Cadence is 4!!

Well, it’s been a few weeks with our new 4-year-old, so I figured I should probably write up a little something about her amazing little personality.

Life with Cadence is a whirlwind! She has more energy than the rest of us combined!

I think she has a daily contest with herself to see what surfaces in the house she can jump off without getting in trouble. Ugh…every time it’s the biggest THUD, and then I’m worried she hurt herself, and she’s just laughing and asking if she can jump off the bed/couch/chair/stairs again.

Very recently, she’s decided that listening to Mommy and Daddy is optional. I’ll ask her to get her shoes on so we can go somewhere, and she turns around like she’s following the instructions, but then she sees toy x/y/z and decides playing with that is more important than getting her shoes on. This happens like 257,640,278,735 times each day and I’m pretty sick of it! I hope she finds the value in listening again soon, before we’re both entirely frustrated with each other!

Cadence’s favorite thing to do is laugh, or make other people laugh. She has her own little repertoire of jokes or silly things to say. Her favorite silly words (ugh, of course) are butt, poop and underwear. If you want to hear Cadence laugh, just say any combination of those three words and she is guaranteed to be rolling on the floor laughing (and repeating it for hours/days).

She is crazy bright, and picks up little facts quickly. For example, she loudly announces the song, “Carol of the Bells” as soon as it comes on the Christmas radio station. Or she can identify and name the Statue of Liberty anytime she sees it.

Historically, Cadence has shown very little interest in letters or reading, but now that she’s in preschool, she can spell and write her own name! She’s also starting to sight read simple words. So exciting!!

Numbers, however, are a completely different story. Cadence surprised me one morning a few months ago. when we were out driving around, by counting to 100. Accurately, and completely on her own! !??!?? She is also consistently accurate counting groups of objects, and doing simple addition and subtraction problems. I love that she enjoys numbers so much!

She has started reading the time on digital clocks and is so proud of herself! She also understand that the hour starts over once the numbers get to 60, which I think Adelaide just learned in 1st grade, LOL!

She played her first season of soccer this fall and LOVED it. I have to admit, she has quite a bit of natural talent on the field. For being 3 there’s not a whole lot of expectation, but once she finally figured out she wasn’t allowed to use her hands, she had a lot of success dribbling the ball into the goal. I was such a proud mommy!

She makes friends quickly and easily. Her best friend by far is our neighbor Tatum. Those two are so adorable together. Their favorite game to play is dress-up. Within seconds of arriving at Tatum’s house, they have already chosen costumes and begun their make-believe scenario. It’s really impressive to watch. And their little conversations are priceless!

When she’s not playing with Tatum, her favorite playmate is Adelaide (of course!!). These two get along so well, it warms my heart! Of course they have their disagreements and arguments, but for the most part, they play exceptionally well together. Love, love, love that these girls have each other!

Her favorite food is mac-n-cheese with a side of chicken nuggets. Cottage cheese and yogurt would be a close second, along with anything in the dairy aisle.

Dinner is still a battle of wills, but it feels like we’ve reached an understanding with her. She knows she HAS to try everything on her plate. We make sure to have at least one thing on her plate that WE KNOW she likes, and she knows we expect her to eat the majority of that particular food. She challenges us every night, but it seems like she’s putting up less of a fight, and just eating the food. Good thing too, because this kid is a string bean!

At her 4 year old check up, she ranked in the 75th percentile for height and the 30th percentile for weight. Ugh…she’s never been that low for weight before. Oh the mommy guilt! Should I just feed her mac-n-cheese everyday!?? Chocolate milk with every meal?!? I swear I’m not starving my child!!!

Cadence still sleeps with buh-ba (her blanket), and sucks her thumb. We’ve introduced the idea that she will have to stop sucking her thumb at some point, because it’s not good for her teeth. But we’re far from breaking the habit. Mostly we just try to remind her that her thumb is for nap time and bed time. It helps that her preschool has a “no thumb sucking” policy 😉

She still naps for two hours every day, though it’s not awful if she doesn’t nap. It’s so nice to have that flexibility in our schedule!

And O.M.G!!! In the last couple of months we finally, FINALLY turned a corner with this kid, and she now sleeps completely through the night without waking ME up!! And it happens at least 4 out of 7 nights of the week. THIS IS HUGE! For the first time in 6+ years I’ve felt adequately rested! !!!!!

It’s not every night, and I don’t ever expect it to be, but I’m so crazy happy that something clicked, and she figured out how to put herself to back to sleep. 😀 😀 😀

So there you have it, that’s Cadence! Our smiley, happy, joke-telling, choosey-eater, skirt-wearing, twirling, jumping, laughing, non-stop-talking, boundary-testing, self-confident 4-year-old. And we love her to pieces <3 <3 <3