Little girl growing up... Sadie is now 4 going on at least 14 or 15. It's frightening. Somehow this child has managed to have all the confidence, boldness and outgoing-ness that her daddy, brother and I have never had. What she lacks in knowledge, she makes up for with enthusiasm. That's our Sadie.
Over the past year, we've had some pretty big milestones. Sadie mastered the potty in just under a week (a huge relief after the battle of potty-training her brother). She got to go to her first birthday party (non-relative). She went ice skating for the first time and attended her first ballet class.
She also invented her first imaginary friend- the first of many... but more about that later.
Sadie is my little ball of energy and joy. Yep, I can't think to describe it any other way. First thing in the morning, she wakes up with a big smile on her face and asks "What are we going to do today, Mom?" Something as simple as getting clean clothes from the dryer, she gushes over "Oh, thank you Mommy for my clean pjs" and she takes them and dances into her bedroom to put them away. Every gift for birthdays or Christmas's or for no reason at all is accepted with such enthusiasm that you might be tempted to think that she's acting for someone but the feeling is real, even if it is given with a dramatic flare. She never fails to remind me that anything can be good or exciting if you just look at it from the right perspective.
Now, don't get me wrong, the princess is certainly capable of showing the world her less desirable moods. She can be one whiny-cranky mess when the world aligns against her. Even while trick or treating the other night... it was our first time in the new neighborhood. Everyone was out. It was cold and the princess didn't want her jacket to cover her beautiful Cinderella costume. (Yes, we're a bit of a diva at times) We made it out and over to the next door neighbor's. Then we hit the house after that. After the third house, we had to walk around the corner and down the next street a little ways. Little Cinderella starts dragging her feet, "but I waannna trick or treat" "well, Sadie, that's what we're doing" We could only figure that 1. she was cold and 2. the house here are much farther apart than in Oakland, requiring her little feet to do a lot more walking. She perked up after getting her jacket on but in the end, they only made it down one street before they were done for the night.
She also can hold her own with a tantrum but fortunately those don't happen very often and when they do, it's usually because she is just too exhausted.
Sadie is our social butterfly. She loves being the center of attention. Often we believe that the world is her stage and we're just the audience. This is a lot of fun (most of the time). You never know when she's going to start a song or a dance or talk with a weird accent and poses or take a dive. She continues to be our physical comedienne. In fact, as I'm typing this, she struts down the hall with a blanket on her head and in her most elegant voice asks "how do i look?"
Preschool started a couple months ago and she's in the class Caleb had last year. She goes 3 mornings a week and on Wednesdays, she gets to stay for lunch. And apparently, Sadie already is developing quite the entourage. She has a best friend, Samantha, and judging by pictures in the classroom, they are inseparable, well, until the teachers have to separate them for talking too much during circle time. Recently, there's also been a boy in the picture. Now, Sadie has always managed to get the boys to follow her around but in the past few weeks, we've been hearing about Nathan and how he likes to hold her hand. I was not expecting this and I'm still not sure what I think of this. I think Daddy is even more unsure. But at any rate, she is a friendly, out going girl and I'm thrilled to see her making friends.
In addition to preschool, Sadie started taking ballet lessons. She's been obsessed with it since we were first introduced to Angelina Ballerina and if you ask what she wants to be when she grows up, she'll tell you "a real ballerina one day" (a line from Angelina Ballerina). When Caleb started working with his TSS, we thought it might be good to give Sadie a special activity and so over the summer we tried out a 5 week class through The Pittsburgh Ballet Theater School. Needless to say, she loved it and surprising to us, she really learned things. She would "teach" us how to do curtsies and use phrases that we know she learned from class. After that success, we decided to sign her up for the year. So every Thursday morning, we scramble to get Caleb to preschool and get her to ballet and she's loving it. To top it all off, we're attending The Nutcracker Ballet for the first time this year and she absolutely can't wait to go.
Sadie is very smart but doesn't always use it for good, like her brother. She's learned manipulation and tries very hard to "cute" her way out of trouble, i.e. shrugging her shoulders and grinning when she's caught doing something wrong. I swear sometimes I think I'm living on a sitcom with the antics she comes up with.
Sadie has added more people to our family over this past year... Margot, Sal and Ziggy. Just look back at past posts and you can read all about them. In short, they're her friends from Mexico and they make frequent visits. She also has a Mexico Mom, a Mexico Grandma and a Mexico Grandpa. So far they've been harmless and quite entertaining. For example, her Mexico mom likes to eat ketchup on pancakes.
Sadie loves to play pretend and for a while, we never knew what name to call her. Some days she was Cinderella, some days, Clara, and my favorite, Spider-man Sadie. She's been really great with getting her brother to play along with her and that's one of the special things that we thank God for about her.
She also very much loves her books- almost as much as her big brother. She loves to sing and dance and dress-up and play soccer and ride bikes. She's my active child. We've noticed that she's the kind of kid that gets more spastic the more tired she gets. It's funny to watch but not always funny to put up with.
And surprisingly she manages to have this grace about her despite being a complete clutz. I really have trouble understanding it.
Sadie's our special girl and we've had so much fun with her this year and we look forward to watching her grow over the coming year.
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