This post is a week late, but we were in Phoenix last weekend, so we were not able to do the update on time. Still, we need to commemorate this month, because Sabine just seems to be growing by leaps and bounds. (As always!)
Sabine inherited some hair clips from an older neighbor, and she has been hooked on them ever since. We play with them daily, and she even lets me put the clips in her hair now.
Sabine continues to be full of opinions and preferences, and it's fascinating to see her personality unfold. In dance class, she demands a specific color for her scarf, or egg shaker, or sticker, whereas most of the other kids just politely take whatever is handed to them. She picks out her clothes (to some extent) and her current favorites are shorts, because big girls wear shorts. I'm not sure where she gets that, other than I guess she didn't really have a pair of shorts that fit last year, but it's Very Important to be a big girl in all ways, these days.
Purple is an emerging favorite color, especially dark purple. (And dark blue, and dark pink. None of this pastel stuff for this girl!)
Sabine prefers to sit on the potty now without a special kid seat, and she has started waking up dry from her naps and occasionally in the mornings. She still wears a diaper to sleep at night, but otherwise she's in (big girl) underwear all day.
She has started naming things made-up names, it just happened out of the blue. For a long time, if you asked her what her animals names were, the default answer was "Josi." Then the other day we asked her what the name was for the lion on her pajamas, and she said, "Lulu Wig." The mermaid on another pair of pajamas was "Ball-y," and the chick on the third pair was "Kissing Wig." Since then, she's gone around naming everything, including shampoo bottles, refrigerator magnets, and hair clips. Sometimes it's pronounceable, like "Drun," oftentimes it's something more like, "Ishflalflahfshlsh," which can be hard for even the creator to repeat.
Sabine still loves to paint, and she is using her scissors more and more. Right now she prefers to make a little snip with the scissors, then put them down and tear the paper the rest of the way, but it's a start.
The TV can hold Sabine's attention now, which is a blessing and a curse. We still try to limit screen time, but it's also fun to start a new tradition of family movie nights. (Though we still fast-forward through all the scary parts, as Sabine will be quick to tell you.)
Sabine has started a little more independent play, which is also extremely helpful to mommy and daddy, especially when it comes to things like getting dinner ready, or mowing the lawn, when you don't necessarily want a kiddo underfoot. It doesn't last super long, but she does get engrossed in her imagination more and more, and it's funny to hear the things that come out. She talks to everything, and has even started using gibberish sometimes. I can't tell if it's for experimentation with the language, or to not have to come up with conversation when she still wants to talk, or just to be silly, (or maybe a combination of all of the above) but it's funny to hear her carry on a whole conversation in garbled syllables, complete with lots of facial expressions and shoulder shrugs.
Overall, Sabine's real vocabulary is still expanding daily, and we often get compliments on how well she articulates, and it's so helpful when she can now express why she's sad, or scared, or hurting. I think she noticed her first growing pains the other morning, she kept complaining that the back of her knees hurt after she woke up, but there wasn't anything visibly wrong, and I've heard that's a place a lot of kids feel growing pains.
She's such a great combination of so many things right now, serious and silly, young and old, flexible and easily frustrated. A lot of the development seems to be intellectual these days, it's hard to explain, but she's just able to communicate more, and test more limits, and manipulate her surroundings in a more complex way. (Telling daddy he has to share his juice, remembering what happened during her day, convincing friends to trade toys, etc.)
We love you so much, Big Girl!
