ada charlotte {4.5 years}

Dear Ada,

I'm always amazed to see how much you grow and change in such a short time. You just become more of a grown-up every day, it seems!

We had a pretty rough year or so, but I think things are starting to get better. I'm not sure if it's just because you're growing up or because I'm (sometimes) doing better at managing my own thoughts and actions, but I finally feel like the good is starting to outweigh the bad. I've loved you all along the way, but it was tough to feel like things were always hard. I'm enjoying feeling like things are getting a little easier for us most days.

You like to go go go -- all day long you want to be doing something, whether that's playing with a friend, going to the park, playing a game, coloring, or playing pretend. You always want to play more, but you always want someone to play WITH you. Definitely an extrovert like mama!

You're still sweet and forgiving, and you're even pretty good at saying sorry! You just have so many wonderful qualities, and I love seeing them blossom and grow within you. I love you!

Stats

• About 40 pounds (about 75%) and 41" (about 50%)
• You're mostly wearing 4T-5T, but sometimes 3T.

Milestones

• You wash yourself off after meals now instead of me or dad doing it.
• You're so much more of a conversationalist! After I went on a date with your dad one night (and Grandma put you to bed while we were gone), the next morning you asked me, "How was your date last night?" and followed up with "What restaurant did you go to?" and "What kind of food was it?" It was just sort of surreal for you to be asking me about something in the past that you weren't even there for. It was so grown up!

Favorite Things
(I asked, and these were your answers)

• Color: Pink, purple, and blue
• Animal: Pig, and dog!
• TV show: Cocomelon
• Movie: Frozen 1 & 2 and Greatest Showman.
• Food: Chicken nuggets
• Book: A Princess Helps (reader book about Jasmine)
• Thing to do: Play hide and seek. [You also love to color, play matching games, and go to the park.]
• Thing to do with
• Mom: play the temple matching game
• Dad: Cook food! Noodles, pancakes, and mac'n'cheese!
• Holly: be in her crib with her [I often send you upstairs to wake Holly up from naps, and you'll climb in the crib with her and you'll just play and laugh until I can go get Holly :)]
• What you want to be when you grow up: Trapeze artist (like Anne from The Greatest Showman)

Funny Things You've Said/You Say

• This was from your 4-year update, but you still do this exact thing: All the time, we'll ask you something like, "Do you know X?" and you'll say, "Yeah." And when we ask, "What is it?", you'll say, "I don't know!" So far we haven't been able to figure out how to teach you to just say "I don't know" the first time 😂
• You also still speak/sing in a British accent sometimes.
• And you still say "happenening" or similar things
• "fighter fighter" instead of "fire fighter"
• You once asked, "What are you eating?" and I may have tried to say "nothing," but then you said, "Your mouth is just wiggling"
• I have a lot of notes of funny things you've said in or after prayers:
• "Please bless that Christmas can come really soon"
• At our Christmas Eve Bethlehem dinner, you were pretending to be Mary, and when you said the prayer, you said, "I'm so grateful for my baby Jesus who has been born; I love him so much!"
• "Please bless us to be safe at our house . . . Like that no real bears will come"
• One time I said a prayer and said, "Please bless me to stop being so crabby, please bless Ada to stop being so annoying, please bless Holly to stop screaming" . . . and after, you said, "That was a nice prayer, mom!" 😂
• You are also so quick to pray for Holly if she's ever crying a lot at a sleep time (only happened like twice, but both times you offered a prayer with no prompting from parents!). It's so sweet.
• We introduced you to Homeward Bound, the movie. On your own, you were calling them "Sassy Cat and Chancey" instead of just "Sassy and Chance." I just thought it was so cute 😍
• Instead of saying something like, "What's stinky?" you always say, "I smell something" -- like that's the way you say you smell something that smells BAD. 
• "Mom, I love you soooooo much! You're so lovely . . . and so nice . . . and you look like a chicken!"

Random Tidbits

• For a little while after your 4th birthday/starting preschool, you were counting EVERYTHING.
• You learn a little Spanish in preschool, and it's so cute :)
• You used to eat anything, exactly how we served it. Now you rarely want to taste anything homemade, and you always ask for food to be separate (even if it's something like spaghetti noodles and spaghetti sauce).
• You've been in swim lessons for the last few months, and you've gotten so much more confident in the water! I love watching you learn so much.
• You always spend the next day or two after watching a new movie acting like you're one of the characters in it. This was an issue when you watched TEN MINUTES of a Disney Channel original movie with me -- you were SO sassy for the next few hours!! Disney teens 🤦
• You spend about an hour with Holly in your room or Holly's room every morning (called "morning time"), and most of the time, you and Holly are so sweet together! I love to check the monitor and see you girls playing so well. Sometimes, when Holly hurts herself, you are so quick to try to give her a toy or something to cheer her up. (We won't talk about the other times, when you're the one hurting Holly 🙄)
• One day you said, "I love my cousins . . . and my friends . . . and my classmates . . . and my Texas family . . . but you are my BEST friend, mom!" 😍 So stinking cute.
• You're supposed to stay in your room and bathroom during quiet time, so when you come out, I often get very irritated. But one day, you came out and asked for help with something, and I decided to help you instead of getting mad at you, and when I finished, you said, "I knew you could do it; you're amazing!" And I just had the thought "I would have missed this!" I'm so glad I didn't get mad at you -- you just have such sweetness inside of you.
• Sleep: These days, we put you to bed around 7/7:15pm, you take ~20 minutes to fall asleep, and then you wake up around 6:30/45am. You randomly started sleeping in later when the time changed a few weeks ago (before that, you were always waking up at like 5:59!).  

Love always,

Mama