Background Part 1 of 4 - The Oldest - Isabelle

Isabelle is my eldest child. She just recently turned four. She is a great kid. Of course we are all biased toward our children, but I am pretty smitten with her. She is my only girl. When I first was pregnant, I was very much hoping for a girl. It was the the frilly dresses, the ballet classes, and the ponytails with hair bows that I was hoping for. I feel like I have gotten all that I was hoping for plus a little more. She likes to have her braided or in a ponytail with the pretty bows that her Aunt Stephie makes for her. She also occasionally likes to play with dolls. However, most of the time she likes to play on the computer or with her Leapster or likes to play with trains, cars, and dinosaurs (her brother's favorite toys). She loves to watch movies like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, but right now her favorite is Cars. So I guess she is well rounded. She has just now gotten to the point that she likes to wear dresses, so of course I went a little overboard and made sure that she had cute dresses to wear. I didn't really take into consideration that it would not be practical for her to wear a dress everyday, but maybe she will be able to wear all of them at least a few times throughout the summer. I just checked into a dance class for her as well so that might be a possibility too. When I sit down and lay it all out like this I am reminded how lucky I am to have my little girl. She is a lot like me though and not really a prissy girl or a little diva. If she gets dirty, its OK. If she wants to be comfortable she will let me know that she wants the comfy shorts, but with a matching shirt. If she falls down, she can usually just brush it off. She likes to have have her fingernails painted, but can't resist biting them (bad habit that needs to be broken) and taking off the nail polish. In my eyes she if perfect. Although I would really like to eliminate all of the whining. I can deal with that though.


Isabelle is about to start a new exciting time. She is going to be starting preschool soon. She has been in an in-home setting since she was about nine months. She has been with her siblings and three other children over the course of the past few years. I definitely think she is ready for the learning aspect of preschool. She seems to catch on to things very quickly and can do simple math such as 2+2. She does pretty well with phonics and can recognize all numbers and letters. So I don't really worry about that part. Its the social interaction that I worry about. I don't think she will have any issues here either, but it is change. It probably won't bother her, but I don't like change. I worry that she will miss being with her brothers and the other kids that she has been with daily for the past few years. I fear that she will miss seeing the lady who takes care of her now. And of course as all parents do I fear that she will have trouble making friends or making friends with the bad group (if that is possible at age four - in my mind it might be, those who bite, hit, aren't polite, or say bad things about other children). I know that all will be well and I think that even at this point she has a strong enough sense of herself to not let others influence her in a negative way, but I also know that she is just four. My goodness, what am I going to be like when she actually starts school? This is one of the things that while I am still finding somewhat difficult because I don't like change and find it hard to fathom that my little girl is growing up, I think would be more difficult if I wasn't working. I am used to idea of being separated from my child during the day. I have been since she was about 8 weeks old. If I were home, I would be worried about her missing me and leaving the security of my house. I dealt with all of these fears when she was just a baby. I would feel awful on those days that she might cry, but she was a baby and would be happy seconds later. She was learning that I would come back and really had no sense of time. She slept more than half of the time that I was away from her. Now she can tell me when she is happy or sad and I know that she has a good time away from me. If she were just know learning what it is like to be away from me and could tell me that she was upset about that, I would be very upset as well.