Firstborn

A girl at church told me a while ago after the primary program, after lavishing on how cute Chloe is, that she looks like a little secretary with those glasses on.
But come on...she is pretty cute in them isn't she? :-) Wherever we go when it's the two of us, people stop and giggle at her and then look at me and exclaim about how she looks just like a mini-version of me. And she does!
It's really fascinating to watch her grow and develop. I think every set of parents has a unique relationship with the oldest child in the family because they get to go through everything first (...then the second one comes along and proves to you that just because it worked with the first child doesn't mean it will work with the second...). Sometimes she will do or learn something and I think "Oh my gosh, I have a genius child, no other kid her age can do that!" and then other times she will get together with a group of friends and I come home and think "She will never be ready for the world, all of those kids could do X and Chloe's not even close to learning how to do that!". But most of the time? Most of the time we are just friends, and I don't care if she can write her alphabet forwards and backwards or recite the Declaration of Independence verbatim, I'm just glad to be around her and she's glad to be around me. I hear that the ages of 4-10 or 11 (preteen) are the golden years of childhood because they are not teenagers yet, they can do most things like going potty and getting a drink of water, etc. by themselves, and they still like to be around their parents. Chloe's graduated into these golden years with flying colors and she is such a help around the house most of the time.
Socially she is doing very well. She's in a playgroup with a few other moms and their four year olds as far as I know she does a good job with the other kids and enjoys it greatly (at least she does when we have it at our house!). She LOVES to play Mommy/Teacher. She will pick Linus up in her imaginary car (or airplane sometimes too) and take him to school or church for me. She will sit him down and try to be his teacher, but it doesn't always work out so well because she must think that every teacher talks in a foreign language- whenever she starts talking to him as "teacher" she will make up words and speak in tongues and Linus will give her a guffaw-like stare for a few minutes before he gets bored and leaves (which for a teacher, naturally, is very rude, and so it will usually end up with one of them wrestling the other to the ground- she will have to learn about corperal punishment before she gets her liscense obviously...). She often comes up to me while I'm feeding Odell and say in a very lady-like voice "Oh, HI Anna! Is this your baby?!" *she will often call me Anna or another name she can think of and gets quite affronted when I don't play along, to the point where I'm not even allowed to call Odell by her name, I have to think of a different one for her because obviously Anna AND Mommy can't both have a baby named Odell...*. "She is SO cute," she continues, then dotes on her and wants to hold her and love her or will gently wipe her mouth with the burp rag or get her a toy. She has also started with the "Why?" game.
"Mommy, why do we come home all the time? Mommy, why do we drive in the car? Why do we go to bed? Why do we go potty? Why do you have a baby? (have successfully avoided that one when manageable) Why do I get up in the morning? Why do I eat food? " Then she'll ask questions that have absolutely nothing to do with anything. I think she does it just to make sure I'm paying attention. "Mommy...why does he sing the song ALL day?" *me looking around wondering who "he" is, what he is singing, and why he sings ALL day...and "I don't know, honey," is NOT a sufficient answer, so by the end I have to make up something like "Well, "he" is in a hot air balloon and up there you have to sing to be heard, so he just has to sing all day long!" until she is satisfied.*
Some of my favorite things that she does:

• I love it when she sings. She LOVES to sing. Me being called as primary chorister made me about one of the coolest people on the planet. For family night sometimes we will let the kids share their talents and Chloe usually always sings. Just like her made-up teacher language, she stands up on something and belts out nonesense words at the top of her lungs, then occasionally will add something that might sort of sound like a primary song in there, so it will end up sounding something like this: "Faaaah cha ko-chi ka ka saabaaah faaaah Iknowmyheavenlyfatherlovesmeeeeeeeeeeee seeee ka chokey faaah saaaa lllllaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!"...then a pause and a bow to let us know she's done, to which we are to promptly reply with vigorous cheering and clapping.
  
• Sometimes she wants to show me a "ballerina dance", so she'll sit me down somewhere, then she starts to dance, except she's clearly somewhat embarassed because she doesn't really know what she's doing, so halfway through twirling and stretching her legs around, she watches me smirk a little and then she breaks into giggles and grabs her cheeks to stop herself from smiling so she can finish her dance. Obviously if her hands are covering her cheeks, I can't see the smile and it still counts as a serious ballerina dance.
  
• I showed her how to play five notes in a row with each finger for each of her hands on the piano and she is THRILLED that she can do it by herself. She still can't find middle C, so it's always something somewhat obscure sounding, but she's excited to do it and she practices on it almost everyday. Gotta start teaching that girl piano!
  
• Speaking of obscure sounding, she also has a small child-sized cheapo guitar that my mom gave to her for Christmas a couple of years ago. The thing can not be tuned, despite my desperate attempts to do so, the pegs are just cheap and won't stick, so the strings are mostly loose and the ones that are tight are not near the right notes. I don't remember when this became a tradition, but somewhere along the line while Linus is taking a bath on any given night, Chloe gets to play the guitar, and vice versa when Chloe gets in the tub. I think I must have done it when we stopped giving the kids a bath together (they fight too much over the toys and we end getting more soaked than they are by the end) so that the other had something occupying to do...so Chloe will sit on a stool in the bathroom while I'm giving Linus a bath, serenading me with this very mid-eastern sounding out of tune instrument, belting out her nonsense/primary songs. It's about as cultural of an experience this mother of three little ones can get each week. Maybe next week I'll dress up and make some hors doeuvres to munch on and bring a cool nightlight to plug in or something exotic like that...
• I love it when she tries to teach Linus how to talk. The fact of the matter is, Linus is an exceptional talker for his age (not always a good thing), but it doesn't matter what the word is or how correctly he's saying it, it's not correct enough. "Linus say 'pet."
  "Pet."
  "No no no, say 'PEH'...."
  ""peh...."
  "TUH!"
  "TUH!"
  "PET"
  "PETUH!"
  "Good job! Mommy, Linus can say 'PET!"
  "YEEEAHHH! Mom, I can say 'PET'!!!"

Chloe is also learning how to draw. It's funny how one day they just scribble, and then the next day they can draw you with such stunning acuracy that your heart just goes a-flutter. For example:I mean, really! She's captured my mustache-like eyelashes perfectly.
Love that girl. :-)