Stuff Lolly does: aged 4

Lolly is four and three months, and is all the awesomeness that is four! She's outspoken, engaging, friendly, stubborn, and fiery!  She loves to chat, and loves to have complicated things explained. 

Here are some recent gems:
- How do engines work?
- What are stars?
- Why does it rain?
- Why do we have hair?
- Why are some animals carnivores and some are herbivores?
- Why do those cars drive over there on that side of the road and we drive over here on this side?
- What is that bug and can we keep it as a pet?!

Lolly, being foolish :D

She is VERY interested in numbers and letters, both writing and reading, and does a lot of practice of both.

She's super-competent on my iPhone and iPad, and chooses mostly pre-school style games with adding, subtracting, matching, and letter/word recognition.  Her game play is more advanced now, she loves this kindy game (Teach Me: Kindergarten) where you answer questions for "coins" that you spend building an aquarium.  While part of me cringes at the *reward* thing, I actually think it's been positive for her "saving" for fish and accessories, and working out how many questions she has to do to get her next "thing."  She also watches a bit of telly on it, but not much, it's mostly games.

Bug, from Tickle Tap, by Lolly!

She's very oriented towards play with others, but also has very shy days, where if we go to the park with friends, it can take 45 minutes of sitting on my lap before she feels she can go play.  Once she does, she's totally fine and can't be dragged away by the proverbial wild horses.  I actually remember being very similar as a child, feeling painfully shy and unsure, but also very social and making new friends seemingly easily once I'd taken that painful first step.  It's hard to watch as a mother!

She's kind, but also feisty.  She speaks up for what she wants, and is willing to fight for it.  While this is, frankly, a pain in my parental arse at times, it's also one of the qualities I really wanted to give her as a parent, despite it's frequent inconveniences.

She's a fan of television, but in a moderate way.  It's a rare day she can sit through more than one episode of something without having to run off an play something else.  I use TV more than I am comfortable with at the moment, but we all have compromises.  While my ideal is no TV unless she request is (self-regulation), I all too often suggest it myself as I'm desperate for a break, or to get something else done.  As Lolly is kind of an only child (in a practical sense, with no siblings who can or will play with her, and some not present for a week at a time), and I don't live in a tribe filled with children who can fulfill her needs to learn and socialise, TV is all I can manage some days.  Watching favourites at the moment are Octonauts!, Play School, Mister Maker, Dinosaur Train (!!), and Blue's clues, with a bit of Diego thrown in.

Lolly is articulate, and awesome words at present includes the adorable 'oncentrate, "actually," and the less fabulous (but still hilarious) "shitbags!"  For extra effect, she calls me "knittingbags" when pissed off. "Bumhead" is also a favourite insult/term for Daddy.

Lolly and the various Alices

The other main part of her day at the moment is PETS.  She's always been oriented toward our animals, and this has just taken off over the past few months.  She now has pet fish (Gup A, Gup B (filter accident!), Alice and Alice), complete with snails (Alice and Pippin), pet hermit crabs (Alice, Little Alice, and Pinchy), and a keen interest in our turtle, Squirtle.  Nearly every day, she feeds them and looks after them.  Also, all of them are called Alice.  Hilarious.