FOUR

I'm not sure how it is possible that every year gets faster and faster.  I seriously feel like I posted her 3-year collage a month ago.  I'm also getting later and later in posting about her birthday every year.  And celebrating her birthday and getting her into her yearly appts.  You'd think her birthday was on a different day every year or something that I couldn't get my act together by May 18th!

Oh well, I don't have her exact stats yet (her appt is the 14th of June) but she's roughly 33lbs and 34" tall.  She had a MAJOR growth spurt this year.  When she started school in August she was in 2T clothing.  She ended the school year in 4T.  I'm SO glad I didn't buy summer clothes last fall like I normally do, otherwise I'd have bought the wrong size. 

The other usual stats:
Sleep- sleep is still fairly illusive, although I have to remind myself that she's come a LONG way.  She will fall asleep in the car and on the couch or just cuddled up with me and we haven't had a night scream fest for months.  This summer was off to a rough start due to her window being like a spotlight in her room, causing her 8pm-6:30am sleep cycle to streeeetch to 10pm to 6:30am.  After a few weeks of losing those 2 hours of sleep she was a CRANK.  Naps only made it harder for her to fall asleep at night.  Sleeping in our dark room only made us cranky too as NO one was sleeping well. So a friend sewed some black-out fabric and Sam now has curtains behind her curtains that darken her room enough so that sleep at 8pm is part of the routine again.  PHEW!  The next step will be to get her to stay in bed after we leave.  She has a hard time stopping.  And the more tired she gets, the more she moves.

Bodily functions-  A month or so ago I mentioned to Samantha in passing that if she could keep her pull-up dry she could start wearing her panties to bed.  And voila she started keeping her pull-up dry.  TOTAL shock as she has the bladder the size of a walnut.  She will have an accident here and there, but if I drag her to the toilet 1/2 asleep before I go to bed, she can usually make it until morning. 

Speech-  If Samantha is awake, she's talking.  I'm working really hard at talking to herself in her head as there are times when even whispering isn't appropriate or gets too loud.  Now THAT's a hard thing to try and model, let me tell you.  She's also into potty talk.  I know that it's normal for this age AND that the more I try and stop it, the more she'll want to do it, but it was really getting out of hand.  EVERY word or song involved the words poop or pee or potty.  So I not only tried to put a stop to it, but tried to give her other fun words to say too like "chiuaua" or "pumpernickel" or "beebee".  So far so good, however the potty talk has quickly been replaced with expressions like, "HUMPH" or "It's not FAIR" or sticking her tongue out.  She did that to papa the other day and she's lucky I punished her first! 

Eating- Sam is experimenting with the concepts of negotiation for dessert or declaring she doesn't like something, but she really has a hard time keeping up with these charades as she just loves all food.  This is an area that we are seriously blessed with.   Given the choice, she'll eat junk over fresh, but that's just because she doesn't get much of it at home.  Even then, though, I think she's the only kid I know who will get half-way through a piece of cake and say she's full.  Samantha is a fantastic eater.  She has her preferences, but we have to say things like, "Ok, that's enough bell pepper, eat some of your hamburger too" so I'm not ever going to complain about how she eats!

The famous story at school is of her and another girl harvesting all the spinach in the greenhouse and eating it all.  The other girl is a fairly picky eater, so it's very likely that Samantha ate the entire spinach patch herself!

Health update- Sam hasn't had a migraine for a few months (knock-on-wood) and has even been able to enjoy things like ice cream from Dairy Queen.  We do have to be careful of severe constipation, as she sweats all.the.time (inside with the AC on and playing dress-up for example), but a constant supply of Gatorade has kept that under control. On the physical development side of things, the preschool has been amazing in that she's learned from the other kids how to walk (and even play a little!) on sand or wood chips.  She also can climb any playground, jump off surfaces and catch herself if she gets off balance.  I've just now reached a point where I've had to tell her NOT to jump off things (like 5 stairs at once), where as we use to celebrate her even climbing onto the coffee table. 

SO there we go.  Samantha at 4-years-old!  I do hope Charlotte gets at least bi-yearly updates...I'm already slacking in the belly-shot tradition.