Adi at 4 years is

- Independent (at home). She wants to do everything herself, from unbuckling her car seat to walking across the street to getting dressed. She can competently brush her own hair and refuses to let us put in head bands or hair clips. In a lot of ways, it is a complete reversal from her infant/toddler self who always wanted me around. In the house, she is frequently happy to sit and read a book in her room and she often plays by herself, keeping up a non-stop commentary.

- Dependent (in public). Despite her independence at home, when Adi is with a group of people (extended family, schoolmates or strangers) she wants to be with Dave or Mae or me. Although she often plays by herself at home, as soon as she is on the playground or at the pool, she follows Mae around. I've seen kids at preschool come up and ask her name and she responds with a scowl, saying "I don't feel like talking right now." It seems like the easiest opportunity she'll have for making friends and it is painful to watch her react so suspiciously. But I know it's not unusual.

- Fine motor skilled. She can thread a needle and sew small crafts, peel open difficult packaging, button and tie half-knots.

- Jealous. The grass is definitely less green on Adi's side of the fence. For her to be satisfied with something, it has to be markedly better than what Mae got; any small deviation that could be interpreted as better with Mae's thing will cause her to abandon her favorite color, animal, etc., in favor of the other thing. It's almost to the point where I just choose the better thing for Mae, so at least one girl will be satisfied. One of the most difficult things is that Adi never bonded as strongly with a 'lovey' as Mae has with her Annie; now Adi responds to Mae's love for Annie with wanting one of her own. We've tried as many alternatives as possible without giving her exactly the same thing but so far nothing has compared and it is of active debate if we should give her her own Annie or if this would be damaging to Mae.

- Obsessed with animals, especially on leashes. She has two little puppies and two lambs who have belts or shoelaces tied around their necks; she drags them along the floor with her. She wants to get a dog so badly that she requested that we buy a bag of dog food, so "we're ready when we get our dog." Getting to hold the leashes of several dogs was the highlight of our camping trip this summer with Dave's family. And at the dog show during our town's Labor Day festival, getting to hold a small dog on her lap was favored even over the candy tossed out at the parade. She also likes to pretend to be a dog or a horse (both of which walk on her hands and feet, not knees) and wants to wear a leash.

A horse in princess shoes:

- Into make-believe. Her favorite kind of playing involves pretending to be someone else or something else. She likes to play mom and tries to get Mae to be the dad; I'm often assigned the role of babysitter or grandma. Or she'll be a kid she knows and assign someone else the other roles in that family. Or she'll be Cinderella (we have let the Disney princess creep in, and Cinderella seems to be her favorite) and Mae and I are the mean step-sisters. Sometimes she's the puppy, sometimes a horse, sometimes the owner. If you haven't gotten the idea, much of the role-playing involves assigning other people their roles and she doesn't appreciate it when the other kids don't want to play the same game. She's definitely been working on learning how to compromise and play someone else's game in order to get a turn of them playing hers.

- Likes to be scared. She likes scary stories and movies and likes to play games where someone (a bear, a dinosaur) is chasing her. She also likes to be tickled sometimes and is the most ticklish person I've ever known.

- A puzzle whiz. Although it is currently not a big interest, she took an early lead in doing 20+ piece puzzles.

- Fascinated with vocabulary. She picks up words from the radio, from songs we sing to her, from our conversations; she probably asks what something means five times a day. I love hearing her slip big words into conversation (today the grocery cart was "vibrating" as we went over rough pavement) and using adverbs correctly.

- Driven. She has amazing perseverance. When learning how to pedal a bike (after becoming adept at the balance bike) she just tried to start over and over, sometimes using up 50 feet in her attempts. When hiking or running, she just pumps her arms and drives herself along, seeming to enjoy the challenge. The one exception is kids races (often held in conjunction with a road race that Dave or I are doing) when her aversion to strangers shuts her down to the extent that she just won't run.

- Focused. We can ask her to go get dressed and she will come back 4 minutes later, task completed. This seems to tie in with her physical perseverance.

- Easily potty trained at night. At some point, we realized her pullups had been dry for months. Since transitioning from them, she has only wet the bed once. We don't ever remember how long it's been, but I'd guess 6 months or more.

- A good sleeper. As an infant, she had very clear sleep signals (e.g. crying if you did anything other than putting her down to sleep) and short wake times. She continues to need a lot of sleep and very rarely gives us any trouble at bedtime. She doesn't actually fall asleep quickly but, once in bed, she doesn't seem to want to engage with Mae or try to stay up in any fashion. This has made bedtimes with the two of them much easier than it could have been! However, nap time isn't going so well. I had been expecting her to nap until kindergarten (which maybe she will) but she is willing to chat and stall and say she doesn't want to take a nap; although she has never failed to fall asleep in her bed eventually. She often sleeps 2 hours at nap but waking up isn't so nice. We have been pleasantly surprised by her good behavior on the few occasions when she has missed a nap due to some activity so it seems the end of the nap might not be catastrophic when it occurs.

- Gentle and loving. Adi loves to hold babies in her lap and can be remarkably gentle with them and other younger kids. She truly seems to love taking care of people and animals and I've noticed how gentle she is with my pregnant belly. Some of the times she gets the most upset are when *she* has been mean to someone and it is my opinion that her emotion has less to do with getting caught than with the realization that she's acting in a way she loathes.