Brooklyn: 4 Years Old – Trav and Erin + 3

Just like that, we have a four year old! It’s pretty crazy to look back at pictures from when Brooklyn was a baby. It really doesn’t feel like that long ago in some ways. She has grown and learned so much in the last year and is starting to seem SO big!

Brooklyn had her 4 year checkup on Friday, and she weighed 34.4 lbs (50th percentile) and was 40 inches tall (50th percentile). She’s perfectly average! :) I feel like she is so thin, so I was a little surprised to learn she was 50th percentile for weight. She is wearing 4T clothes, which fit pretty well except in the waist. If her pants don’t have an elastic band, she usually needs a belt to hold them up ;) She is wearing about a 9.5 or 10 in shoes right now. She is learning how to get dressed by herself and can usually get her shirt and pants on without help, although she is likely to put them on backwards. She’s gone out to the grocery store, library, or music class many times wearing something backwards because she refuses to let me help her put it on correctly ;) Oh well!

As far as eating goes, Brooklyn is all over the map. She’s really not too picky, although on any given day she may or may not eat a specific food. She still loves fruit—I can’t think of a single one she doesn’t like. She eats meat now better than she used to, although still not consistently. Many times, she is just “too busy” to want to eat. She’d rather get down to play than sit and finish what she’s eating. We have struggled this year with her wanting to not finish a meal and then come back for a “snack” within the next hour because she’s still hungry. Who knew eating could be so difficult? ;) She loves desserts and candy, and sometimes she is motivated to eat her meal just so she can eat dessert when she finishes. She also loves to eat popcorn with her daddy!

Knock on wood, Brooklyn is sleeping really well these days! Our goal is to get the girls in bed by 8 PM, but many days it’s more like 8:30 or 9 PM before Brooklyn actually goes to sleep (we have kind of a long bedtime routine). She generally sleeps until at least 6:45 AM and sometimes it’s a little later than 7 AM—which is doing great for her. Most of the time, she sleeps through the night without waking up unless she accidentally wets the bed. As far as naps goes, she still takes a nap in the afternoon more often than not, but it’s usually not without a fight. Some days she ends up doing “quiet time” in her room instead of actually going to sleep. Overall, we still feel like she needs a nap most of the time—some days it’s just difficult to convince her of that ;)

Brooklyn has made big strides in the potty training and thumb sucking department in the last year! I think this is just her personality, but the biggest hurdle with tackling those two things was just getting her on board. If she doesn’t want to do something (like use the potty), you can bet it won’t be happening without a lot of resistance. Thankfully, once she was motivated to stop sucking her thumb (we used a sticker chart and toy reward), it really wasn’t that hard at all. We are pretty confident that she no longer sucks her thumb at all (and hasn’t for months) because her left thumb isn’t cracked or calloused anymore. Yay! I still occasionally catch her “chewing” on her thumb or finger, but it’s nothing like her constant thumb sucking was. As far as potty training, she has pretty much mastered the whole process. We can usually trust her to tell us when she needs to go or to just go by herself and take care of it. She still needs help wiping her bottom, but other than that she can do everything by herself. She is also pretty consistently staying dry through the night—yay! She no longer wears Pull-ups to sleep in and instead sleeps on a PeaPod mat that helps keep her sheets underneath dry in case of an accident. She still has the occasional accident during the day, and it mainly happens when she waits til the last minute and can’t get to the potty in time. Those are becoming less and less frequent, thankfully. I’m proud of the progress she’s made since she set her mind to it!

As far as speech and vocabulary go, we can understand 99.9% of what Brooklyn says these days. She doesn’t always pronounce everything correctly, but I would say she does more often than not. Her biggest area of trouble is pronouncing anything that starts with “cr”, “gr”, or “gl”. So, crayons are “prayons”, Christmas is “Prissmas”, glue is “blue”, and grocery store is “brocery store”. She also calls herself “Brooklyn Brant”. Hehe :) Hopefully by the time she goes to kindergarten, she’ll be able to say her last name correctly! Other than that, she speaks really clearly. We are constantly amazed by the things she can say and the big words she attempts to use!

I feel like I could write paragraph after paragraph describing Brooklyn. Sometimes I just shake my head and wonder how so much personality could be packed into one little girl. She is a true firstborn (she got a double dose as the oldest child of two firstborn kids)—she thrives on being in charge and telling everybody else what to do. We constantly have to remind her that we are the parents and she is the child because she consistently tries to correct us and “make the rules”. It’s no wonder I’m always so tired by the end of the day ;) Her attitude frequently gets her into trouble; she can be super sweet at times but pretty sassy and disrespectful at other times. She is pretty outgoing and has no trouble going up to random kids at the playground and making friends. I admire that quality in her because that is definitely not me!

Brooklyn constantly amazes me with her memory of things that have happened in the past. She will randomly bring up things that happened a year ago or longer just like they happened yesterday. I feel like my memory is shot these days, so at least one of us can remember something! :) Basically, we can’t get much past her at all. If we tell her we’re going to do something, she will rarely forget it. We have resorted to spelling words out when we don’t want her to know what we’re saying, but we won’t be able to get away with that for much longer I’m sure. Brooklyn can spell her name, recognize a few letters, and count to 12 (most of the time). It’s hard to believe she’ll be in kindergarten in less than 18 months, but I think she’ll do great!

“Inquisitive” would be a great word to describe Brooklyn at this age. I thought she used to ask a lot of questions, but it has really ramped up in the last year or so. I have no idea how many questions she asks in a day, but I’d bet it’s in the hundreds. It wears us out, but I’m proud of her for being so eager to learn. It’s funny to me that many times she will ask questions that we know she already knows the answers to, but she asks them anyway. I guess she’s just cementing the answer in her mind. If we give her an answer that she doesn’t agree with, she will argue with us that we’re wrong…haha. Sometimes it’s not even worth arguing with her because she won’t give it up! She can be pretty stubborn :)

Brooklyn seems to have boundless energy most of the time. She loves to play outside! She has recently gotten into playing hide-and-seek and is always asking if we can play in the backyard. She also likes playing chase. She got a bicycle for her birthday and has enjoyed learning how to ride it over the past couple of weeks. Other favorite outdoor activities include playing in the rain, swinging and sliding on her playset, drawing with sidewalk chalk, and digging in the dirt/mulch. She definitely doesn’t mind getting dirty! Her favorite indoor activities include drawing and painting, playing “memory” games, reading books, building with blocks, and watching shows/movies on TV (favorites right now are Monster’s Inc, Curious George, and Clifford).

As far as Brooklyn’s role as big sister, I feel like things have improved a lot in the last few months. We went through a stage where it seemed like Brooklyn enjoyed pushing Savannah’s buttons and making her scream. Some days that still happens. But, I’d say for the most part, Brooklyn is doing a lot better. She and Savannah truly enjoy playing together more often than not. It’s been so fun to see them interacting in a positive way. Sometimes I’ll catch Brooklyn “reading” books to Savannah in her room, and that always makes me smile. She is doing much better at sharing too and doesn’t mind if Savannah sits with her in the recliner to watch a show. I can tell that Savannah is starting to really look up to Brooklyn and want to do everything she does, so Brooklyn has a big role to fill in setting a good example. She has made big strides so far, and I hope that will continue over the next year!

Other qualities about Brooklyn at age 4: She likes to help and has started setting the table/clearing her plate when she finishes eating. She can be super silly and loves to make others laugh. She also loves to be tickled by her daddy! She can be really dramatic these days and cries at the slightest bump or bruise (mostly for attention, I think). She also loves to dance and sing and can easily remember words to lots of songs. She is currently going through a whining stage where she complains about not wanting to do what we ask her to do. We’re holding out hope that this will improve sooner rather than later! Overall, she is exhausting but so fun! She is always making us laugh with the funny “brooklyn-isms” that she says, and she keeps us on our toes daily. We are learning patience the hard way, I think :) I’ll end this with the “birthday quiz” that she did on her actual birthday. I thought it would be neat to have Brooklyn answer some questions about herself in her own words, so we will try to make this a yearly birthday tradition:

What is your name? Brooklyn “Brant”
If you could go anywhere, where would you go? To the grocery store
What are you going to be when you grow up? “Clean the dishes” (a dishwasher?)
Who do you think you’ll marry one day? Nathan (first she said “Mommy and Daddy”, and I told her she’d have to pick someone else…haha)
Who are your friends? Natalie, Alexander, Nathan, Rory, Lillian
What do you like to do with your friends? Play hide-and-seek
What is your favorite food? PB&J sandwiches
What do you like to do with Mommy? Watch shows
What do you like to do with Daddy? Help build things sometimes
What is your favorite color? blue
What is your favorite movie? Frozen
What is your favorite song? Jesus Loves the Little Children
What is your favorite thing to do outside? Play on my swingset
What are you really good at doing? Playing bouncy ball
What do you like to sleep with at night? My kitty (stuffed animal cat named Brownie)
What’s the best thing about being a big sister? Giving Savannah a paci when she whines
What is your favorite book? Finding Nemo (book)
What is your favorite fruit? Watermelon and apples
What is your favorite drink? milk
What is your favorite restaurant? The pancake restaurant (IHOP)
What is your favorite dessert? Ice cream cones
What do you hope to do before your next birthday? Make supper