Athena is pretty awesome as pre-schoolers go. She’s just turned three and a half and I didn’t want to wait another six months to do a ‘birthday’ update as I know she’ll have changed so much by then!
She’s super tall for her age, she’s been in aged 4-5 clothes since last summer and has lost all her baby fat. Her hair reaches her waist and has still not been cut and she has the most gorgeous natural highlights. She’s talkative, in fact she never stops talking and often sings too! In one day last week I was asked by three separate people ‘Does she ever stop talking?’ when we spent the day in town and came home on the bus where she befriended an elderly couple and chewed their ear off. She often tells people her full name when asked, even though I’ve told her it’s okay to just say Athena!
She loves Preschool, and comes home with a new accident form at least every two weeks from hurtling around at high speeds. She’s still napping on non pre-school days for about two hours, and still sleeps through the night for about 13 hours or so. Bedtime is around 7pm, sometimes a little earlier if she’s exhausted after preschool and she can’t wait for Arlo to move in to share her room with her! At the moment she has a mid sleeper so we’ve set up a mattress underneath that for him but so far he’s not used it! In the new year we’ll look into getting proper bunk beds for them.
She’s still mostly super sweet to her brother, helping him take his shoes and coat off, get and use toys but she does get frustrated when he tries to ‘help’ her with puzzles or drawing! Taking of drawing Athena really isn’t that artistic yet, she’s not bothered about trying to draw people or things, but loves a good scribble and if here is glue and sequins involved then shes all over it (and it is normally all over her!)
She’s really loving talking about Christmas, ‘Santan’ is going to come and bring her presents, but she’s been enjoying seeing him out and about over the last couple of weeks too! Here’s a photo from a local school fete…
The biggest struggle with Athena, apart from the normal selective hearing and lack of urgency when we need to be somewhere is food. I am trying to hard to get Athena to widen her palate and to try more things, but shes so reluctant. I don’t want to ever force her to eat something she doesn’t like as I don’t see that being helpful but I do try and get her to at least taste things, I’ve read that you have to get them to taste/try things up to ten times before they’ll learn to accept the taste… and hey, minor breakthrough with chicken nuggets this week! (I know, I know but they’re something she’d never eat!)
Some recent Athenaisms:
Telling people they are (or aren’t) her best friend. She has now accepted that you can have more than one ‘best friend’ although I try to get her to use ‘good friend’ rather than best!
As I said she is a non stop chatterbox, but has slipped backwards with some pronunciations recently, so often people who don’t know her well aren’t sure what she’s chatting about! Things like:
Egghate = headache
Dodot = Forgot
Allypop = Lollipop
Err’body = Everybody
Appertoppa = laptop
She’s also come out with some right corkers recently:
‘Daddy put your bloody phone down!” (Wonder where she heard that from, haha!)
When she didn’t know the word she wanted to say “Oh I don’t know the word, The word is in my mouth but it won’t come out, maybe later”
She’s just such a little bundle of awesomeness, now if she would only sleep in past 6am she’d be even more awesome!
Awww she sounds a bit like my little Princess. She cannot switch off and loves to talk!
Too adorable! I can’t believe she’s coming up to 4 years old soon, where has the time gone? I remember Athena-bump at the Southampton bloggers’ meet all those years ago! x