And this one is now four.
Like her brother, she's taller than almost all the other kids her age and has been acting like a four-year-old for a while so it's really not all that shocking. Except when it is. Eva is a hilarious four-year old. She sings and dances and invents complicated stories and is shockingly good at making up rhymes. She likes to tell jokes and is an expert at the rhythm of delivery. Good enough, in fact, that one doesn't realize she is sometimes mimicking without understanding. A recent example:
Eva: Why did the dolphin cross the sea?
Mommy: Why?
Eva: to get to the other tide!!!!
Mommy: hahahah
*few moments pass*
Eva: Mommy, "tide" means when both people win. When they tied they both win.
huh.
At four Eva can sound out and write most letters and spends a lot of time "reading" books. She draws people and other things and continues to make really creative artwork. She continues to play out elaborate stories with her dolls or toys or duplos and has also started to get into manipulating Noah's lego sets...
Oh and she is SUUUUUUUUPER into girly stuff. She loves princesses. She loves ballet. For her birthday we had a "Rapunzel Elsa Ice Power" party. We got out the costumes...
Featured both princesses on the cake...
And celebrated with paper crowns and lots of pink.
And then, just to make sure Eva was totally confused about what birthday happened when, we did it all over again with the cousins in the afternoon.
Eva has always known her own mind and this continues to be true. She can follow directions in a workbook but isn't very interested in being limited - she is more likely to respond with "no, I can put the sticker wherever I want" and we are more likely to go along with it. She has creative, unusual ideas and the guts to insist they be tried out. I hope this will always be the case.
Even when it leads to scenes like the following...
Happy Birthday Eva, my special girl. :)