holly b {5 years}

Dear Holly,

Oh my sweet girl, how I love you! In the last few weeks, I've really felt like you're growing up. You were my little Holly for so long, and now you're getting to be my big Holly! (Though that doesn't stop you from always wanting to sit on my lap, which you're also getting big for 😅)

You love art and music, and you're still not the biggest fan of books. Picture books are fine, but almost every time I read a chapter book aloud, you ask at some point, "when are you going to be done???" 😂 You often look for ways to help, so even when your help isn't all that helpful, it's always sweet! (And can be helpful, too 😊) You love being a big sister (you're always trying to tell Peter what to do) but not always a little sister (you and Ada can definitely get at each other's throats!), and you love playing with whichever sibling will play with you.

Our family wouldn't be the same without you, and I'm so glad you're part of it ❤️

Love, Mama

Stats

• 37.8 lbs (37%), 42.0" (42%)
• 4T-5T clothing

Milestones

• Stopped thumb sucking around 4y2m, but has had some occasional regressions where I've needed to put yucky polish on her again. Recently she realized she can rub her nose WITHOUT sucking her thumb (she used to do a thumb-sucking/nose-rubbing combination when she consistently sucked her thumb), so she seems fine to completely give up the thumb now.
• Slept diaper-free for 2 weeks before we eliminated thumb-sucking. When we did THAT, she regressed big time and we had to go back to diapers at night for several months. I accidentally made the two transitions too close, which was the issue. But then we eliminated the diaper again at 4y8m and she's been doing great ever since. (She was very worried about wetting the bed the first week, but she did fine and isn't worried about it at all anymore.)

Favorite Things

• Color: Pink
• Animal: Tiger
• TV show: Gabby's Dollhouse, but we haven't watched TV in like 8 months so she just remembers liking this one 😂
• Food: Sausage and candy
• Movie: "don't even know one"
• Book: Bambi (from her Yoto)
• Thing to do: Play with her My Life doll 
• What she wants to be when she grows up: A piano teacher. She has been saying this for probably a year now, and I'm not sure where she got the notion because she doesn't play piano, and no one else did when she started saying it. But she just keeps sticking with it!
• Things to do with
• Mom: snuggle
• Dad: make funny faces
• Ada: play with My Life dolls with the Christmas tree
• Peter: tickle his toes

Funny/Cute Things She's Said in the Last Year

• "I don't want a hangnail; it's the worstest thing!"
• "I really like grasshoppers. They're like bunnies, jumping around." (In February, so it was very random 🤣)
• For a while she would say "is yum" instead of "is yummy" -- "Garlic bread is yum!"
• "Eeeeeee!" anytime she was excited.
• She would say "what" instead of "that" for the longest time, but I think she has stopped now --> "Let's play the game what we were playing!"
• "Look at this mysterious cut!"
• H: If I was a fairy I'd fly up high and sit on the moon.
  Me: What do you think you would do up there?
  H: Just fishing. [She's never even been fishing 🤷🏼‍♀️]
• After we were all discussing some weird names that exist in the world, Holly said, "Holly and Peter and Ada are great names." 🤣
• "Now I know how to count to twenty! Because if you say ten-teen, that isn't it!"
• She usually says "by my own" instead of "on my own." 

Random Tidbits

• I mentioned above that we had to return to nighttime diapers after stopping the thumb-sucking. Well, there was one particular night that cemented that. She was in her room, and the door had been locked because she kept coming out, and she was crying (this was all the first or second night of no thumb). We had clearly explained beforehand how the night was going to go and that we wouldn't come back in the room etc., so we were just trying to follow through with what we said we would do. Well, after quite a while of her walking around her room crying and saying things like "she's going to be so mad at me" (how sad is that?!) and "It's such a mess in here!"I had seen her pee on the floor through the video monitor, but there was nothing I could do about it, and I just figured we'd clean the carpet. But then I came upstairs and I could smell poop. Well, it turned out that she had actually been peeing AND pooping ALL OVER THE PLACE in her room! Like she was so stressed out from the situation that she literally pooped multiple times, plus cleaned herself off with blankets etc., plus kept walking in circles and tracking things around 😱😱😱😱😱 It was insane. So after cleaning up her room, and cleaning her up, we put her back in a diaper, and then kept the diaper for many more months so that we could focus on the thumb skill without worrying about another poopocalypse 😅
• Earlier this year, she had a tummy bug. For a few months afterward, it was like she had PTSD about it -- any time her tummy hurt for any reason, she would get so worked up because she was scared she was going to throw up again. Thankfully, she's doing much better with this now. We've explained many times that tummies hurt for different reasons and she's starting to figure that out.
• I've said it before and I'll say it forever -- stopping a thumb-sucking HABIT has not been too difficult in my two experiences with it; but all the behavior that accompanies the cessation of the habit is the difficult part. It is BEYOND exhausting, and it lasts for months. Holly was truly so difficult for a while there. Separation anxiety went through the roof (there was a time I left for church early (walking), and she ran after me the whole way there, with no shoes, because she couldn't stand the fact that I was leaving), she wanted me to do EVERYTHING for her (brush her teeth, put her clothes on her), and I don't remember what else because I think I've blocked it out because it was a traumatizing time (for both of us)! I feel like I did some things right, and some things wrong, and parenting is super hard 😅 Luckily we're mostly past the difficulties at this point. There are still regular challenges, but they're just due to us being humans, not due to a major habit change.
• She talks like a baby almost always, and it kinda drives me nuts. I'm constantly reminding her to talk like a big girl, but she just doesn't want to. What frustrates me about it is that she CAN speak really well, she just chooses not to 🙃
• Okay now some good/fun things! Holly learned to ride a two-wheeler this summer! We started her out by taking the pedals off the bike so she could learn the balance aspect, and she got so good at it! It was so fun watching her pick both her legs up and do funny tricks while she balanced. Then once we put the pedals back on, it took about a day before she was an expert. This made going on walks SO MUCH BETTER because now she can quickly bike alongside or ahead of us. 
• Holly also learned to do monkey bars this summer. It was so cute to watch her little body swing along from bar to bar.
• I haven't been teaching Holly anything about reading. For a very brief moment, I taught her a few letters with their sounds, but then I took this course that made me feel really good about waiting longer to teach letters and reading, so I stopped. However, now, completely on her own, Holly has become very interested in letters and sounds and writing. She often copies sentences from books, and she also sounds out her own words. They're impossible to decipher, but if she reads it to you, you can kind of tell how she arrived at those letters. It's almost like she's teaching herself to read, and I actually love it! That's how learning should be -- really seeking after something you're already interested in. I'll do some formal teaching probably starting next fall (when she's kindergarten age), but for now I'm loving seeing her discover language all on her own.
• Eating: She's not too interested in trying new foods, but we can usually get her to try one bite. But she almost never likes new foods. 
• Sleep: In bed from 7:30pm-7/7:15am; lately is taking an hour to fall asleep 🙄 so she might need a later bedtime. Occasionally she wakes shortly before 7am, but usually right between 7&7:15am. Occasionally sleeps as late as 7:45am. Quiet time is approximately 1-3pm. She does some quiet time with Ada and some on her own (they decide whether to play alone or together). Some days she does great leaving me alone/entertaining herself, and others she does NOT. I'd say we have more good days than bad ones though.