Kate is now three and a half years old
and is overdue for an update too!
Kate is still at Good Samaritan
Academy and currently goes three mornings a week – Mondays, Wednesdays and
Fridays. She is now in the Puppies class
which has 19 kids, a large class. I love
her teachers, Ms. Cindy and Ms. Krystal, and they are always so sweet to take a
minute and tell me about Kate’s day.
Recently, Kate has started to learn how to trace letters and learn
opposites, which is just another sign of how big my little girl is getting. When I drop her off in the morning, she
escorts me to her classroom to drop her lunch box off and then kisses and hugs
me goodbye. Her friends are usually in
the great room each morning and Kate will typically walk over to the coloring
table and sit down by herself to draw.
When I pick her up at lunch, she is usually sitting in the corner reading
a book. It used to make me sad, thinking
she was all by herself, but I’ve come to realize that’s what she prefers. As I walk into her classroom to pick her up,
there’s a chorus of kids saying, “Kate Evers, your mommy is here”. They all address each other by their first
AND last names – so funny.
Jingle Jam recently ended due to a
lack of participation so we asked Kate if there was anything else she wanted to
do and she said she wanted to try “Playball”.
Each Monday, the Playball coach comes to school and takes the kids
upstairs where they learn how to play different games and be a part of a
team. She has also expressed an interest
in dance since several of her friends at school participate in dance. Depending on our financial situation in the
fall, we might sign her up for that.
It’s a much bigger financial commitment (almost $300!) so I want to make
sure it’s something she wants to do. I
don’t see a long term dance career in Kate’s future, but I want to give her the
opportunity to try whatever she has an interest in.
I am proud to say that Kate is fully
potty trained with the exception of an occasional accident (I’m slowly
recovering from the Chick-fil-a incident, Kate recovered immediately –
haha). She will even wake up dry at
naptime and bedtime several times a week but she still wears a pullup at those
times. I’m in no rush to night train
right now. The Hershey chocolate eggs
were our life saver when it came to getting over the potty hurdle we had been
facing for months. We had tried bribing
Kate with toys and also tried taking away her tv privileges and nothing worked
until that fateful day I bought a bag of Hershey chocolate eggs. Kate tried a chocolate egg on the way home
from school and said she loved them. I
immediately took advantage of that statement and told her that if she wanted
more, she had to go on the potty. I
thought it was a long shot like everything else we had tried, but when we got
home, she went on the potty and she hasn’t looked back since – a HUGE
relief!
Kate loves her little brother and is a
great big sister. She isn’t fond of
sharing her toys but most of her toys aren’t suitable for Mason to play with
anyway. At Easter lunch, Mason managed
to grab Kate’s new Lalaloopsey unicorn to chew on and Kate burst into tears when
she saw him doing that. To minimize the
drama (I thought), I gave Mason another chew toy and took the unicorn from him
to give to Kate and he immediately burst into tears. It won’t be the last time they fight over the
same toy but I didn’t expect it to start so early!
Kate loves to sing either in the car
to the radio, at church, or while she is playing in her room. She is also starting to do more pretend play –
I’ll hear her making up conversations (sometimes heated) between her princesses,
ponies, babies or stuffed animals. She
still loves to watch tv and her favorites include: Mickey, Dora, Curious George,
Diego, and Doc McStuffins. She also
loves to play with her princesses, the princess carriage, Rapunzel dress and
shoes, bubbles, chalk, coloring books, and stickers. She is a whiz at puzzles and can easily
master the 48 piece puzzles. Puzzles are
one of those things that people approach differently and Kate definitely has her
own approach. We have to tried to show
her how to put together the edged pieces first to create a frame, but she
prefers to start at one spot and work out from there. I’m even more amazed at how she never looks
at the picture of the completed puzzle – she just focuses on the pieces.
Although Kate is a great kid, she has
given us some challenging parenting moments.
We are constantly reminding Kate to use her manners such as “Please” and
“Thank you”, which is something I think she should have engrained in her by now.
Justin and I are still working with her on saying “Yes/No Ma’am” and “Yes/No
Sir” but that is another thing we have to consistently remind her about. She doesn’t have the concept that she replies
to mommy with “Ma’am” and daddy with “Sir”; everyone is “Sir” right now. I know one day it will click with her so for
now we just try to be consistent.
Another bad habit Kate has developed is chirping or making noises instead
of using her words. Sadly, we can
interpret what they mean, but we try hard to ignore her until she uses words or
remind her to use her words instead. Brushing and fixing her hair is another
ordeal most mornings. Kate has told me
she wants long hair, but only wants it in a “small ponytail”. She will pitch a fit, crying and screaming
with huge tears, if I put it in a big ponytail or in pigtails. She is extremely tender-headed when I brush
her hair and repeats “Tentle Mommy, TENTLE!” until I’m done.
Dramatic.
Kate still has all the same favorite
foods such as chicken fingers, French fries, vanilla or chocolate ice cream,
pizza, Kashi cereal bars, Cheez-Its, M&Ms, Craisins, grapes, strawberries,
apple juice, fruit punch, milk and sweet tea.
Recent phases she says
include:
- Not quite yet (if I ask her if she’s
ready to do something)
- A little help
here!
- Just tell me!
- When I was a little girl… (I think she
has heard me say that)
- Sometime day (a combination of “someday” and
“some time”)
- Last day (a combination of “last time”
and “one day”)
Lately, she has developed a quirk where she wants to smell everything. It's so odd, and anything she holds like food, a toy, clothes, etc all goes straight to her nose. I'm perplexed as to how this started, maybe she is learning the five senses at school, but if so she has taken "smell" to a whole new level. She also tries to find as many excuses as she can to get out of bed on some nights. It's not every night, but occasionally she will come out of her room and tell us the reason why. She used "I'm thirsty" and "I have to potty" at first but now she has expanded her reasons to include "my eyes hurt", "I hurt my finger", "I can't find kitty" and on and on. She usually only uses an excuse once, so she's getting more and more creative theses past couple weeks as to why it was necessary for her to get out of bed. She tries to portray a concerned look at her face which quickly turns to a smile when she actually gets the sentence out.
She is a hoot and I love hearing her
sweet little voice. Occasionally, she
will tell us to “Hush” and “You're hurting my ears” if we tell her something she
doesn’t like but she has quickly learned those phrases get her in trouble. Bedtime now is generally around 8 and she
will sleep in as late as 7:30 or 8:00 unless it’s a school day and then we usually
wake her up around 6:30. Kate still
needs a nap, but it continues to be difficult to get her to go to sleep ever since she
has started going part time to school. When she does finally fall asleep, she
usually sleeps an hour and a half. Daddy has
discovered that Kate will go to sleep faster if she is in our room for nap
time. I guess the temptation to get out
of bed and play is too great for her in her room.
Kate is also in that independent stage where she wants to do everything herself. I usually let her attempt the task first, even when I know she is going to get frustrated and quit. The other night, she was putting on her pajamas and came shuffling out with her pajama pants around her ankles. She had her hand on her hips and exclaimed, "Help Mommy! I can't get my pants on and it's not my job to do it!" How do you respond to that? Haha.
Kate is the most precious little girl
and I wouldn’t change anything about her! When I picked her up from school today, it was raining and she said, "Don't worry Mommy, God sends the rain to help the flowers grow!" I love her more than words can express and I’m looking forward to all the
fun times ahead! Here are a few recent pictures of Kate, although I wish there were more!
The puzzle queen
"Playing" video games at the airport.
Hello Kitty and Kate in their Rapunzel dresses.
We got ready for church early one Wednesday night and I begged Kate to take a picture with Mason. It was the first picture I have of them holding hand which is so sweet. But instead of getting a great picture of them together, I captured this:
First they were both happy...
then only one...
and none.
