Letters from Pemberley

Time is flying by so fast that I didn’t have a chance until last night to sit down and think about Elizabeth’s developments at age 4.  Despite my best efforts to keep her an Elizabeth, everyone in the family except me exclusively calls her Lizzie.  I do like the nickname–Lizzy Bennet is one of her namesakes, after all!–but I’ve wanted my oldest daughter to be called Elizabeth since my baby brother was born 26 years ago and wasn’t the Elizabeth Susanna I was praying for.  While acquaintances out here still call her Elizabeth because I introduce her that way, our good friends have followed Derek and Tommy’s lead and call her Lizzie.  Such is life with a husband who loves nicknames, I suppose!  All of that is to say that while I almost always refer to Elizabeth by her full name when writing, even I call her Lizzie at least half the time in person.

At bedtime on her birthday, she asked Derek, “Am I going to be four again tomorrow?”  When she heard that she was going to be four for a whole year, she was very satisfied.  She definitely likes being a big girl.  She is getting a lot better about sucking her thumb and twirling her hair, and she is a true oldest daughter in her attempts to order the other kids around.  She still loves to snuggle up with her rapidly-deteriorating Blankie, though.

Elizabeth still idolizes Tommy and adores her little sisters.  She loves matching with Susanna, and she actually cried the other day when Q wanted to wear a dress to church that didn’t match hers.  Sometimes they go through up to three matching outfits a day (much to my chagrin–it’s cute, but the laundry is not!).  As part of her birthday celebration, I actually whipped up a pair of matching twirly skirts out of scraps, because if there’s anything either girl likes more than matching, it’s dancing.

She’s also at that really fun stage where she begs to “do school” every day.  Since she has almost completely dropped her nap (she usually needs about 1 to 2 naps a week to stay cheerful), she hangs out with Tommy and me all afternoon now, and she loves doing ABC Bible Verses, pattern blocks, and lacing cards.  I’m amazed at how much of his school work she has picked up on, and while I don’t plan to start formal kindergarten with her for another year, I’m sure she’ll learn a ton next year just by listening in to our lessons.  She has caught the drawing bug and suddenly has the fine motor skills to trace letters and dotted line mazes pretty well.  Because I was so opposed to pushing early writing, I didn’t work with Tommy on forming letters at this age (which I’ve since regretted as he has to re-learn things), but I think I’m going to start a formal handwriting program with her in the fall so that she starts with good habits.  She doesn’t know the names of all of her letters yet, so that will be our summer project.

Elizabeth is usually a joy to be around.  Her CBS teacher adores her (and sends her cards almost every month), her Sunday School teachers and helpers adore her, and several of our friends have commented that she’s just so sweet.  She’s the kind of kid that slightly older girls love to make much of.  She’s not always quite so sweet for me, but moodiness can usually be solved with a nap.  She often loves to just come up and snuggle up under my arm and give me a kiss.

I took her ice skating with me on Saturday for a special Mommy-Daughter date, and while the skating was still a little challenging for her, I really enjoyed introducing her to the sport that was my life for my teen years.  I don’t think I want her to be a skater, because it was so hard on my body, but I hope we find something we can share the way my mom and I shared skating.  Lizzie loves one-on-one time with Daddy or me, and we love it, too!