THE GREEN(wald) HOUSE … (growing rosemary & raising a little wolf)

How can my little girl be 4 years old already? The baby who presented me with the gift of motherhood.

The quick and (dare I say) easy labor and delivery - 4.5 hours of “what the hell is happening oh my god I think I’m in labor” to “hi baby” (the first words I uttered as I looked into my little girl’s eyes).

The last few months her personality can be summed up as: me first, that’s mine, I get the bigger one, I get to pick, I get the first one.
She is head strong, independent, wanting to do things herself, and her own way - the quintessential first born attitude. She is demanding, frustrating, defiant - frequently crossing her arms and scowling “NO - I don’t want to!” when I ask her to do something. It has been a true test of patience for me and I am not proud to admit there has been a lot of yelling on my part lately. She fights bedtime every night - she just doesn’t want to go to sleep. We have found her kneeling under her open window, talking to her neighbor friends at 10 at night when she was supposed to be sleeping. The other night she told me that she was going to stay awake all night, she was never going to close her eyes. She said her room was boring. Then she took all her clothes out of her closet, and threw them in a pile in the middle of her room and said she was going to sleep on the pile of clothes. She has been REALLY difficult lately, but she does still have her cute and sweet moments too….

90% of the time, she is really good at sharing and being a good helper and big sister to Sammy. In fact, he is the one who refuses her attempts at “help” more often than not, and that is what makes her upset and angry. She loves speed, and excitement and action. She loves to go for walks in the stroller and have me run down the hills so she can feel like she is on a roller coaster. She loves to be pushed on the swing, and always wants to go higher and faster. The other day she said she wanted to go “two zero two fast” She also loves when Joe or I give her an “underdog” push, though she has adopted Joe’s backwards/opposite way of talking and calls it an “over cat”. She still loves learning and doing new things and knows when she is doing something new or saying something smart and she will comment - “isn’t that clever of me?” She loves dressing up as a princess, and playing house, playing with dolls and barbies, and playing pretend. She was playing “doctor” with her cousin Ari the other day, using the stethoscope I bought when I was pregnant with Sammy. Joe walked in the playroom and Rosie told him he had to leave, because they were playing doctor and “having a moment” as she put it. Yikes! I don’t think I am ready to deal with that yet…

She is such a smartie and always amazes me with the things she says. Just today she said that something would “certainly be a whole lot of fun”. She is still practicing reading and loves to spell and sound out words. She is working on adding and subtracting and can do pretty much any number plus or minus one…

She has been eating a ton lately, I think she is going through a growth spurt. She has been snacking all day long, luckily they are usually healthy snacks, fruit, craisins, carrots and hommous, granola bars, dry cereal, and her favorite foods are still beans and rice and mac and cheese. I was so tickled to see her picking up the individual macaroni pieces and threading them onto the tines of the fork before eating them, just like I remember doing in my youth (and up until not too long ago, to be honest).

We have been talking about her birthday non-stop, counting down the days, and basically celebrating it all month long already. She got presents at the beginning of the month from Aunt Judy and Aunt Elaine, she got presents on Sammy’s birthday, she got a ton of presents at the party we had with friends and neighbors over the weekend, and her big present she asked for from mommy and daddy is “a princess bike, one that won’t fall down”. As luck would have it, one of our awesome neighbors was cleaning out their garage a few weeks ago, and gave us a princess bike with training wheels that their daughter had outgrown - score! I spruced it up, touched up the paint, ordered a basket for the front and some new streamers for the handlebars and I am sure Rosie will love it! This birthday isn’t even over yet, and she is already planning her “five birthday” and has told me the cake she wants and started to come up with presents she wants already for the next year…

Oh my sweet baby girl. I don’t even have the words for the love I feel for you, nor do I have the words for the frustrations and anger I feel some days. I know she is still testing her boundaries and exploring her independence, but MAN I wish she would just go back to the sweet girl who would actually listen to me on occasion.