Four Years Old

Anna turned four at the beginning of this month. She is still my independent kid who wants to do everything her way. For example, yesterday she pulled out my quilt that I've been working on for five or ten years. I told her I wanted her to put it away because I didn't want it to get dirty. When she dilly-dallied, I went to pick it up and that brought on a scream of outrage and the declaration that she would give it to me if I would let go first. Then she added that she wanted to hop around it first. Whenever I tell her to give me something that she shouldn't have, she always responds that I have to let go first and then she'll give it to me. We have very similar personalities--we both want to be in control--so we butt heads often, but it is getting better as I'm figuring out how to talk to her so that she'll listen to me.

Her streak of independence and her natural curiosity probably are part of the reason why she loves to play with worms. In fact she loves playing in the dirt in our backyard and just being outside in general. With all this warm weather we've had this spring, she's been playing in my raised garden beds. She loves pulling out worms and the other day while I was digging out weeds, I pointed one out to her. She picked it up and started talking to it like it was a little baby, in a high pitched voice: "Hey there. Do you want to go back into your home?"

Last Thursday we went to PetSmart for a preschool field trip. I was impressed at Anna's willingness to touch the lizards and she even let them put a rat on her shoulder. He liked to nestle back behind her neck under her ponytail.

She has started to ask to say prayers on her own. Often they are full of lots of "thank thee"s. Tonight she said, "Thank thee that daddy can go visit people and serve. Thank thee that I can clean my room. Thank thee for Heather and Maren. Please help them. Please help Ryan on his mission." There was much more to her prayer, and I wish I could have turned on a tape recorder and caught it all because it's only an hour later and I can't remember most of it.

Recently she figured out how to pump on the swings, which is awesome for me because now I only have one child begging me to push her on the swings. Anna still likes a good push, but she can get herself going if I can't get outside at that moment. She's been taking gymnastics all year and she's finally starting to get the idea behind a cartwheel. Now she wants to do them all over the place. She really likes gymnastics, but since she was still talking about her dance class from last year, I decided to sign her up for dance again.

Anna is a great kid who wants to do what's right. Recently, I started planting in my garden and adding fertilizer. I told her I didn't want her playing in there anymore and she's been great about it. Her favorite primary song is still Follow the Prophet and her favorite food is probably cinnamon toast. She also loves to say, "You're really freaking me out, Mom." She's a great kid and we love her.