3.25
Heidi's last day of school was Friday! I'm a little sad about this, not just because I'll miss my quiet mornings with Fritz, but because Heidi had a great first year. She seems to love every aspect of it, from the morning commute with Grandma Carol to the work to the playtime to the pickup routine. It's been really fun to hear about what she does all day and how her relationships with her buddies have developed. The concept of summer vacation is very unclear. She seems to think she will be going to kindergarten at Concord in the fall but that her Sunshine friends and teachers will be there.
We can tell she is watching the bigger kids do letter work at school because she does all kind of nonsense spelling. She knows how to spell her name out loud but always writes "H i i." She also spends a lot of time stringing beads, coloring, painting, and reading books to herself. Most of the time she recites the written text verbatim, but sometimes she'll charm us by making up stories or poems. We do a lot of activities inspired by her books, like Fancy Nancy's spa.
She is our most sensitive child. The tiniest things make her melt down -- not being able to find something, her art not turning out exactly right, using the wrong plate at dinner, all kinds of clothing crises. Some of it is threenager but I think it's mostly her temperament. I have to be careful not to joke about anything she might take to heart. A couple of times, Henry or Ingrid said they loved whatever I had cooked and I responded, "You're my favorite kid today!" The older kids got this joke and played along. Heidi wept if she was not the favorite kid, and when she is freaking out about something and I'm clearly getting impatient, she sputters, "But I just want to be your favorite kiiiiiiiiiiiiid!" This breaks both of our hearts a little bit, so we nixed that particular joke.
Speaking of clothing crises...getting dressed in the morning was out of control. Tens and tens of minutes of freaking out. The children can literally wear whatever they want as long as it's clean. I just draw the line at wearing clothes from the dirty hamper. Even that was too much for Heidi. So we invented Clothes Competition, which is Iron Chef for Heidi's clothes. I pick an outfit, Ingrid picks an outfit, and Heidi has to pick one of them. The loser acts soul-crushingly disappointed and Heidi enjoys this power. It has improved our mornings significantly. She still manages to jazz up our choices with her mis-matched socks, headbands that push her hair into her face, and multiple accessories.
Heidi still takes an awesome 2-hour nap. If I can get Fritz to bed first, we cuddle up and enjoy calm story time. Sometimes I nap with her and it's decadent. I'm not sure why she's perfectly still and restful at naptime but super wiggly if she comes into our bed at night.
This is the first summer Heidi was eligible for some of the community camps activities. She is SO EXCITED about going to big kid swim lessons and dance camp and art camp with Ingrid. I think she will enjoy going out into the world to try new things. I think she'll also be swimming like a fish by the end of the summer.
She very much wants to follow Ingrid everywhere and is very sad when she gets left out. I'm sympathetic to Ingrid not wanting her annoying younger sibling hanging around all the time, so we're still working on how to ditch her occasionally without crushing her sensitive little soul. Frankly, I'm having a hard time with her right now too. There's a lot going on right now. I'm feeling frantic about getting everything done before the kids get out of school for the summer. Heidi does not cope well with being ignored when she needs attention, and she needs a LOT of attention. If Ingrid or Fritz starts whining, I can ignore them for five minutes and they wander off and find something better to do. Heidi will just continue following me around and spiraling into ever-greater levels of meltdown until 1) I get mad at her and 2) still don't finish what I was doing. You'd think after seven years of Henry, I would have figured out how to deal with this, but no.
I know I should just pause and enjoy this kid. Just look at her. You can't resist this kind of crazy.
We can tell she is watching the bigger kids do letter work at school because she does all kind of nonsense spelling. She knows how to spell her name out loud but always writes "H i i." She also spends a lot of time stringing beads, coloring, painting, and reading books to herself. Most of the time she recites the written text verbatim, but sometimes she'll charm us by making up stories or poems. We do a lot of activities inspired by her books, like Fancy Nancy's spa.
She is our most sensitive child. The tiniest things make her melt down -- not being able to find something, her art not turning out exactly right, using the wrong plate at dinner, all kinds of clothing crises. Some of it is threenager but I think it's mostly her temperament. I have to be careful not to joke about anything she might take to heart. A couple of times, Henry or Ingrid said they loved whatever I had cooked and I responded, "You're my favorite kid today!" The older kids got this joke and played along. Heidi wept if she was not the favorite kid, and when she is freaking out about something and I'm clearly getting impatient, she sputters, "But I just want to be your favorite kiiiiiiiiiiiiid!" This breaks both of our hearts a little bit, so we nixed that particular joke.
Speaking of clothing crises...getting dressed in the morning was out of control. Tens and tens of minutes of freaking out. The children can literally wear whatever they want as long as it's clean. I just draw the line at wearing clothes from the dirty hamper. Even that was too much for Heidi. So we invented Clothes Competition, which is Iron Chef for Heidi's clothes. I pick an outfit, Ingrid picks an outfit, and Heidi has to pick one of them. The loser acts soul-crushingly disappointed and Heidi enjoys this power. It has improved our mornings significantly. She still manages to jazz up our choices with her mis-matched socks, headbands that push her hair into her face, and multiple accessories.
Heidi still takes an awesome 2-hour nap. If I can get Fritz to bed first, we cuddle up and enjoy calm story time. Sometimes I nap with her and it's decadent. I'm not sure why she's perfectly still and restful at naptime but super wiggly if she comes into our bed at night.
This is the first summer Heidi was eligible for some of the community camps activities. She is SO EXCITED about going to big kid swim lessons and dance camp and art camp with Ingrid. I think she will enjoy going out into the world to try new things. I think she'll also be swimming like a fish by the end of the summer.
She very much wants to follow Ingrid everywhere and is very sad when she gets left out. I'm sympathetic to Ingrid not wanting her annoying younger sibling hanging around all the time, so we're still working on how to ditch her occasionally without crushing her sensitive little soul. Frankly, I'm having a hard time with her right now too. There's a lot going on right now. I'm feeling frantic about getting everything done before the kids get out of school for the summer. Heidi does not cope well with being ignored when she needs attention, and she needs a LOT of attention. If Ingrid or Fritz starts whining, I can ignore them for five minutes and they wander off and find something better to do. Heidi will just continue following me around and spiraling into ever-greater levels of meltdown until 1) I get mad at her and 2) still don't finish what I was doing. You'd think after seven years of Henry, I would have figured out how to deal with this, but no.
I know I should just pause and enjoy this kid. Just look at her. You can't resist this kind of crazy.
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