1....2....3....4 Already!

 "Childhood is a short Season"  - Helen Hayes

Four years old, it seems so grown up and yet my baby is there already.  I keep hoping time will slow down but instead it gets even faster.  Zoey has become her own person and surprises me every day with her loving nature, opinions and questions.

Sometimes I take for granted what she may know and she surprises me with a question that I never thought would go through her mind.  "Mom, is Idaho on Mars?"  (There are times I thought it was.) We had shown her maps of the route from Idaho to Texas and she loves identifying points of interest to her on maps.  When she spotted the red star in the sky we confirmed it was the red planet and told her that was Mars.  Somehow she put the two together and wondered how they worked together, concluding Idaho is on Mars. After showing her images of planets on the internet and explaining that 'only Earth has good air', she now understands planets.  I just love the internet for teaching.


It also amazes me how educational cartoons have become.  She has learned some basic math principles, geometry, reading skills, and sometimes tells me of animals I've never even heard of.  "Mom, my favorite butterflies are the blue morpho butterflies and the monarch butterflies, but a pink butterfly would be the coolest."  Most interestingly is how she was watching Dora and began to speak Spanish words to me, even counting in Spanish at age 2 before I had started to teach her.

Each day we do a lesson (or five) in some of her preschool workbooks, practicing writing, letter sounds, basic math and the like.  She is ready and eager to start her lessons and understands most concepts quickly.  Then we sit for a while and the both of us practice Spanish words (Mom is trying to learn a bit too).  I hope this eagerness to learn continues to grow as she does.

She's become such a girlie-girl too.  Her favorite color is pink and anything pink she must point out (or ask for) from toys to walls to food.  In her words, "Pink is the most beautifullest color and that's why I like it."  She even told me she is going to drive "the pink car with no top" she saw parked near our house, a convertible pink Cadillac.  She often expresses her opinion on how she wants her hair done, often without me asking her, and she recently has decided she wants no bangs.  I was considering growing them out, so I think we're going to try it as long as mom can get through the awkward stage (her hair grows so slowly.

Zoey has about  6 swimsuits from hand-me-downs and gifts and wears most of them when the temperature reaches above 95, because she feels its the only way to stay cool even if you're not swimming.  I let her as long as we're not going anywhere, but once we are heading out I insist she put something else onand hear her new favorite phrase, "But MooOOoom....".

Our little girl is growing up, way too fast for me, but I'm loving every minute of it.  What will the next year bring?

Zoey and Mommy

Zoey and her friends at Memorial.