Four. A fascinating age. With CJ, four was a lot of learning how to express himself (that’s putting it very nicely, haha!). For Belle, four so far has been a swell of emotional and personal awareness, and all of the accompanying joys and fears that comes with that development.

Belle at age four is delightful. So sweet, full of laughs and loves. It’s just also been a crash course in child psychology. I guess I naively anticipated this age to be similar to her brother — a lot of testing, mainly — but as we all quickly learn, each child is so unique. It’s impossible to parent each the same.

Finding her sense of self, and style 

I recall, and my mom tells of, how I wore only dresses and skirts in kindergarten. Like mother like daughter: Belle HAS to wear dresses (skirts are questionable… when she wore a tutu skirt to The Nutcracker, she slid it off halfway through. thank goodness for opaque tights). I now understand my attire was not an option for my mom, and Belle’s isn’t for me. Shorts are met with the utmost rejection and require a very strong use case to wear them.

And she’s soooo into accessories. It seems like she’s found necklaces and bracelets out of nowhere. She comes home with beaded ones from school, weaves pipe cleaners into them, will find mine to put on.  She asks me to tie ribbons around her waist and adorns any fabric over her shoulders like a cape. So she’s a girly girl, and it’s pretty darn fun to watch this evolve organically.

Me: “We need to get dressed to go to your brother’s baseball game.”

Belle: “I’m going to wear my long long dress with no sleeves, and my flower headband, and my smelly shoes.”

Me: “It’s going to be cold… you may want to wear pants.”

Belle: “Haha {slight toss of hair}. It’s okay. I’ll wear tights. And my sweater.”

Strong girls can wear dresses 

I recently found the book, Princesses Wear Pants, and at first was like, “Yes! I need this!” But ultimately I didn’t buy it. Because, why send a message that you should wear pants? She can where whatever she wants. If she thinks dresses and skirts look like princesses, cool. Princesses are strong women, and it’s fine if she admires them. I’ve seen her fight with her brother, and being in a dress isn’t holding her back.

In tune to others’ feelings, and grappling with her own 

Belle has always been an incredibly aware child, remarkably empathetic and in tune to others’ feelings from a very young age. This year so far, she seems to have become far more aware of her own emotions. And that’s far more challenging. She knows so well how to comfort others, but how do you comfort yourself when you’re distressed? How do you quell anxiety? How do you reconcile feelings of excitement for a new home, longing for the old house, and fear of the big new space? How do you understand your feelings when you don’t even have the vocabulary to describe them yet?

Our biggest emotional hurdle came from the move. This transition disrupted her far more than any other to date, and we suspect it was confounded by a new class at school, her brother no longer being at the same school, and her baby sister morphing from a little sleeping bundle to an active person requiring mommy’s attention.

Belle has always been the typical middle child, goes with the flow and is a sweet sidekick who’s schedule revolves around big brother’s carpool, sports games, allergy shots, and elementary school events, as well as her baby sister’s naps and frequent pediatrician appts. She’s a chill, sweet child at school who loves to please her teachers and doesn’t require much from them. But this time, she needed the attention. We needed to rebalance to ensure we met her needs, instead of expecting her to go along with everything. So we have, poured our hearts into her more and rejiggering our family dynamics. And now, she usually finds her way into her bed in the middle of the night… things we swore we’d never do, but parenting is a steep learning curve, and she’s taught us a lot.

Developing her creative storytelling skills 

The facial expressions these days… oh. my. goodness. The simplest stories — who cut in front of who at the playground today — warrant the biggest eye rolls and arm gestures. The animation is just too much. Watching at her in the rear view mirror, giving her school day download, is one of those daily joys of parenting. And sometimes she catches my eye, and gives me a sassy little eyelash flutter, and then just giggles. Can I bottle that sweetness up?

And watch out, she’ll just make stuff up and tell it like the truth.

Belle: ” Mama, do you want to know why Starbucks is called Starbucks?”

Me: “Sure.”

Belle: “Because it’s where you watch stars while you’re reading books.” 

{side note: I love that she calls me ‘mama’, always has, and hasn’t grown out of it yet}

Embracing sisterhood

That baby sister of hers is more of a presence, and Belle’s learning to embrace (? okay, maybe more enthusiastically tolerate) her. We’ve got three carseats across in my SUV, and whenever she can, Belle asks to sit in her brother’s seat, next to Littlest One. Sure, I’ve spotted her trying to poke the baby’s eye, but 90% of the time, she loves her.

But the most recent standout moment was with her big brother. They’d been bickering, him shouting how he didn’t like little sisters and explaining all the reasons he wanted out of the family (as we’re trying to get out the door, of course). I threatened that he would have to stay behind with his dad, I’d take the girls to dinner without him. I headed to the garage door, and Belle cried out, “noooooo!!!!” and ran crying back to him, desperately begging him to move along. Huh? After he was so mean to you? I explained to her that I wouldn’t leave him of course, gave her a strong hug. I was just floored at the emotional reaction, even after he’d been so negative to her. What a lucky brother to be loved by her.

This girl’s love and care for others runs deep. Four might have it’s challenges, but I know I am a very, very lucky mama.

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