print the letters. Right now, they are capital letters and I suppose I should teach her to write lowercase letters but I am just not in a hurry. She's also eager to read and I'm half-heartedly working with her. I've downloaded the Phonics app and she is learning to read -an, -at, -ap words.

I don't want to be that parent that needlessly put a lot of pressure on their kids to learn academics as early as possible. I don't think I learned to read until first grade, at 6 years old. I turned into a bookworm and was reading beyond my grade level by the time I was in 3rd grade. I'm living proof that you can teach reading at the grand old age of 6 years and children will flourish. In Ava's case, I'm following her lead but definitely not pushing it.

Ava is taking ballet classes at her preschool. She goes to school on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays and her ballet class is on Thursdays. We've tried keeping the MWF schedule and just taking her for the ballet class on Thursday but we've forgotten a couple of times. Sorry, Ava! I cringe for her sake and also for the money we've spent out of own pocket for her class only for her to miss them. So, we're rearranging her schedule which means Greg and I have to rearrange our schedule somewhat awkwardly but it'll work.

I think Ava hit a growth spurt recently because all of sudden, she can reach the light switches (which are placed higher up than American light switches) and I'm always finding lights on everywhere. I'm teaching her to turn off lights when she is finished.

Ava's a joy and fun to watch grow up. She tests us with her attitude from time to time, sometimes it seems like all the time, often driving me to despair. Other times, she's incredibly sweet and loving. She is a good big sister, and as girly as all get out.