Dear readers, I’m taking a few days to tinker with some things behind-the-scenes here at Simple Kids. In the meantime, I thought you might enjoy this post, originally published on my Rockin’ Granola blog in January of 2012.

She starts to get restless.  I recognize the whimper and I pick her up and whisper in her ear as we walk around the bedroom. We walk and rock and it doesn’t take long before she is asleep, worn out from play and observing the world around her.

There are fussy moments that mean the baby is tired.  Or hungry.  Or overstimulated.  Amelia lets me know.

As I learn more and more about my child, I learn what her cries mean, what facial expressions indicate she’s overwhelmed, and I can anticipate her responses. 

This is something that an older sibling (and sometimes other adults) can’t as easily do.  At times there are hurt feelings.  “She doesn’t like me anymore.”

Sometimes, we can’t always decipher what our babies are trying to tell us.  One moment baby is happy and giggling, enjoying the game, and the next she is overwhelmed and frantic.

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Written by Kara Fleck, Simple Kids editor and Rockin’ Granola mama.

There’s a magical little creature who lives at our house.  She’s very shy around strangers, but around her family she lights up the room and is sometimes the noisiest child in this large family of ours.

She makes up stories and plays games.  She has a vivid imagination.  She loves horses and the color purple and baby dolls.  She dances and sings and also likes to sit quietly with a stack of picture books or a pile of paper and crayons.  She wears twirly dresses and silky capes and also Batman pajamas and a pirate’s eye patch.

This magical creature’s name is Lucy and she’s my four year old daughter.

“Four is, indeed, highly versatile.  What can he not do?  He can be quiet or noisy, calm or assertive, cozy or imperious, suggestible or independent, social, athletic, artistic, literal, fanciful, cooperative, indifferent, inquisitive, forthright, humorous, dogmatic.  He is many people in one.”  – Your Four Year Old: Wild and Wonderful by Louise Bates Ames, PhD.

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