A real girl!

Well it's just ridiculous that I haven't posted yet about Clementine's 4th birthday. As you can see, she got a lot of lovely jewelry (no her ears aren't pierced -- over my dead body!). There is something about the 4th birthday... Clementine is a little girl now. Obviously she hasn't been a baby or even a toddler for a long time. But 3 years old is still a tiny little thing. Four, well, we're within eyeballing distance of kindergarten, for heaven's sake! This birthday was all about her, with very little reminiscing for me of her being born. Much less than I did with Calliope on her 2nd birthday.

We went out to eat nachos, at her request, and were joined by GAK, GUR-pop-pop, Brian, Wendy, Aria, Trinity and Trace. They sang Happy Birthday to her at the restaurant, and she wasn't the least freaked out, embarrassed or even giggly about it, oddly. She scored a lot of great Fancy Nancy stuff, which is all the rage with 4-year-olds these days, in case you were wondering. I too love Fancy Nancy, if for no other reason than the marketing reaches nowhere near the saturation levels of say, Dora the Explorer or Sponge Bob Squarepants (not that we don't have our share of those too).

She also took cupcakes to school on her birthday, and she got to have a big party with a pinata and a Strawberry vanilla cake (also by request), big pans of mac n cheese and chocolate milk on Saturday, so it was quite a festive March.

At four, Clementine is entirely articulate. She has no trouble expressing her feelings and often does a good job negotiating with us and with her sister, which I love. She and Calliope are starting to fight, but mostly get along great. Today she told me that when she looks at Calliope's car seat and Calliope isn't there, she's sad. When I asked why, Clementine said, "She's just so cute -- she has those tiny little hands." Certainly I have already been fully rewarded for having two children. Clementine is getting along in spelling her name, although admittedly we put her at a disadvantage. She is doing some addition on her own and I'll have to post a video because she does it by putting each number on her fingers (say 2 fingers on one hand and 3 on the other for 2 + 3) and then she touches each finger to her nose as she counts them up. I remember doing this exact thing on my chin, which I'd entirely forgotten until Clementine started doing it.

We have had some troubles getting through the night without accidents, which is odd because she did fine for like a year and now it's been months of getting up every single night, either to get her up or to clean up -- sometimes even 3 times a night! So finally we've given in and gone back to diapers. I hate it -- the money, the landfills! However one of these days we're going to have to actually sleep.

In other less-than-fun news, I took her to the doctor this morning after 2 nights of horrible coughing that kept everyone awake, in spite of my best efforts of propping her up, midnight steam showers, and cough syrup. I have a cough of my own and between fretting every time she coughed and my own hacking, life was quickly becoming untenable. Well. Now we've both been diagnosed with walking pneumonia. Really this isn't terrible because 1. I actually took my kid to the doctor for a cough, and some good came of it, 2. we have cough syrup with codeine in it for her now, so she can get a little sleep, 3. we both got 'scripts for antibiotics, which should help, 4. I did it on a Friday instead of waiting and regretting it on Saturday, and 5. hopefully I'll be a little better by the time I go to San Diego on Monday for work.

Clementine is an interesting mix of very grown up and not at all. I suppose I'd feel conflicted about it if I were her, too. On the one hand, when she's playing with her sister she can be quite grown up and cheer Calliope if she's grumpy, or comfort her. Clementine can decide all by herself that she's interested in picking up, she can start cartoons on Saturday mornings (DVDs spare us the commercials), and get water for herself and Calliope. On the other hand, when she interacts with us she almost never dresses herself, washes herself, and often even wants to be fed. We try to react mildly, if at all. Of course Calliope needs lots of help and help = attention. And we try to reward Clementine for acting like a big girl. I'm not too worried about it, though. I know several parents who are really missing their children as they have started kindergarten, and wishing they were around during the day. I'll enjoy my little one while I've still got her that way. :-)