Hi Shira,
Well the big news is that you're almost a full-fledged
bicycle rider. You can ride your pedal bike pretty darn fast and make
some pretty good turns. The only thing you can’t do on your own is start from a
stop. You really could do that too, you just don’t believe it yet. You're also very resilient. After falling
off your bike you get right up and ride some more. Last night, I warned you
about an approaching car and asked you to turn around. Your turn was not quite sharp enough to turn
all the way around and you ran straight into the curb. Hitting the curb for
someone your size would be like me running into a loading dock head-on. You
went over the top of the handlebars headfirst and landed on your face on the
sidewalk. Somehow you managed to come through that without a scratch and barely
a whimper. The bike derby is coming up
in a couple of weeks and I’m betting that you might be the only three year old
riding a pedal bike without training wheels.
You're getting very comfortable in the water also. You can
do a beautiful backfloat. But you still have issues with putting your face in
the water. Although the last time we were in the swimming pool you did make
significant progress. You jumped in a
couple of times feet first which causes you to dunk your head all the way. You do resist any suggestion of doing it
though. In fact, you have an uncanny
way of jumping off the side sort head first without dunking your head. I thought at first that you could do it
because you had your life jacket on but you can manage it without the life
jacket, too.
In other news next year you will be a pre-K student instead
of a primary. Recently you performed and the tumbling show at school
which was coached by your mom. For a while we were concerned that you would not
do well in tumbling because you didn't participate well with the tumbling group
during class. You often had to take time out from tumbling class. But you
matured and at the tumbling show you performed very well.
Your writing skills have improved a lot also. You aren't
well practiced at creating letters on your own but are doing very well with
tracing over someone's else's letters. One of the pictures included in this
post shows that skill.
A year or so ago we were concerned about your stuttering. Now
it doesn't seem to be a problem. Your speech has some hesitations but nothing
like stuttering.
You still have some Quirky behaviors that sometimes make
life difficult. Two days ago you ate mush with the spoon that I left in the
bowl without complaint. This morning I tried again to leave the spoon in the
bowl for you but you objected and had to get your own spoon. “Dad, I don’t want the mixing spoon!” you
wailed.
Most nights you come into our bedroom in the middle of the
night to go tinkle and then crawl in our bed. Recently your mom has convinced
you to return to your own bed after using the bathroom. Like the spoon, I don't
yet consider that problem solved.
You had a recent fishing expedition. You and your sister and
went fishing at the fish farm. You caught your first fish. In the video you can hear me say several
times that you should hang on tight to your fishing rod which it looks like you
did the video. However when I had to stop the camera and help you actually land
the fish things got wilder. When the fish was flopping around right near your
feet you did drop the fishing rod and we came close to letting the fish
swim away with it.
Your mom and I were just talking the other day about how
you're not a baby anymore. Now you're
kind of a grown-up girl and we were missing our baby. I think that you still are partly a baby and partly grown-up
because you still like to do some of the old baby stuff. You still like snuggling and hugging and
being picked up and comforted.
Apart from going to school you’ve been a spectator for many
activities and you haven’t had the chance to participate. But today you got to be in your own class-
Kinder Dance. You were very psyched
about it. This morning as you were
getting dressed I came in and told you that your mom had found your ballet
shoes and you said, “I can’t wait to go to Kinder dance.” I was not there during the class because I
had taken Sidra to piano lessons. But
afterward we were watching a video that your mom took and you were very proud
of yourself. You said, “I’m doing very
good, aren’t I.”
Next report- Bike Derby!
Love, Aba
