growing up

A bit ago, Bruce and I found some link on stages of development.. and there was some quote about girls being 57% of their adult height at 3 year of age... finding some number back in my email, Zoe was about 40inches.. translating to an adult height of 5'10" (not surprising for a Gooch Girl ;)

It just reminds me of all the milestones Zoe has hit.. .

Just before turning 5, she suddenly went to having to be dragged to bath kicking and screaming to submerging up over her ears, just recently over her eyes, and deciding she was ready to swim at the pool under water. Two weeks ago, she did just that, with goggles on, she swam underwater for an hour.. learning to push off walls, dive to the bottom to fetch rings.. amazing how fast things are changing. She also loves the shower (which we call waterfall)..

She is also really into the learning part of school, mostly revolving around language. She is also a perfectionist... an over achiever. She got together with her friends Asha and Claire from preschool and there were several moments of hysterics by one of them... one thing I remember Zoe saying: "But I want to be the one who knows the most".. she meant french.. they are all in French immersion. they were so competitive together.

More to it: Zoe has homework.. her sounds book, part of learning through Jolly Phonics... the book comes with the letters, sounds, a few practice words.. starting with "s".. Zoe is to practice writing, doing the actions, and then draw something... these are all her strong suits, especially the draw something.. but there isn't much room, and both times we have worked on this (once after school when she was very tired, and the next first thing in the morning before school) she would end up sobbing and we'd just have to put it away because she was worried she was doing it wrong, or it wasn't right, or it wasn't enough.. I had to ask the teacher to take extra time to explain her expectations and tell Zoe she was doing it right... We'll see if it worked.

This weekend she has spent quite a lot of time drawing.. it is amazing how much she has changed. She does color in the lines (as she is expected in school) and has a good sense of colors that go together. She now draws faces and colors them with "skin" color". She has started asking me to cut out shapes and she assembles them.. first it was wonder woman, picking out different sheets of paper as needed to make the pieces of the outfits. Today a Christmas elf.

She also spent a lot of time playing with the markers that have faces.. each of them in a role.. grandma, mom, dad, little brother, sisters, etc... a whole story..

she has also spent time writing... the number 3, 4, 5...

she has about 100 words in french in her vocabulary... counts to 29 (skipping some, but this too has changed fast... she now counts to 14 without error)

she always wants more...

we've bought a book with extra worksheets and she is practicing more letters, colors, etc. "I love homework!" she says.

She is also a caring sister.. played well with Finn for 2 hours.. with only a little skuttle here and there... they found twin shirts from the preschool.. and both wore them to be twins.

I am so proud and excited to watch her grow... an amazing adventure.