3.25
Three-and-a-quarter (plus change) -- our sweet bear is a mix of smooshy toddler, big preschooler, and dramatic threenager.
She can still be the sweetest, cuddliest, most adorable girl-child ever, especially one-on-one. She is also really good at wandering off to read a book or play quietly by herself. But she has recently thrown in some truly impressive whining and fits of crying about nothing. Unlike Henry at three, she doesn't actually seem to care much about whatever she's crying about. It seems more like she just picks something to test us and blow off steam and could quit screaming at any moment if she felt like it.
I guiltily admit that Ingrid has been getting middle-childed. Henry gets to go off with Dad to do exciting big-kid things like parkour and karate. He also has more Opinions about Things, so I tend to let him have a larger say in what we do. Heidi is a baby who is constantly trying to kill herself with stairs and choking hazards. Ingrid is still the most likely to be quietly self-sufficient, and she idolizes Henry enough to often go along with whatever he wants, so if anyone is getting ignored, it's her.
We had a phase where she was getting irritated with Heidi a lot. The baby has started messing with her work and grabbing her toys, not to mention sucking up most of my attention. Ingrid was yelling at her and and "patting" her a little too aggressively. Then we started having the girls play together alone before bedtime while Henry practiced karate downstairs with Karl and things got much better. With Henry out of the picture, Ingrid gets to be the big sister instead of the middle child, so she gets to direct the silliness and be the sole object of Heidi's adoration. Everybody likes being adored. She also likes a captive audience for story time. So the sister thing (which generally scares me a little) has been better for the last month.
She also has a pretty good groove with Henry lately. They fight and play awesomely in equal measures, but they're definitely clicked again after being less close last school year. It's one benefit to their odd birthday timing -- though they're almost two years apart in age, they landed in consecutive school grades, and they already think of themselves as just one year apart.
I spent a morning in her classroom before Thanksgiving. It was fun to see her in another environment, if only because it confirmed that Ingrid is just so Ingrid. She went into the room and calmly got out some work. The main teacher was gone that day but she worked quietly even though the other kids were more rowdy than usual. She seems to be friendly with everyone, especially the other girls, but she mostly wanted to work or sit on my lap. With Henry, I get the sense that he is more emotional and scattered at home but gets his "game face" on for school. Ingrid is just herself from top to bottom.
She likes her teachers better than any of the kids. I guess this is not surprising, given that her closest female relatives are me, Jane, and Carol. It was inevitable that we would produce a teacher's pet. I e-mailed Ms. Sherri to tell her Ingrid would be out sick today and she responded, "Tell her I will miss her hugs today." She's really into the work too. I needed some stock photos of Montessori-ish activities and Ingrid was super happy to be my model.
When I pick her up from school, she needs quiet cuddles for about an hour before she's ready to go off and play again. This is the hardest for me, since I would like nothing more than to cuddle her, but it's not always possible with Heidi around.
She likes to pick out her own clothes. The more glittery garments, the better. This tutu is still her best beloved. When the weather was warm, it was spots dress, tutu, sparkle tights, sparkle spots shoes. Now that it's cold, there's usually a sparkly or twirly dress over the tutu.
She has a sweet tooth like nobody's business. We eat a lot of healthy food around here yet Ingrid manages to eat nothing but white starch and treats. I swear she lives on air (or the crap they feed them for school snack) for three or four days at a I time until I make rice or pasta. We try to enforce the two-bites-of-everything rule at dinner but she's as stubborn as a mule and completely shameless about lying to us. The other day she told me she was going upstairs to get a cheese stick and I came upstairs to find her at the table with a knife and a jar of Nutella. A+ for independence, I guess?
Speaking of independence, she night-time potty trained herself sometime in the last quarter. I'm not exactly sure when it was. October? The pull-ups just sort of went away. In August she was still wearing them for naps and night. She had to go without them for naps at school, so at the beginning of September I started making her nap in underwear and she threw a hysterical fit every day for two weeks. But once she accepted it and started school, she also started staying dry at night. We told her she could choose underwear or pull-ups at night. She gradually just stopped asking for pull-ups and that was that. I just gave away the last stack of diapers and she didn't even notice.
Other than sweets, she loves cuddles, jumping, coloring, stories, baking with me, and girly things. She'll help the boys with construction projects but only if she can wear a sparkly dress and pink shoes and it doesn't require getting dirty. If I put on makeup, she wants to put on makeup too, but she wrestles Henry like a spider monkey. If she decides she's not going to do something, no amount of coaxing, bribing, or threatening is going to make her do it.
She's our little lady, but she's a tough one.
She can still be the sweetest, cuddliest, most adorable girl-child ever, especially one-on-one. She is also really good at wandering off to read a book or play quietly by herself. But she has recently thrown in some truly impressive whining and fits of crying about nothing. Unlike Henry at three, she doesn't actually seem to care much about whatever she's crying about. It seems more like she just picks something to test us and blow off steam and could quit screaming at any moment if she felt like it.
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| We can't walk to Julia's house in the rain at night. |
I guiltily admit that Ingrid has been getting middle-childed. Henry gets to go off with Dad to do exciting big-kid things like parkour and karate. He also has more Opinions about Things, so I tend to let him have a larger say in what we do. Heidi is a baby who is constantly trying to kill herself with stairs and choking hazards. Ingrid is still the most likely to be quietly self-sufficient, and she idolizes Henry enough to often go along with whatever he wants, so if anyone is getting ignored, it's her.
 |
| Reading to herself. |
We had a phase where she was getting irritated with Heidi a lot. The baby has started messing with her work and grabbing her toys, not to mention sucking up most of my attention. Ingrid was yelling at her and and "patting" her a little too aggressively. Then we started having the girls play together alone before bedtime while Henry practiced karate downstairs with Karl and things got much better. With Henry out of the picture, Ingrid gets to be the big sister instead of the middle child, so she gets to direct the silliness and be the sole object of Heidi's adoration. Everybody likes being adored. She also likes a captive audience for story time. So the sister thing (which generally scares me a little) has been better for the last month.
She also has a pretty good groove with Henry lately. They fight and play awesomely in equal measures, but they're definitely clicked again after being less close last school year. It's one benefit to their odd birthday timing -- though they're almost two years apart in age, they landed in consecutive school grades, and they already think of themselves as just one year apart.
 |
| Sibling fun! |
 |
| Three minutes later. |
I spent a morning in her classroom before Thanksgiving. It was fun to see her in another environment, if only because it confirmed that Ingrid is just so Ingrid. She went into the room and calmly got out some work. The main teacher was gone that day but she worked quietly even though the other kids were more rowdy than usual. She seems to be friendly with everyone, especially the other girls, but she mostly wanted to work or sit on my lap. With Henry, I get the sense that he is more emotional and scattered at home but gets his "game face" on for school. Ingrid is just herself from top to bottom.
She likes her teachers better than any of the kids. I guess this is not surprising, given that her closest female relatives are me, Jane, and Carol. It was inevitable that we would produce a teacher's pet. I e-mailed Ms. Sherri to tell her Ingrid would be out sick today and she responded, "Tell her I will miss her hugs today." She's really into the work too. I needed some stock photos of Montessori-ish activities and Ingrid was super happy to be my model.
 |
| Polishing Bob & Joan's real silver dishes! |
She likes to pick out her own clothes. The more glittery garments, the better. This tutu is still her best beloved. When the weather was warm, it was spots dress, tutu, sparkle tights, sparkle spots shoes. Now that it's cold, there's usually a sparkly or twirly dress over the tutu.
She has a sweet tooth like nobody's business. We eat a lot of healthy food around here yet Ingrid manages to eat nothing but white starch and treats. I swear she lives on air (or the crap they feed them for school snack) for three or four days at a I time until I make rice or pasta. We try to enforce the two-bites-of-everything rule at dinner but she's as stubborn as a mule and completely shameless about lying to us. The other day she told me she was going upstairs to get a cheese stick and I came upstairs to find her at the table with a knife and a jar of Nutella. A+ for independence, I guess?
Speaking of independence, she night-time potty trained herself sometime in the last quarter. I'm not exactly sure when it was. October? The pull-ups just sort of went away. In August she was still wearing them for naps and night. She had to go without them for naps at school, so at the beginning of September I started making her nap in underwear and she threw a hysterical fit every day for two weeks. But once she accepted it and started school, she also started staying dry at night. We told her she could choose underwear or pull-ups at night. She gradually just stopped asking for pull-ups and that was that. I just gave away the last stack of diapers and she didn't even notice.
Other than sweets, she loves cuddles, jumping, coloring, stories, baking with me, and girly things. She'll help the boys with construction projects but only if she can wear a sparkly dress and pink shoes and it doesn't require getting dirty. If I put on makeup, she wants to put on makeup too, but she wrestles Henry like a spider monkey. If she decides she's not going to do something, no amount of coaxing, bribing, or threatening is going to make her do it.
She's our little lady, but she's a tough one.
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