general kid update

I haven't done a general post about Anya in quite awhile, and am waiting on a load of laundry to finish - so now is as good a time as any.

At 3 years, 3 months, 4 weeks, and 2 days (thanks, ticker on the righthand side of the blog!), Anya is very much...Anya. As her preschool teachers put it, she's like a hummingbird. Mind and body constantly aflutter - she seems to be on both the current and next idea at all times and (literally) bouncing or climbing her way through it all. She's got energy.

At the moment, she is very particular about her appearance. It's dresses and tights only - no deviation from this. And for awhile she's insisted on two ponytails as the only proper hairstyle (which she ends up pulling out through the course of the day). Twice, though, over the last 2 weeks she agreed to wear a headhand - but only one with a big bow on it. So we're branching out. Preferred colors are pink and purple - even better is a combination of the two, and lots of different patterns together. And she's taken to wearing (plastic, kid) necklaces.

Her favorite activities are playing dress-up (wearing Little Mermaid, Belle, or general princess clothes) - especially with her friends, play-acting, any kind of art or craft, dancing (which looks more like jumping to the untrained eye), learning about animals, helping me cook or bake, and gymnastics.

Anya's influenced a lot by her friends at school (Eva & Ella mainly), who are about a year and a half older. I think it's where the dress/tights only thing originated, as well as the hairbows. She's become more sensitive to how others are treating her and gets pretty upset now when she's excluded from something (which happens with older girls). She's also very aware of rules and certain social norms and always brings it up when someone isn't acting in a way she perceives as appropriate (very normal for 3-4 year olds from what I understand).

She is still a climber (a skilled one, I might add), a jumper, and just generally very physically active. I decided to give her a break Winter-Spring session from The Little Gym since she's been doing it for so long. She expressed interest in dancing, so she's enrolled in creative ballet for the time being and we'll see how she likes it. So far so good. We'll probably try other classes as they come up and perhaps go back to gymnastics at some point if she wants to. I will say, though, she is a natural gymnast (like Chris) and got to where she's been doing unassisted forward flips on the bars -- kind of unnerving to watch my 3 year old do that. I'm going to have to keep a close eye on her at playgrounds this summer.

She's been enrolled in swim lessons for a few months. She's terrified of going underwater, and refuses to, so progress has been slow. It'll be a good lesson for her to eventually overcome her fears and gain confidence in something she struggles with.

With "school stuff," Anya's teachers say she's doing well. She can sound out and read short words when we walk her through the process, getting decent at cutting with scissors when we encourage her and walk her through it (otherwise, she gets frustrated quickly). We've discovered she can do simple addition and subtraction - she likes to count and sort things when we eat meals, so we've started asking questions, like "ok, how many would you have if you added 3 more vitamins? What if I took one away?" etc. She gets the concept and has been surprisingly right most of the time.

Oh, dinosaurs. I almost forgot about them. Besides all the girly princess stuff, Anya is very much into dinosaurs. Her favorite tv show is "Dino Dan", which is about this Canadian kid with an unhealthy obsession with dinosaurs. But it's wholesome and she's learning about all sorts of dinosaurs I've never heard of and can't necessarily pronounce.

All in all, Anya is fun, engaging, sometimes frustrating, and definitely still keeps me on my toes. Most of all, she's loved.