M just turned 4 years old and had her long birthday weekend starting with her real birthday on Friday (small unicorn cake, gifts (unicorn shoes and slippers and a board game) and Skype calls) in the morning and a bunny pizza for dinner in the evening, followed by a kid birthday party with neighbors on Sat and with Estonian kids on Sunday. She had a big unicorn cake, unicorn-themed decorations and snacks.
A little about her development.
Important
Sleep is still hard, waking up early in the morning and not being able to go back to sleep.
Stopped napping in July 2023, but still does it on the go in the car or cargo bike.
Started school for 2 days a week at the end of March! Will start school full time mid-May for which her grandparents will come to take her after so she doesn't need to go to afterschool care.
Controlling her emotions is still hard. If she doesn't get what she wants, she will scream (loud!) and degrade in her development. Right now, for our irritation, she will scream "Mama! Mama! Papa! Papa!" Needs external regulation to get settled again.
Will start swimming classes and piano lessons in September.
Is a lot of fun to travel with, we went to Estonia in the end of April and it was 95% pleasure. She can understand the general rules of travelling now, will adapt and take part in it.
Has amazing memory, can really recount things from a year ago.
Can count to 10 but will say 50 often instead of 10. Seems like she can count to and off from simple numbers too.
Motor development
Can bike on her own since August (with help to get started), few months ago she developed a skill to be able to get started on her own.
Jumps with two legs at once.
Can do a summer sault on her own.
Can hang from monkey bars and flip around.
Cuts with scissors with good precision, can do dot-to-dot, can color in between the lines. Has a correct hold of the pencil.
Add: June 2024, can walk up and down the stairs with taking one stair at a time with one foot.
Broke her left foot (metatarsal I) in July and had a cast for 1 week.
Social interaction
Social interaction with peers is getting more important. Wants to play with her friends from the neighborhood.
According to the daycare review can play in a group, follow and lead, take turns, participate in others' games.
Can try to solve problems with peers on her own.
Still finds sharing difficult.
Can be shy when she is in a new environment. Finds (Dutch-speaking) men sometimes intimidating.
Language
Can use all 3 languages. Dutch is catching up to other languages.
Dominancy of languages depends on the exposure (Estonian dominated since summer to about March), English dominates when Canadian grandparents are here.
Uses full sentences in all languages. Still makes grammar mistakes, mostly based on generalization, e.g. "Palun luge raamatut" vs "Palun loe raamatut". Something called laadivaheldus is still hard for her in Estonian.
Knows some of the letters and is interested in them. We are working on phonem recognition and learning all the letters in Estonian now.
Can rhyme. Likes poems and songs.
Can sing to tune.
Add July 2024: working on letters and reading, can read simple words with 2-3 letters which don't start with kptgbd in Estonian. We were doing reading tasks every morning but sometimes it can be hard to motivate her, especially when she is tired.
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