M is 5 years old!

This has been quite of a year for M, going to school for the first time, starting to attend classes of piano, ballet and swimming and getting a baby brother! It is the time for our yearly summary!

Important

• She has developed so much. She is an insightful, active, attentive and an extravert little girl. 80% of the time she is a great companion.

• She has a great memory, out of herself she can recall things that happened up to 1,5 to 1,75 years ago.

• Her favourite activities: anything handicraft, such as coloring, cutting and building something, coloring, stickers, painting. Also loves being outdoors.

• Has collections of nice things, ribbons, hairbands. Also often has another collection of something somewhere.

• She is attending different hobbies: piano (1 on 1, had her first concert in December!), ballet and swimming (badje 0 at this moment still).

• She is just so clever, noticing everything around her, asking questions about it (e.g. how do electricity lines work, why does she need to go to an adult birthday party, why do people smoke when it is bad).

• Can be super head strong and it can be impossible to deal with when we are tired ourselves.

• The biggest fan of her little brother. Wants to hold him as the first thing in the morning!

• Loves her birthday and has been preparing for it for months.

School

• She's gone to school for 11 months now and it is going better compared to half a year ago. She has gotten used to the big group, but still complains about the restless kids and especially one kid she has a difficult relationship with. Doesn't want to go to school often but when she is there, it goes well. Nevertheless, she is happier if she can stay at home.

• She went to the BSO from August to September and January to the end of March; we were generally not very happy with the quality of it.

• School meeting 4 years 10 months: is above average in all the developmental areas they look at (social-emotional, language, simple math, creativity). Sometimes has trouble playing with others if she has a plan thought out already, but searches help then. Is very creative and loves to play outdoors but is also interested in letters and other prewriting and pre-math activities they offer. Sometimes, when an activity is hard, she will not complete it; it is thought that she doesn't want to fail in it. Language-wise she is coming along very well, but the sentence structure can be incorrect still.

• Has had play appointments with another kid from the class, but usually just plays with neighborhood kids

Sleeping

• Is still tough. After the baby arrived, she started waking up at 5:30, with the daylight savings, it became 4:30. It took about 3-4 weeks to get this settled. Still has hard time going to bed alone but we have done it again being alone since 3 weeks (we resorted to sitting by her bed, now bedtime being done by daddy, so that is what we got back) and can wake up at night due to a nightmare or something as well. Typically wakes up around 6 or 6:30 and is allowed to come out of bed at 6:30.

• Atm she has a regression in sleep again. Probably due to Easter, Kings day and her birthday coming up. It is hard to falls asleep and she will wake up 5:30 am. 😔

• Doesn't nap unless she is extremely tired and then in a moving vehicle.

• Bedtime routine is done by daddy and involves reading a comic book, putting on the Yoto and at the moment still most of the nights also sitting there in her room with her.

• Around February or March we started to put her to bed earlier, around 6 pm and that has made a difference. She needs 12 hours of sleep to do well and not less then 11 hours.

Eating

• Rocky, like always. Now we are trying that we serve the food and decide where/when/what will be offered, she decides how much she will eat. Other food will not be served during the meal, except at some special occasions.

• Likes simple tastes, also e.g. with cake.

• Favourite foods:

  • savory: pasta, rice, nacho chips with cheese, peanuts

  • sweet: chocolate, all kinds of candy (thank you, school!)

  • favorite breakfast: smoothie atm with mango, pancakes with maple syrup.

  • favorite lunch at school: 1 bread with cheese or cream cheese or ham and another one with appelstroop

  • favorite dinner: 'pizza' (actually foccacia, as she doesn't like tomato sauce), rice with shredded carrot, macaroni or other pasta with parmesan

  • favorite fruit: frozen mango thawed with warm water. Will eat other fruit too of course :-)

Cognitive development

• Recognizes all capital and most small letters. Can read simple Estonian words (up to 4 letters), KPTGBD are still hard though. Can write her name and when I spell, some other words too. Is motivated to read for some time and then something else comes up. Phonem recognition is good though. Finds word play interesting. We work on readnig and writing with Estonian kindergarden and preschool workbooks

• Has been very interested in numbers, counting and simple maths. We have been using many children workbooks where they have exercises on maths and as an addtiion, also some of Singapore Maths workbooks. Can count up to 20 and sometimes on, when encouraged. Can do simple adding and substracting.

• Multilingualism: Dutch is coming in hard! We have never had that much Dutch in our house. She is codeswitching constantly, as a lot of the input is of course Dutch. You can notice it in the vocabulary in Estonian and English both, but also in sentence structure and other grammar. E.g. "From Emme I can do that" (van mama mag ik dat...), "in het real" (from "in het echt").

  • Some words are Dutch almost always, such as feestje, verjaardag.

  • Says herself that she notices that her English is not as good any more and she watns to learn more and that she would like to have an Estonian friend at school.

  • Distinguishes people as Estonian/English speaking or not, not based on the nationality, e.g. "my English-language grandpa"

  • Will talk in Dutch when playing on her own for the first time last couple of weeks.

Motor development

• Can bike well and has a 16 inch bike now.

• Is learning to rollerskate and can move a little bit now (still with rollerskates that have 2 wheels next to eachother at the back). Went to iceskating lessons during the autumn break and can skate a little bit now. We did it when there was natural ice as well and she loved it, also went to the skating hall once after.

• Can color very well between the lines, uses scissors for precise cutting. Pencil hold is developing. Finds it enjoyable to do precise tasks, such as diamond painting.

  
  

Social-emotional development

• She went through the biggest adjustment in her life, an addition of a little brother in our family. The first weeks were tough, she started sleeping 1-2 hours less (hard to fall asleep and awake very early), she was oppositional, nervous and hard on us. She also immediately lost her skill to play alone. She found and still finds at times, it very hard to share us and especially me with the baby, but now we see it most when she is tired. Nevertheless, she has always been very good to the baby and is his biggest fan! This big adjustment took about 1-2 months and then things were less rocky.

• We see that if she sleeps less than 11 hours at night, her ability to self-regulate is going down tremendously. When she sleeps well, she is helpful, independent, gets dressed, brushes teeth, cooperates well, can wait her turn, is compassionate, in general, a joy to be around. If she doesn't sleep well though, it can be the opposite. Also, she needs to eat well and on a schedule to function properly.

• Plays a lot with other kids, mainly our neighbor girls and Estonian kids. It mostly goes well, but sometimes she has her plan and doesn't want to deviate from it.

• Friendships are becoming more and more imporant for her.

• Emotions are becoming more complex, such as jealousy, envy o. Finds it hard if she thinks she is begin laughed at.

• At the moment, 3 weeks before her birthday, we are finding ourselves in difficult waters again with her difficult behavior. She is contradicting us more, wants to determine what will happen and can get bossy. Also, when she is tired she can be awfully silly.

• Empathy is starting to develop (although her own basic needs need to be met to do that), she is noticing if another kid or adult is sick, hurt or sad and will go up to them to try to comfort them.

General

Has been sick less this year, but when she does, she often starts wheezing still. Regarding the frequency, fingers crossed though!