Monday, February 25, 2013

Things I don't want to forget: snapshot of 4-year-old Addison

I feel like I did a much better job keeping up with my girls' milestones and funny stories during the first year of their lives with the monthly updates. Things keep getting funnier, but I have stopped recording them... I need to do better because there are just some things that I don't want to forget.

Here is a snapshot of Addison at age 4:

Addison loves life. She loves to have fun, and her eyes sparkle at the smallest pleasures. She makes life so much more interesting.

She is going through a growth spurt and is eating me out of house and home. Her current favorites are spaghetti, cheeseburgers, strawberries, bagels with cream cheese, bacon, and oatmeal pies.


Her extracurricular interest is dancing--ballet and tap each Monday with her cousin Savannah. She has mentioned wanting to play soccer again and take a drawing/art class, so we will see where her interests lead her. She loves to dance, though, and just this one little experience has given her more balance and coordination, rhythm and confidence.

She is going through a very fearful stage also. She doesn't like Lion King anymore because of Scar. She prays for Maleficient and Mother Gothel, and she doesn't even like Mulan anymore because of "John U" as she refers to the villain. It is very real to her. She has shown up in our room at 3 a.m. claiming to have seen shadows of wolves biting her hands off. Bless. her. heart. So we have put a nightlight in her room.

Addison loves school. She loves her friends, and she talks about Addison Adair, Ivy, and Kalli at home all the time. She even has pretend sleepovers with them. She loves doing the lessons and she especially loves coloring and writing. She is really learning a lot, and she constantly wants to learn more. I LOVE that thirst for knowledge and hope that it stays with her.


Her favorite toy right now is definitely Kit Kittredge. She takes her with her everywhere, changes her clothes every day, brushes her hair and teeth, and wants to be just like her. We read her chapter books outloud each night, and I hear her rereading her version of them outloud to herself.

Savannah is still her best friend, and I hope they will always love each other like they do now. It is so sweet and pure and innocent. She will come home and tell me that she "talked to Savannah and she said that when we go to Disney World, we need to stay in a hotel, and that our best chance of meeting the characters is by going to a breakfast." She has been really concerned about Savannah going to kindergarten next year because I think she imagines it as some boarding school where she will rarely see her anymore. It is a precious friendship that these two share.

She's been a trooper with her ear stuff. She failed her hearing screening when she was three, and everybody thought it was a fluke. When she failed it again at 4, we were sent back to our ENT doctor who put her tubes in. When he looked in her ear and removed the tube that was lying in her ear canal, he discovered a hole in her ear--probably something that never healed correctly from her tubes--that was impairing her hearing on the right side. We went back on Friday and since it hasn't healed any since the fall, she will have a tissue graft surgical procedure over Spring Break where they will take tissue from behind her ear and use it to hopefully cover and seal the hole in her eardrum.  If successful (75% success rate), then her hearing should be restored. Please pray for my little brave girl.

She loves church and lifegroup and being with her sweet friends, Lillly, Lane, Robert, Lauralee, and Ruth. She is learning so much about the Bible right now, and I am amazed at her ability to make the stories hers. She talks about Heaven and Jesus, and her prayers are so sweet and sincere. I know why Jesus loves the innocent, childlike faith of his little children.

She loves dress up. Here she is in her sister's Snow White dress with bows all in her hair. Her favorite princess changes daily.

She is trying to read and spell. She sounded out Snow White below, and she is constantly writing me real messages that are fairly close to what they should be.
Kit Kittredge introduced her to hobos, and she is obsessed. She constantly draws the hobo signs and leaves them places to send me on a trail.


At the end of the trail is usually a surprise--like a picture of me.
I love this little girl more each day, and I am so blessed to be her mommy.

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