Audrey turned 3 last month. We had a birthday party for her in the backyard. We invited a local singer/songwriter who plays children's music. He plays around town regularly and she is a big fan. It was a surprise to her and Aaron and when he showed up and she literally could not speak. She just spoke jibberish, she was so excited. It was a lot of fun.
Her hair has gotten so long. I gave up on trying to trim her bangs straight, so we've been growing them out. Most days they are in ponytails, but not when we harvested our pumpkins yesterday (when we took these pictures).
Audrey has a style all her own. It mostly involves wearing stripey pants, or polka-dots. And pink. And an owlie hat a lot of times. Despite the pink, she's not very girly. She is just as happy to wear a hand-me down shirt or jammies from Aaron as she is to wear the more girly hand-me-downs we've been fortunate to get from friends and family.
Shortly after Aaron started Kindergarten, I signed Audrey up for a preschool class that meets once a week and requires a parent (or nanny in our case) to stay. They have circle time at the beginning and end, but the rest of the time is self-directed. There is always a craft or two for the kids to work on and outside time to play. Kim has been taking Audrey for the last two months. She is really blossoming there. Audrey is a very shy girl, but at the preschool, she interactes with the teacher quite a bit and does tasks independently of Kim (who is also watching Lila). The class is offered in 3 week sessions and at first I only signed her up for 1, but I've been signing her up for subsequent sessions because she enjoys it so much.
Audrey will turn 5 just nine days after the cutoff for Kindergarten in 2014. The state of California is moving the cutoff date up one month each year until 2014. This year the cutoff was November 1. Audrey already knows her alphabet and about half of the letter sounds. She can almost count to twenty without making a mistake. And she now recognizes the word 'the' which is how Aaron started learning to read. Since they are teaching the letter sounds to the kids in Aaron's class and many of them do not know them, I'm pretty sure Audrey will be ready for Kindergarten in 2 years. I can't imagine making her start when she is almost 6. Since Aaron already knows what he needs to know by the end of Kindergarten, I am hoping the school will let us enroll Audrey for the 2014-2015 school year.
After Aaron started school, Audrey went through an adjustment phase. She did great while he was in school, and even up through nap time. But in the afternoons, she wasn't listening to me, melting down and ending up in time-out every day. After awhile, maybe after she started her preschool class, she settled down a bit. But she is still high drama when she doesn't get what she wants.
Audrey is such a sweet girl. And so verbal. She often talks about how much she loves her family, and lists off all the people in her family. Yesterday, she told Thom "I love you, Papa." And he replied "I love you too, Audrey." And then she announced "We love each other!".
I love her use of language and how much she seems to understand. This morning, I was still in bed when she got up. Whenever I'm in bed, she is impatient for me to get up and go potty with her and make her breakfast (I think before Papa does it instead, because she wants me to do these things for her.) So this morning, she was telling me to get up and that I could go potty after she went potty and then I could get her the special cereal that she has been waiting until Sunday to have. I said she was awfully bossy this morning. So she immediately said in her sweetest voice, "Mama, will you please get up and help me go potty?" Because she understands what bossy means and knows how to use her manners when she remembers.
A couple of weeks ago, I had given Aaron a heart shaped cookie after lunch. Audrey wanted one when her lunch was done. There was only one left in the bag. When I pulled it out, part of the top of the heart was broken off. She looked at it and said "That's not a heart." I told her it was broken and braced myself for a melt-down. She just looked at it, said "Thanks you, Mama" and ate it. She often says thank you to me without prompting for getting her meals or milk or water, all of the things I expect my kids to take for granted.
She still naps every day for about 2 hours. There was a time when it was a bit of a struggle at nap time with crying and lots of declarations of "But I'm not tired!" But we seem to have gotten past that.
Her favorite food of all time is quesadilla. She could eat it every day for lunch and dinner. With raisins. I try to broader what she will eat, but I have to say quesadillas are darn simple to make. And since Thom doesn't get home until close to 7pm, I always make the kids' dinner separately from ours because they need to eat closer to 5pm to get to bed on time. It is tough enough planning our dinner every night, so I rarely plan their dinner more than 5 minutes in advance. Plus I try to make something quick and simple for the kids' dinner since it is Lila's fussiest time of day. Then Thom and I make dinner after all 3 are in bed which is much easier.
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