A belated Happy Birthday post

Dillon turned 4 on February 15th. I've done a birthday post each year since I started the blog so I can remember what she was like at each point. It's fun to look back at how much she's changed each year.

I'm sure it's a product of having a newborn in the house, but she is so BIG to me now. She can do so many things on her own -not that she always wants to do them, especially during this time of adjustment. It never ceases to amaze me the things that she will all of the sudden just do when it never occured to me to even see if she could.

So what's she like? She talks incessantly! She's incredibly smart and can understand more things than I give her credit for sometimes- which will sometimes get me in trouble! She's very social and has started saying hi to random people in public. If they respond to her, she goes on to tell them some random factoid about our life (like that I broke my tailbone the last time we went sledding at the Dartmouth Outing Club). She doesn't always have the filter to know what's appropriate to tell people, so I worry about this sometimes. I never know when she's going to share a little much of her knowledge about how babies are born! Fine motor skills have taken off recently- she can button and unbotton even the tiniest of buttons and can tie a string in a knot. She seems to have passed the recent stage of using her own neck as a convenient place to practice this skill. She's squirmy, squirmy, squirmy. I sometimes just watch her move and marvel at how a human being can move that much. The answer to the question "Can you please be still for just a minute?!" is unequivically "No." And she really can't. I can't imagine this child in school, having to sit for long periods of time. She's very loving, in spite of the recent transition troubles. She loves to give hugs and kisses, and not just to Corryn. We hear "I love you, I like you" several times a day. And she smiles a lot :)

So what she like and not like?
Likes- Still loves her dinosaurs, is still fascinated with blood (and loved that she got to see Corryn before she had her first bath!), asking questions, Corryn, Peaches (most of the time anyway), eating snow- both plain and in snow ice cream form, her friends, reading books, horses, trains, construction machinery, dragons, crawling on Dave, having Nana visit, having Mimi visit, chocolate

Dislikes- getting into the bathtub- she loves the bath once she's there, it's just the getting into part for whatever reason, me going anywhere without her, having to be still for anything, having her hair brushed, having to wait to ask a question ("You shouldn't do that," she says "it makes me forget my questions.")

Could take it or leave it- eating- I think she'd be happy to take a pill to fill her up and not have to think about eating. The rest of life is just so much more interesting to her. Drawing, coloring, painting, though she will occasionally ask to do so.

It still doesn't seem to fully describe her, but I'm not sure that's possible anyway. I can't belive she's 4. I've enjoyed watching her grow and develop so much. It'll be interesting to see where she is next year as being a sibling takes on a role in her life.