58 months old

Britton's newest thing is picking up her brother.  Yes, all 27 pounds, 11 ounces of him!  At first I was iffy, since she's well, four years old, and has no idea what picking up almost 28 pounds entails.  Especially since that almost 28 pounds is a living breathing baby who is easily breakable.  But this girl is strong, and if Barrett is all for it, we let her.  Within reason. And, as four-year-olds will do, she gets distracted by something else and moves on.

Britton is doing really well with her reading!  I'm amazed by the progress she has made, and she recognizes words like "me," "the," "not," and "go" without having to sound them out.  She used to get frustrated easily, but I explained to her that reading takes practice, and the more she tries the more she'll learn.  

And, as has happened to every house across America with children, she is in love with Anna and Elsa from "Frozen."  Britton has outgrown almost all of her princess dress-up dresses, and we said we'd get her the Elsa dress.  Well, apparently, so did every other parent.  It's been sold out for months.  So we finally tracked down a (reasonably-priced, considering) dress on eBay and got it.  Then, as luck would have it, Target got the dresses back in stock.  So I grabbed an Anna dress before anyone else noticed them!

Now Britton wants a Rapunzel dress too, but she doesn't want to wait until her birthday.  So I put together a "Rapunzel Responsibility Chart" for the fridge.  For the next two weeks, Britton must do some chores every day (feed Sadie, get the mail, put our dirty dinner dishes in the sink, make her bed, clean up all her toys before bed, etc.) and some chores as they come up (help the hubs sweep up grass after mowing, put away her laundry, etc.).  When she gets all her responsibilities complete, she gets the dress.  And last night she asked me why she has to earn the dress, and what is "earning"?  I told her that you have to earn things in life - a paycheck, respect, trust, and that earning means putting in the work to get the reward.  Ahh, a teaching moment!