Enter the silliness

We've all heard of "the terrible twos," or maybe that "threes are just like the twos- with practice!"  Well two wasn't so terrible for Beth, and three had its challenges but nothing that bad.  Four is looking really good so far though!

No one warned me that four would include such intoxicating silliness.  I mean pure, straight up, laughing-till-your-tummy-aches silliness!  Beth's been four for only a couple of weeks now but if this is indicative of what this year has in store for us, I am really looking forward to it!

Beth has been trying to learn knock knock jokes.  She has a couple of jokes down but the ones she makes up leave me truly laughing, sometimes with a tear in my eye.  Not because it's funny in the traditional sense, but half of it has to do with her presentation.  Eyes darting around, the slight hesitation before the punch line...Who taught her this?  She tries to come up something on the spot, but what she says usually makes absolutely no sense.  Priceless.

She's really into drawing right now, she adores her Magna Doodle and spends a good portion of her day drawing or asking me or Ryan to draw for her.  Yesterday she asked me to draw a daddy sitting on a chair holding a little girl with a pony tail, so I did (I'm getting very good at stick figures).  Then she asked me to draw a mommy pushing a vacuum cleaner next to the daddy.  Nice.  A few days earlier she wanted a picture of a daddy sitting on a bed holding a baby.  Then she asked me to add a mommy putting clothes in the drawer and pushing the drawer closed.  (Are we seeing a trend yet?)  But really, it's not all about lazy daddies and hard-working mommies (haha!), sometimes it's animals (a tall elephant wearing a tutu or a giraffe) or three babies playing with each other.  Usually her requests are very specific though, including details I wouldn't have thought of.  I wonder what's going on in her little mind?

I can tell her imagination is revving up into high gear because she's also developed a fear of the dark, which literally started days after her birthday.  She's never been afraid of anything in her life but all of the sudden she was absolutely terrified.  She spent a couple of nights in Luke's room but was ready to move back into her room after the firecrackers stopped.  Now she falls asleep with her lamp on, and we leave the bathroom light on for her all night.  When Luke's ready to move out of his crib they may wind up sleeping together for awhile!

Bring on the fours!