Finn Lately

• Finn is currently 3.5+ years old, 33 pounds and 40 inches tall. She is fitting in 4T clothes quite well. We switched over sizes in September due to all her pants becoming high waters.
• She is NOT a sleeper.  Girl is up at 7:00-7:30am every day -- no matter what time she goes to bed.  We are usually in bed and done with books by 8:30 (on a good night) and she still doesn't fall asleep until after 9:30 (unless we did something major that day and she is physically exhausted).  We have officially given up our naps.  Womp womp.  She will only nap once every week or two.  I have pushed and pushed for her to keep these naps because I feel like near the early evening, she is like Linda Blair in the Exorcist.  But even when it is time to go to bed, she doesn't fall asleep easily.  I think that she is just being a three-nager.
• Speaking of being a three-nager, the girl definitely is a Sass Master Flash.  We are currently trying to work on realizing that just because Fish doesn't play exactly the way that she wants him to or that he is touching toys that she deems unacceptable, the world will not, in fact, end (although she honestly thinks that it will).  

• She has a mean independent streak, until she doesn't.  She doesn't want help with anything if she says that she is going to do it herself.  But then the times where she does require assistance, if you are not jumping like your feet are on fire, then you are doing it wrong!  And she will tell you that you aren't going fast enough to help her.
• As you can tell by the last two bullets, tantrums & sass are a mainstay in our house.  But when she is not unleashing her beast, she has such a funny side.  She tells the funniest stories.  And while she thinks that her jokes are marvelously funny, we need to work on her delivery.  An example of her current joke repertoire:  "knock, knock..."  "who's there?"  "Orange."  "orange who?"  "orange you glad that it's not banana?"  (I'm sure you've all heard the original knock knock joke before)  Another favorite?  "knock, knock..."  "who's there?"  "Nothing."  "nothing who?"  "nothing, nothing"  One of my favorite things is to try and eavesdrop on her conversations that she has with either her toys or Fish.  Her imagination is something else.
• My only quibble that I have with her really is her eating habits.  She used to be an amazing eater, eating anything and everything.  But when I had Fish, we went for what was fast and easy and I think that it was right around that time where little toddlers' taste-buds should be experimenting, not getting the same thing over and over again.  Because after that time, she not refuses to try anything different.  We make her have a single bite out of something, and it's a chore for her.  She basically eats yogurt, cheese, milk, applesauce, meat, chicken nuggets, & donuts.  She used to LOVE bananas & oranges. This morning, she ate her obligatory bite and that was it.  I don't get it -- because even when I offer sweet food that is good for her, like the banana or orange, even after the bite, she won't eat it.  Frustrating.

• Finn is very smart.  She is currently in preschool three mornings a week (MWF) and she loves it.  The goal of her school year this year was to be able to write her name.  When they tried to write their names for the first time at school back in September, she was able to write the first four letters of her seven-letter name.  She can now write her entire name and is just working on the form of each letter.  Her school also offers "after school activities".  Once a month, there is Tales & Treasures.  She can stay for lunch with her friends and then they read a book and make a project.  The school also offers a four week "class" called Fun Frolics.  In it, they have lunch with friends and then stay and learn about an extra subject.  We missed the first one as I wanted her to adjust to school and not inundate her with too much school.  But once she was acclimatized, I always ask her if she wants to participate and she always seem to want to.  She is currently in the "Art" Fun Frolics, where they are learning about art and artists such as Henry Matisse.  Her next Fun Frolics which starts at the beginning of December is going to be Yoga! But she is most excited for the cooking Fun Frolics that will be sometime in the spring.
• She is very good at math already (for her age, obviously).  She can do rudimentary additional and subtraction (all under 10, so she can use her fingers).  But she understand the concept of adding and taking away things.
• Finn is also really good at recognizing letters, letter sounds & numbers.  If she doesn't know the letter or number immediately, she knows to go through her numbers on her fingers or her alphabet and in counting or saying the alphabet, she will recognize the letter/number.
• Her memory is amazing.  We read lots of books in our house, at least six a day (two before nap and four before bed).  And once I have finished reading the books, she will get to pick a book and read it to me.  She can read books that we haven't read in a long time to me, using a lot of the same words.  And if heaven forbid while I'm reading to her, I miss a word -- she will stop me and correct me.  And it's not like my flub will have changed the context of the sentence dramatically -- it's like me saying "in" and it should have been "on".
• I know that it sounds like I was tooting her horn this whole time, but we are very proud of her and if I can't toot her horn, who can?  Amiright?!?!?