The 5's...

The terrible twos, the traumatic threes, the f'ing fours, so what are the fives called? Fibbing? Frustrating? Fabulous I hope!

In 24 days Laila turns five and of course it's all she can talk about!

My regular readers will be used to me talking about my kids behaviours, especially during the school holidays. I suppose that's when I see more of it and get wound up enough to post about it! Today was a tough day with my soon-to-be five year old, and writing about it helps me, as does wine and chocolate!

So the fours have been challenging to say the least. But I've just been back through my blog posts to find examples and there are no posts about Laila's behaviour, just Max and the terrible two's! So maybe, just maybe I feel like she's been challenging, but a lot of it could be down to just me having to deal with a 2 year old at the same time!

The non-stop talking is exhausting, and if she's not talking she's singing or even whistling so keeping up a constant background noise! It can be really hard to talk to Max or François when she is there, or even think to myself, so of course we inevitably get cross with her! The little white lies which are now getting to be bigger fibs are frustrating, she definitely needs to be told the "Peter and the Wolf" story and maybe Pinocchio!

On the up side, the fussy eating has all but disappeared and Laila is more than willing to try new things and if she likes it she will eat it again! Since the ham incident 7 months ago she has tried almost every kind of meat since, and now loves pork, chicken and 'churkey', that's turkey to me and you!

The new skills that she's learned in this last year are amazing, she has learned to read, write her name joined up, ride her bike on her own, whistle, click her fingers, tie her shoe laces. I know a lot of 5 year olds that can't do most of these things, but once Laila decides she wants to learn something she does and it doesn't take her very long, she just needs to want to do it.

So what will the fives bring? We seem to be in a new phase of rudeness, telling us we're "nul" which means rubbish when she doesn't get what she wants, bigger and better lies, absolutely denying she did something when you know there is no other possibility it must have been her! She likes telling tales on her brother and her friends and also taking the mickey out of others. Of course we don't let her get away with any of these things, but it will take her a while to learn that they are not acceptable!

But despite all of these things, she still gives great cuddles and has a great sense of humour which has us in stitches a lot of the time, she can be so adorable with her little brother it melts our hearts. And when she gets sent to her room, and she knows she's done wrong, she goes about quietly tidying it up to make me happy and proudly shows me it when I come to get her.

So fingers crossed we get to see more of this behaviour, some more growing up and some exciting new skills too! And we only have 2 years to wait until she's 7, which is apparently the "age of reason". Now that I will look forward to!!!!