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| Sarah Jane at 3 |
A typical day in Sarah Jane’s life goes something like this:
She wakes up at some point between 2am and 5am and stumbles into our room. She pauses at the door until I say, “come on in and tuck yourself in” at which point she crawls between two comforters set up on the floor specifically for this purpose and goes right back to sleep. Occasionally she makes it all the way until 6ish in her bed (occasionally as in twice since January.) She is aware that when the babies come she is going to spend all night in her own bed, like a big girl. We’ll see.
At 6am she is awake and waits very patiently for Anna to wake up so that Daddy will go get her bottle. And by very patiently I mean she only asks me every 5 minutes if it is time for her bottle yet. She points out that it is light outside and she is very reasonable, every five minutes. Daddy manages to sleep through all of this. When Anna finally wakes up, Sarah Jane goes with Daddy to help him with the bottles and then delivers Anna’s. Sarah Jane has her bottle in our room (and yes I know that a three year old getting a warmed up bottle of milk every morning might strike some as a bit egregious but we all like our warm beverages in the morning and wouldn’t you like yours delivered?) After Anna finishes hers, Sarah Jane runs into play with Anna which we LOVE as it means snoozing to the sound of happy giggles. Nothing better.
By 8 Sarah Jane is downstairs and eating. Sometimes dressed, sometimes not. Sometimes showered, sometimes not. She knows the days of the week by what we have for breakfast: Monday – Eatmeal, Tuesday – Eggs and Toast, repeat for Wed, Thurs, Fri, pancakes for Saturday and French toast for Sunday. Some days are work days, which means Elizabeth comes and Daddy leaves and she goes to school. Some days are NOT workdays which means she gets syrup for breakfast. Sarah Jane also gets tea at breakfast. I’m not sure how this started. It’s decaf at least. And she only gets one sugar cube (mommy gets two.) Sarah Jane is a very difficult eater and still requires that I “help” her eat, e.g., put her food on the fork and, occasionally, wield the fork for her. Often as a car (she specifies which family member's car as Aunt Whitney's car sounds different from Grandma's.) Sometimes we get unusual requests; today I did a horse, two chickens and a fairy horse. Neither of us knew what that sounded like. She “understands” that this won’t happen anymore when the twins come. She can sometimes be induced into eating if it’s a contest. She really, really likes to win and announces “I’m beating!!!” with glee. She also really likes anything that comes with syrup. On those days she mysteriously doesn’t need any help.
By 8:45 we have somehow gotten Sarah Jane ready to leave for school. She is an amazing procrastinator. She is in school at Berkeley Hills from 9 until 1. Her most airtime friends are Callie and Henry and Bryn. She is also friends with Lucy and Colm though she says that Colm is not nice to her because he only wants to be Batman. (Sarah Jane likes to stick her hand out in a fist and yell “I’m Superman” and then jump off stuff.) She does lots of art and likes to ride the scooters. The other day she said, “Mom, you know what I’m really good at? Scooters.”
At 1 she is picked up by either Elizabeth (Mondays) or Grandma or Zeke. She is dropped off at either the park or Studio Grow or Habitot where she spends the next 2ish hours playing with the little people. At 3ish they return home for nap time but Sarah Jane does not get a nap as she will sleep for five hours and ALWAYS wakes up grumpy if she wakes up at all. I wish she could have a nap, I think she’d be happier overall but we haven’t figured out how to make it happen.
On Mondays she goes to ballet at the Y. She won’t tell me anything about it so I have no idea what goes on. I can get her to confirm that her teacher is Teacher Kate.
After an afternoon outing which often involves bikes, they return for dinner. She is very helpful getting ready for dinner often setting the entire table herself. As she approaches her seat she announces “I don’t like that” no matter what “that” is. Sometimes (if it is noodles with no sauce) she will eat it with no discussion. Other items that have occasionally been eaten are hamburgers (usually just the bun), chicken nuggets (but only “real ones” that come from the freezer, not fake ones that mommy makes from scratch), rice, green cookies (cucumbers), tomatoes, meatloaf and food X slathered in ketchup. Once she ate red peppers. She doesn’t have to eat anything on her plate but she doesn’t get any substitutes. And she has to sit with us or go upstairs. That one is harder to enforce. She gets very hungry and the hungrier she gets the harder she is to feed. We work very hard to “break the seal”, once the first bite is in, the rest usually follows.
After dinner there is either frenzied playing with Anna (stroller races around the kitchen, rides on the rocking horses), books on the couch with mom or, weather permitting, bicycle riding outside. Sarah Jane is truly excellent on her scoot bike. Contrary to what you might expect, she is absolutely fearless, bombs down our fairly steep driveway, makes the turn and heads down the sidewalk. And, taking after her father, every time she does this she yells “Whoohoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo”.
Be patient until :30; I couldn't figure out how to edit this down to just the good stuff...
At 7:15 they come inside and have yogurt and fruit for dessert. Sarah Jane is allowed to dispense her own honey and she never puts too much. This part of her meal she eats all up and so I know that no matter how little she’s eaten for dinner, at least she won’t go to bed hungry and wake up at 4am asking for her bottle.
Post dessert, Anna gets a bath. Sometimes Sarah Jane joins her, sometimes she watches home videos on the iPad. She also likes to read books and look at the weather on the iPad. We look at both Berkeley and Warwick so she knows what it is like where Nana and Papa are. When we first started playing with the iPad, turning it off sparked dreadful temper tantrums. We put it away for two days and before it came out again, we had to practice turning it off cheerfully. Now when she plays with it we periodically “practice” turning it off:
Mommy: “Sarah Jane, let’s practice”
Sarah Jane: “Ok mommy! One more and then I’m done”
Then when we do it for real there is no temper tantrum. Amazing.
At 8pm it is bedtime. Once we actually get her in bed (see procrastination above), she falls asleep in less than 15 seconds despite the fact that Anna can spend the next 45 minutes yelling.
Massive feats of intelligence and achievement
Sarah Jane is currently into “reading aloud” to us. This means that after I read her a book, she then takes the book and “reads” it to me. She is very good at remembering the basic facts or the last sentence on each page and repeating them.
She continues to be excellent at puzzles. Particularly the puzzles on my Droid.
Thanks to the Droid and the alphabet games on said device, she now knows both her upper case and her lower case letters. She still identifies them sometimes as “belonging” to someone but she also knows their names.
She is a fearless and talented scoot rider (see above.) So fearless that she often rides down the sidewalk looking backwards over her shoulder to carry on a conversation, much to Zeke’s discomfort.
Sarah Jane has figured out the way to mommy’s heart and is subsequently very good at making mommy happy (manipulating mommy?) by hugging my belly and announcing, “I love your twins.”
She loves to learn Spanish and likes to show off when she learns something new. She can say Buenos Dias, tengo jugo (I have juice), susio (dirty), zapatos (shoes), venga and my personal favorite “Socksitines” aka Socks + Calcitines. I think she also understands everything Elizabeth says but she can’t translate it back into English.
Sarah Jane can put on and take off her own seat belt in the car; this achievement is particularly well timed as going forward she will be sitting in the “way back” of the new car.
Sarah Jane does a great job clearing her place from the table AND loading the dishwasher. She even knows which side the tall glasses go on and which side the short glasses go on. Very impressive.
Favorites
Loves: Anna, mommy’s twins, daddy, riding her scoot, reading books, taking pictures with the camera, watching home videos, her twin (doll from Grandma), hanging out at Grandma and Zeke’s on the weekend, having mommy stay home from work, nounous (noodles), syrup covered things, winning, wearing soft pants a dress and princess undies, her sparkly shoes, her pink sweatshirt from daddy, playing in the white car with daddy, listening to the Sound of Music soundtrack, “treats” from Starbucks, tea in the morning, teacher Lisa, school in general, Brady and play dates
Dislikes: 99% of food, eating, dogs except Pickle, getting her hair washed, brushing her hair, saying good bye politely and doing what someone asks her to do particularly when that someone is in a hurry
In sum, Sarah Jane is at a great stage. Three is definitely my favorite so far. She is loving and full of hugs. She can be counted on to play with Anna very nicely, to share with Anna (most of the time) and is, in general, a great big sister. Anna is very lucky. While she is occasionally extremely high maintenance, things that used to be a huge fight are getting much easier (e.g., brushing hair, eating, getting into bed, etc.) She is much less scared of things than she used to be (dogs, bikes, saying goodbye) and is starting to have fun trying new things (e.g., jumping off the steps and going to ballet both on the list of dislikes three months ago.)
She's had a lot happen in the last six months, here are some highlights...
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| First day of school |
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| Hiking with Dad in New Hampshire (Tuck Reunion) |
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| Queen of the hay stack |
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| Best friends still! Halloween at Joesphine St. with the Chuns |
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| First of the annual pre-Christmas lunches (attended on her own!) |
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| Sarah Jane - the only kid on Christmas Eve who actually listened to the Night Before Christmas poem from Zeke |
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| By the pool in Hawaii |
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| She got pretty brave and even touched the water but unfortunately we only recorded her running away from it |
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| Family of four but not for long |
