Project 52 - Week 1

Catching up with the Great One

Greta is now 3 years and 3 months old. For Greta the first 12 months were marked by a desire for independent mobility, 13-24 months were about a desire to communicate, 25 - 36 months brought out more of her independent spirit, and so far 36 - 48 months are about increasing her logic and knowledge. I am increasingly astounded at the way she puts things together and has sound logic and reasoning, particularly when I say no to one of her desires. She used to just take our answers at face value and would fuss if she didn't like what we said. Now she will process our answers and then come up with what she views as a logical solution which it often is, although not always appropriate for the moment. She definitely keeps us on our toes and I find myself taking a lot more time to explain the whys and wherefores of life than I used to.

Speaking of why that is her favorite question. Greta loves to talk and doesn't really like to let a moment be silent. She will ask why about everything, even if it is something she already knows. We have been working on only asking why when she truly doesn't understand and not just asking why because she can. My sanity will appreciate it when she finally gets to that point!

Through nighttime devotions and Sunday School Greta has learned a lot of Bible stories and Truths and asks many good questions. Often her questions, sometimes theologically deep, get me thinking and force me to come up with a reason for why we believe what we do. Sometimes they are silly, such as the recent, "Does Jesus like to zerbert?" but like her logic skills I am impressed with how her little mind works and what she is thinking about. In April we had to put our dog Dolly to sleep. She was about 16 years old and her health was declining. We tried to be upfront and honest with Greta about what happened to Dolly and this has led to quite a few discussions on death and asking Jesus into her heart and about sin. My prayer is that these stirrings will grow over the next few months and years to bring her to the point of Salvation.

As far as physical growth Greta is now a few inches north of 3 feet and 30 pounds. She wears a size 3 in clothing and a size 8 shoe. Height wise she is pretty average for her age but her foot is on the small side and she is a skinny thing. Thank goodness for adjustable waist pants or I don't know how I would keep bottoms on her! She loves to dress herself and often her clothing choices don't match but she tries awfully hard. She's gotten quiet proficient at using forks and spoons so we are slowly phasing out bibs, depending on the meal. That's been more difficult for me than for her as I am the one who does the laundry so I see stains waiting to happen if we are eating a messier meal. Greta has odd tastes in food and sometimes that can be a bit of a challenge. We've definitely gone through a difficult few months, food wise. We've been working on getting her to finish a meal and not just stop when her initial hunger pains have vanished because more often than not this results in cries of "I'm hungry!" within the half hour. Yes, there have been quite a few times I've told her she was out of luck since she didn't eat at the last meal and had to wait until the next meal to eat but thus far she hasn't seemed to suffer ;-). Greta's latest favorite food is prunes. This probably has to do with the introduction of prunes & prune juice in Kate's diet. She also enjoys cheese, particularly ones you wouldn't think of a child liking like blue cheese, gorgonzola, & parmesan. Thus far this girl has not met a cheese she did not like.

I have been doing school workbooks with Greta off and on since the spring but I haven't been super consistent. She is almost always willing to do school but sometimes she doesn't exactly try and starts to goof off so that is when I know it is time to put the workbooks away for another day. I have seen her tracing skills improve using this book and thanks to Liz's advice I also got Kumon First Steps books which have been perfect for just starting out. The tracing book got a little too difficult after the first 20 or so lessons so we backed off of that and focused on the First Steps books. With Kate I will probably start with the First Steps books then go to the tracing and other Kumon pre-school books. She also received two sticker books from her Aunt & Uncle for her birthday which have really helped with placement skills as well as number & letter recognition among other things.

Greta still has some pronunciation issues like Muzkit for Music and Dirgy for Dirty. Recently added was Joefuss for Joseph. Phrases she says often are:

Yo Yo Yo Yo - often to Kate and we have no idea where she came up with this one.

That be a good idea? - Said when trying to convince us to do something such as

"Let's go outside Mommy."

"No, it's too cold today."

"We can wear jackets. That be a good idea?"

The biggest fishing pole you ever seen - pole sounds like pool when she says it and this is another one we have no idea where it came from. She'll say it often and completely out of the blue. I'm sure it's something she picked up from Kipper or Thomas but we've yet to figure out what it means.

Greta is an awesome big sister to Kate. There wasn't really any jealousy at first but she didn't quite understand why she now had to share our attention so a phrase we often heard, usually accompanied by tears, was "Please put sister in the swing." Now that she's gotten used to Kate and has realized she can be fun to play with she can't wait for Kate to get bigger where she can do more with her. I'm hoping they will continue to be as great of playmates as they are now.

Speaking of playtime Greta enjoys dressing up, playing with cars & trains, tying knots in string, and pretend cooking & doll play. She really loves Thomas the Train and received 4 engines for Christmas. She also enjoys watching Thomas on netflix. When we are able to be outside she likes riding her new tricycle up and down our not too busy street. She's still working on coordination to steer and peddle at the same time but she's made quite a bit of progress recently.

Well, that pretty much sums up the last year with Greta. If I didn't cover something you want to know about, feel free to ask!