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2002
Profile
Age: 4
Height: 3’10”
Weight: 48 pounds
Notable Quotations
On snow
in Laurinburg: “I can’t believe it—real snow.”
On icing
a cake: “Please, can I help with the freezing?”
On biting
her tongue: "I stepped on my tongue with my teeth."
On
Mommy's announcement of the evening's dinner: "Pizza?
Did you say pizza?"
On youth:
"It's so fun to be a kid."
On being
away from Mommy: “I miss your beautiful face.”
On
Mommy’s sense of direction: “You said
Mommy knows how to get there, but she doesn’t.”
On a
successful visit to the bathroom: “Now don’t’ feel so tinklish.”
On an
accordion player at a family reunion: “I wish that music man could
come home with us. And then he
could do music for everyone in the family.”
On
bedtime: “I don’t want to go to sleep. I’m fast awake.”
Updated
June 17, 2003
©
Canadas 2003
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 This
has been an action-packed year for Essie. Since celebrating her fourth birthday in January at her
favorite place on the planet, Chuck E. Cheese’s, she has begun reading,
traveled to several cities and museums, and had her first experiences with
roller skating, fireworks, and drive-in movies.
Essie’s
entrance into the world of reading surely is one of the highlights of
2002. In February, in an effort
to get the napless wonder to remain still for a few minutes each day, I
instituted a daily ritual I called a “reading date.” After lunch, she joins her mom or me
for about an hour of lying in bed and experiencing books together. At first, “experiencing books”
generally meant listening to one of us read to her. Within a couple of months, however, Essie had begun to
sound out and recognize words, such as “the” and “see.” By the end of the year, she was able
to recognize a numerous “sight words” and sound out other words. She never did start taking regular
naps, but she is becoming a regular reader.
Over
the course of the year, Essie has developed a number of other rituals, as
well. After making her bed,
dressing herself, and completing other chores, she spends each morning
attending Trinity Preschool or playing around the house. In the afternoon, she has lunch with
the rest of us, joins Mom or Dad for a reading date, does “homework” with
Dad, and then joins Will and Dad for a “playdate,” which might consist of a
visit to the library, a nature walk, or a trip to a playground. After dinner and a bath, Essie
records one or two highlights from the day in her journal, which she often
types herself with help from Mom and Dad, and then settles down with us for a
board game, such as Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, or Scrabble Junior. We wind up the day with more reading,
and she generally falls asleep between 8:30 and 9 p.m.
Like the rest of her family, Essie enjoys the time we
spend at home, but she also likes to travel. This year, she twice went to Indiana, where she spent some
wonderful times with her grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. While she was there, she also visited
the Children’s Museum in Indianapolis, experienced several events in Fort
Wayne’s Three Rivers Festival, saw her first fireworks show, and experienced
her first drive-in movie. In
June, she joined Lisa, Will, me, and 10 college students on a trip to
Colonial Williamsburg that Lisa and I planned for North Carolina Teaching
Fellows. While she was there,
she got to pound cornmeal at the Jamestown Settlement, perform in a little
drama at Colonial Williamsburg, and dress up in colonial clothes at the
Yorktown Victory Center.
Finally, we took a few trips closer to home back in North Carolina,
visiting Discovery Place in Charlotte, the North Carolina Zoological Park in
Asheboro, and the North Carolina Aquarium in Fort Fisher.
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