4 Years of Xan

Gah! That precious smiling face is 4!! And has been for awhile now, 4 months to be exact. Trying to keep up with my blog when I fall asleep almost every night after the kids are in bed has been tough! I'm doing my best to finish this post before Piper is born. We'll see if I make it since her due date has already passed! She wants to be late just like her big sister Xan. Hopefully that means being a happy and content newborn as well! Anyway, moving forward. I think 4 is one of my favorite ages because it usually means we've put the huge fits and potty training behind us. I also see a lot of their personality start to shine and start to really figure out what makes them tick. I see glimpses before this age but it really starts to come out at 4. They also start the strong childhood memories and can have some truly meaningful conversations. Of course there's still the meltdown or the moody day here and there but who doesn't have those?! Basically it's a great age and I'm looking forward to getting to enjoy it with Xan.

This girl LOVES to talk and always has. I still can't seem to teach her that there are times to stop talking. We're always working on it. Alexandria will want to be at the table while I'm doing school with Jane and Atlas and she'll start trying to talk to everyone, I'll remind her that it's time to be quiet during school she says ok. Then a minute later I hear her again, I try to gently remind her again it's time to be quiet or she can go play somewhere else, but she responds with "No mom, I was talking to myself." True, she was! But I explained being quiet means no talking at all, not just no talking to someone else. Haha! She does listen in with school though! We do our vocabulary at breakfast and one of our words was Ideal. When we were putting our shoes on later that day she said, "Mom! My shoes are ideal because they fit me just right!!" She's always using words that surprise me in the right way. She's always trying to understand more! She's such a joy to talk to.

I wrote last year that I missed my girl that loved everyone and was having trouble accepting that she was giving people stink eyes when they tried to talk to her. Thankfully I was right!! It was just a phase. She is everyone's friend yet again! When we go to the park sometimes she will stay where all the mom's are and pick one and talk their ear off! Usually about dinosaurs, dragons or sea creatures. She does enjoy playing with kids her age too though and will get her feelings hurt if it seems like someone doesn't want to play with her. She has a few friends at park day that are her favorite and they are all little boys that are around 4 as well. It makes sense because all of her interests are usually what little boys are into as well. Every so often she will run off with another little girl to play. I just love that she wants to love everyone again!

Xan will still spontaneously nap on any given day! She stopped sleeping until almost 9am and gets up around 8am most days. So I never know if it's going to be a day that she needs a little extra sleep. I will put a show on for the kids to watch while I make dinner and I will come back to find her completely asleep even if she was sitting straight up. She can also fall deeply asleep just from a 5 minute car ride home from Marmee and Pappaw's house. It's like she has a napping super power! Any where, any time! Really she's always been like that though. It must be in the genes! My parents have a bunch of pictures of me sleeping everywhere. It's sweet but can be difficult since it's usually after 5pm that she falls asleep and then it makes it hard for her to go to sleep at night. I have to wake her up often and bribe her with an ice pop to stay awake until bedtime. It works most days!

Xan seems to really enjoy being smack dab in the middle of a bunch of siblings. It makes sense, she loves always having someone to talk to! Once Piper is born she will be my only true middle kid. And although she loves all her siblings very much she is also very sensitive and protective of her own things. So one moment she could happily playing with one of them and then the next she is crying and telling me how mean they are and how she will never play with them again. Of course I know she doesn't mean it, we talk it out and say our apologies and then she's off happily playing again. Jane and Xan seem to have the most up and down relationship. They can both get pretty emotional so it makes sense. But they do love each other! Jane just wishes Xan liked more girly things and Xan wants Jane to play Dragons with her. Often they will both compromise a little and find a way to play that they both enjoy. It's fun that they like matching each other though! Atlas and Xan are buds. I predicted it would happen in my last blog and it did! They finally realized how much they liked that was the same and started playing together really well. It's fun to see them play video games together like my brother and I did. There is still a good amount of fighting that happens but more and more I see them working it out to keep playing well together. Xan and Flynn play the least together still, but they definitely share their love for dinosaurs the most! So if they do play together it's usually with dinosaurs. Flynn is just a little destructive and fast paced for Xan. He is 2! I think once he calms down some they'll get along a little better. I'm very interested to see how Xan reacts to a little baby sister. Piper is seeming very Xan like, we'll see if it continues!

Weight

Birth: 9lbs 2oz

1 Year: 23lbs 9oz

2 Years: 29lbs

3 Years: 32lbs

4 Years: 37lbs

Xan is still staying higher on the percentiles for weight but each year she seems to be coming down closer to midrange. I love that she's kept her full cheeks! I've called her chunky in a positive way for so long she is proud of it! She definitely feels special to still be my chunky baby. She is looking less and less baby like though. I'm holding on to that last bit of baby face!!

Height

Birth: 22 1/4 Inches

1 Year: 30 1/4 Inches

2 Years: 33 3/4 Inches

3  Years: 36 1/4 Inches

4 Years: 40 Inches, 3' 4"

Xan has come all the way from being in the 90th percentile in height to being about in the 40th percentile. She also seems pretty average for other kids her age and how her clothes fit her. The doctor says it puts her projected height at about 5'4". I'd be a little surprised if she didn't end up a good bit taller than me not just an inch. But I guess we'll see!

Firsts

It's time for firsts and favorites! I always enjoy looking through the last year of pictures and focusing on just the one child to see how they grew, changed and experienced life throughout the year. I believe around this age I see a little less change in their face but a lot more development in character and personality. Please enjoy my creative take on Xan's "firsts" from the past year.

Slip and sliding! - April 2021

Dissecting owl pellets - April 2021

Fair Ride! - April 2021

Duck face selfie - May 2021

Dental x-rays & Cavity - June 2021

Blueberry picking - June 2021

Treat from the Ice Cream truck - July 2021

Haircut - August 2021

Preschool - August 2021

Crab Hunting! - September 2021

Picture with an Octopus - October 2021

Climbing a tree - November 2021

Fluffy slime! - December 2021

Yearbook Picture - January 2022

Trip to the Arcade - February 2022
Bowling (Not pictured)

Recognizable drawing of a person - March 2022

Gymnastics Class - March 2022

Being 4!! - April 2022

Favorites

Alexandria continues to enjoy playing outside and the trampoline and swings are definitely her top two choices. She can swing herself but still not super well yet. I think she doesn't have much incentive to learn because she'd rather me be there to swing her so she can talk to me. ;) She does enjoy the captain wheel swing because all she has to do is push it back and forth to swing herself and she will do that so she can swing next to Atlas if I'm not outside. She got brave enough to go down the slide for the slip and slide! But she would still rather just play in the puddles and sprinkler mostly. She's still my cautious girl and usually chooses the slower paced play options. She became an excellent swimmer over last summer!! She could even dive down to the bottom of Marmee and Pappaw's pool to grab a small frog toy when she was still a young 3! So wonderful to have her love the water and be such a great swimmer now. Dancing is still a big favorite too, she's got quiet the array of expressive moves! She makes me smile!

Alexandria became a little more picky about food over the last year. I often leave her food on the table for her to come back and eat. There are not too many entrees I can think of that she gets excited about. But she loves to snack and loves sweets! (I keep her food on the table so she has to eat it before she gets snacks or sweets though) Also Xan was able to help me with her blog for the first time and tell me her favorites, so here are some of her favorite foods! Chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, cake, popsicles, all fruity candy, snow cones, grapes, salami, cheese, Cilantros, McDonalds, Whataburger, ice cream, fruit snacks, ravioli, crackers, jelly rolls/biscuits, waffles, pancakes, gum, apples, watermelon, strawberries, cinnamon rolls, blueberry muffins, Cheetos, Fruit loops, juice, frozen/regular yogurt. She does not like chocolate or carbonated drinks!

Oh man, Xan has quite the relationship with toys! She will be obsessed with a toy one day and love it like she will never love another toy and then not play with again for weeks and move on to another toy. Somehow she's very easy and very hard to buy for at the same time. Because she will love just about everything she opens, but whether or not she actually plays with it after she opens it is always so hard to know. She constantly asks me to put toys on her Christmas/Birthday list! If she comes back and asks me about a specific toy more than once then I usually will. Here are some favorite toys that have stood the test of time. Bunny is still her #1 bedtime companion, and any dino, dragon, shark, alligator or lizard is always a hit. Specific toys that have stayed near the top are her 2 different Indominus Rexes, giganotosaurus, T-rex stuffy, Winger, Charizard stuffy, Charizard/Shark dress up, Bowser stuffy and Goo jit zu shark.

Just like toys what Xan likes to watch is always changing and just like toys her favorite shows involve dinosaurs, dragons, alligators, sharks, snakes or lizards. Really anything about reptilian things or sea creatures. Some of her favorite shows/movies she keeps coming back to are Zig and Sharko, Oggy and the cockroaches, Tiny Creatures, Storybots, Toy dinosaurs/dragons, Rumble, Sing 2, Bluey, How to Train Your Dragon, Land Before Time, Oscar's Oasis, Twirlywoos, Spies in Disguise and The Mitchells vs the Machines. Just this year Xan has really been able to start playing video games and she loves it! Super Smash bros. is her favorite, she also likes to play Kirby and Pokemon. She and Atlas like to play together even though it ends in a fight half the time at this point. I bet she'll like to play even more as she gets more skilled at it.

I love that Xan loves books!! She adores them. She doesn't have many favorites though she cycles through all the books we have. She loves anything new and everything with interesting creatures. She always has a hoard of books in her bed to look at on her own. A few favorites I can think of are Dragonology, Big book of dinosaurs, I'm a hungry dinosaur, Nibbles, Dragon Post and You Choose.

As soon as Xan learned to swim across the pool it became her favorite activity! I can barely get that fish out of the pool these days. Playing pretend on the Trampoline is probably second and swinging third. (She never wants me to stop pushing her)  Otherwise she said playing video games with me is her favorite, she also noted hide and seek and dance parties! Truly, if you get right down to it, her favorite thing to do is be with someone. If someone is interacting and talking to her she's happy. <3 She really enjoyed helping me add her favorites to the blog.

The first place Xan thought of as her favorite is the BEACH! It may have been influenced by the picture I added above but she does really love the beach! She absolutely adores going to Marmee & Pappaw's house, in fact she asks pretty much every day to go. She also thought of the Zoo even though we haven't been back in a year. We got to go to the Houston Interactive Aquarium for the first time this year and she may have been thinking of that when she said the Zoo. She definitely loves both because it involves animals! We finally got to go to the inflatable play place that replaced pump it up, Zero Gravity. After we went the first time it's where she requested to go as her special place to go for her birthday. So I think it was a hit! She also enjoys the park (when it's not too hot or cold) the Splash Pad, the Library, the MoCo Fair and Alpha Omega Open gym.

This girl makes me smile sooooo much. She has such a sweet heart and is the most physically affectionate of all my kiddos. She's always spontaneously telling me she loves me and giving me kisses. She always has to make sure I know I'm her favorite. But! She is also the one who will tell me she hates me when she's mad about what I'm doing or making her do. She just feels very deeply and is always verbal about how she feels at that moment. I'm trying to help her look past that moment of strong feelings and not say something she doesn't mean or do something hurtful. But I understand, I was the same way, it's so hard not to act on those strong feelings! I'm hoping, since I know what's going through her head a little better than most, I can help her figure it all out faster than I did. :) Still most other people don't see her tough moments like her family does and she brings joy wherever she goes!! It's just the best to be her mom! <3

Happy 4th Birthday Baby girl! We love you so much!

Proverbs 15:13,23

A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance,

But by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.

A man has joy by the answer of his mouth,

And a word spoken in due season, how good it is!