Speaking of ...

I have been thinking of my Ana lately. Sometimes she makes me so frustrated that I just want to scream. And yet at the end of the day, when Thad and I tip toe into her room to check her sleeping frame, I feel overwhelmingly grateful for such a sweet, smart, good, little girl. I know that she is special and that I have been blessed to have such a child sent to our family.

Her imagination blows my mind. Ana can play for hours with her toys, making up story lines and plots. And sometimes she narrates as she plays: "'But you're so nice,' she said, with big, curious eyes.'" (She actually said that. What 4-year-old describes her barbie's eyes while playing with her??) I have to admit, her affinity for description makes the writer in me very proud indeed.

When Benji tries to take her toys while she's playing with them, she'll hand him another toy, and cunningly say, "Here Benji, do you want to play with this?" I've tried to teach her that distraction is the best method to use with B right now, and she catches on pretty quickly.

Often Ana crawls into Benji's crib in the morning, and I walk in to find dozens of books scattered around his crib, as she reads to him.

Ana's ability to memorize books and read them to me and Thad, almost verbatem, is astounding. It blows me away, the memory on this girl. I recently rented a Pinkalicious book from the library, and within days she was reading it to me, word for word, hard words and all. It's crazy.

She still irritates me to no end with her strong feelings about fashion. Just this last week I was trying to reason with her one morning. "Ana, you can't wear tennis shoes and socks with leggings. It looks dorky. Either wear some other shoes and no socks, or change your pants."

"UURRRGGGGG!!" She screamed in exasperation. She possesses good grown-up sighing abilities. "Why can't you just let me wear what I want to wear!" She whined. So teeny-bopper!

I love how friendly Ana is. She is shy in new situations, but once she becomes comfortable, she is very outgoing. She loves preschool, dance, anything to do with friends. She begs me every day to have a friend over, or to go to a friend's house.

And her thing right now is to say, "speaking of ..." She says it to connect two completely unrelated things. Like, "speaking of food, do you want to go play?" She must have heard me use that phrase a few times, and now she says it all the time!