Sadie loves having a baby in the family. She likes to greet Frederick first thing in the morning. If he is not awake, she usually wakes him, in spite of attempts to restrain her. On a recent morning Sadie was telling Frederick about her plan to be a Mommy when she grows up …”but you won’t be a Mom, little goonkster. When you grow up, you can be a Daddy … of a different family. We’ll each be the Mom and the Dad of a different family … but maybe sometimes we can talk.”
Frederick’s Dedication was on April 27th. Big sister Sadie came to the front of the church with us and was asked if she would love andbe kind to him. She was too shy to answer, but she reached right over and gave Frederick a big smile andhug. A few days later she squeezed a wet washcloth over his head, telling him she was going to wet his head every day. I was just about to cut the activity short, when she explained sweetly to Frederick that it was to remind him of his dedication. She’s followed up on this, not everyday, but several other times.
Loving the baby doesn’t mean that having a 2nd kid in the house hasn’t been a shock to Sadie’s sytem. She’s been taking her frustration out on me lately. Every trip to the bathroom is a major battle. If we are at home, she wants to pee outside behind a tree. If we are in the woods, she wants to get back to a toilet. She’ll ride her bike to places but I have to carry it back. And bedtime?!?!?! Whatever happened to bedtime? After we do her whole bedtime routine, complete with stories and some cuddles in the dark – just when Ransom or I (whoever is putting her to bed) is practically asleep – she declares she is not tired and heads downstairs to do some drawing. Five to 15 drawings and an hour and a quarter later, she finally agrees to head back up to bed. The old rule was that she could play but she couldn’t expect to us to play with or help her. “What if I need just a little bit of help?” Sadie asked. “Like what?” asked Ransom. “Like if I need a new piece of paper.” “Okay,” Ransom agreed. The new rule is she has to stay in her room, but she’s still been staying up very late creating her art.
Part of the bedtime issue may be fear. Sadie seems to have developed a new fear of the dark. Her closets and under her bed are areas that worry her at night. She has has loved reading a book borrowed from Pre-school called “Go Away Big Green Monster” in which a series of holes in the pages create a monster and then make it disappear “anddon’t come back again … until I say so.” She requests to read this book, yet sometimes she’ll listen to it while covering her eyes with her hands and peeking through the cracks between her fingers. A few weeks ago Mossy asked if she could take Sadie on a special trip to the zoo. Sadie was firm in her response that she did not want to go. It turns out that last time she went (in November) she heard a yak make a loud noise that she found too scary.
Sadie loves to share her artist creations. She tends to pick just one person, and that person gets the whole pile of drawing for weeks on end. For awhile we were mailing pictures to Julia almost daily. The current recipient is Sadie’s “mystery friend”, Sue, an adult from church who was paired with Sadie as part of a Valentine’s activity back in February. Sadie and Sue seem to have formed a special bond. She appears in many of Sadie’s pictures. Sadie looks forward to seeing Sue and hand delivering the drawings of the week at church on Sundays.
Sadie has a keen understanding of times and dates and patterns. The other day when Grammy asked her to “tell me about what happened to your toe [ to make it black-and-blue],” Sadie started her response with, “Oh, well, that happened May 12th ….” Thinking back I realized she was probably right about the date, but why it was at the forefront of her memory I wasn’t sure. She can often read her watch correctly. She adds up points in Uno like a pro. After a few weeks of having Emily, our mother’s helper, come every other Friday, and swimming at the Y on the other Fridays, Sadie commented that Emily and the Y were “taking turns.” She seems to enjoy having a weekly rhythm.
