Ava's 5 Year Old Report

On November 5th, we took the kids in for their well checks.  I asked Brad to come along as I knew Ava would be getting her kindergarten shots.  We talked quite a bit about the shots before we went and Ava seemed like she was going to be fine with them.  We told her she couldn't go to kindergarten unless she got them, and that was plenty of motivation.  In fact, she thought as soon as she turned 5, she was going to automatically move from preschool to the kindergarten classroom!  She was excellent for her well check as usual, and was thrilled to have Dr. Crabtree look at her.  Then the shots came.  She got two at the same time in her thighs and she hardly even flinched.  With the grin still on her face, the nurse gave her the final shot which was the tetanus.  She quickly started to get a quivering lip, and she did cry a little after the nurses were all done, complaining that the last one really stung.  I'm sure it did!  Regardless, she did great, much better than I expected.
Stats:Height:  45.67" (95%)
Weight:  51 lbs (95%)
Once again, Ava was at the top of the charts for both height and weight. Dr. Crabtree is not concerned at all and said she was doing great and very proportional. 
Ava is growing up right before our eyes.  She seems so mature and is always amazing us with things she remembers or helps out with.  She loves her brother and is always quick to go and greet him when she gets home or after he wakes up from his nap.  She refers to him as "Bud"most of the time.  She quite often has to give him a hug and a kiss before naps and bedtime and tell him to "sleep good, Bud".  She absolutely loves preschool.  She comes home with so much information from what they ate, the letter they talked about, and who was sick.  She seems to be extremely observant and knows exactly what's going on.  She has taken a great interest in letters and numbers.  It seems in a couple short months she has learned every letter, the sound that it makes, how to write it, and words that start with that letter.  Their class in preschool has only learned about the first 10 letters of the alphabet, so we aren't exactly sure how she learned all of this.  She often asks us things like, "does clock start with a C?"  She can write her first and last name, Owen, Mom, and Dad without help.  She loves to write other words if I just tell her how to spell them.  We are amazed as just this past summer, she really had very little interest and couldn't even identify all the upper and lower case letters.  She has become much more of a "self starter"and will voluntarily do things that she knows need to get done without me telling her.  This isn't always the case, but she certainly can be very helpful.  Her chores right now are unloading the dishwasher, making her bed, putting away her laundry, and she helps Owen with lots of things like getting his coat/hat on .  Tonight as I was tucking her in, she asked me if we could "get a baby girl because she'd really like a baby sister".  This is often her request lately.  Oh my!