The Walkers: Malea

And now for the update on Malea :) She just seems so grown up these days! Sometimes I look at her and just can't believe how big she is. She seems to have gone through a growth spurt lately and all her size 5 clothes that I bought at the end of spring a little big are suddenly fitting her just right and are maybe even getting a little tight. I just can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that she will be going to Kindergarten!

With Grandpa Dave and her cousin Cannon on Father's Day

Her card for Daddy :) (I love her handwriting)

Such a cutie :)

Malea on the 4th of July

Being silly with her cousin Sienna

Malea came out one morning wearing Isaac's shorts, it was pretty funny!

One of her art projects :)

Malea is such a sweet, tender-hearted little girl. She has so much compassion for people and is especially sweet with animals. A couple of months ago a baby bird fell out of a nest in a tree at her pre-school and died on the ground. She was SO sad about it and cried saying how bad she felt for the mommy bird. This is just an example of how tender-hearted she is. I hope that part of her never changes! She is very in tune with emotions, and often comes up and gives me a hug when I'm crying (even if I try to hide the fact that I'm crying). She can sometimes come across as a little dramatic but I think it's just because she is an emotional person who really feels things. I feel very strongly that children should be allowed to show their emotions even if they seem to be extreme or dramatic. I know I catch myself sometimes just wanting to tell her to calm down or ask why she is crying but I've tried to avoid that because I always want my kids to feel like they can express they're feelings.

She is very artistic and loves to give people her little art projects. Recently the daughter of my close friend fell out of a tree and fractured her skull. She was at Primary Children's hospital with a traumatic brain injury and it was really scary for a while. She has since made an amazing recovery (thank goodness). When Malea found out she first started crying because she was scared for her friend, and the next thing she did was say that she wanted to make her a card. Malea is very thoughtful that way.

Malea LOVES stuffed animals. It seems like any time she has the chance to pick out a new toy, she picks a stuffed animal. I can't stand them to be honest but she loves them and plays with them all the time. She will put bows on them and recently put little "collars" (aka pipe cleaners) on a lot of their necks.

This summer she has been having so much fun playing with neighbor friends. This is our first summer in this neighborhood so it's been fun for her to have so many new friends. She spends the most time with her BFF next door, Sarah. She is still in to My Little Pony's but lately she has started getting in to Monster High dolls. They are a little creepy looking to be honest but she loves them so whatever! They are like a Barbie but they're based off of monsters. She also loves playing Monster High and Barbie's at Sarah's house. One thing she definitely does not like is when I tell her it's time to come home. Even if I give her a 5 minute warning she usually throws a fit and cries because she doesn't want to stop playing with friends (I think it also ties in to the time of day and the fact that she didn't nap, haha). Which brings me to the next thing.....

The last couple of months Malea's naps are hit-and-miss. She is pretty old to still be napping but she still seems to need them sometimes. We are in that frustrating in-between phase where she won't need a nap but then 5 or 6 o'clock will hit and she's either SUPER whiney/grumpy or she zonks out in the car if we drive anywhere. If she does nap then she doesn't go to bed until like 10:00 or 10:30pm. If she doesn't nap I can barely keep her awake until 8 or 8:30pm. She has always been an early riser, and I don't know if that will ever change. However we have gotten to the point where we've trained her that she can't come in to our room in the morning until her clock has a "7" on it (which is actually "8" because we have her clock set back, haha). She will usually just play in her room or watch Netflix on the Kindle or something. Isaac sleeps in most days so it works out pretty well. Keith and I joke all the time about how Malea is a lot like Keith when it comes to sleep (has night terrors, early riser) and Isaac is like me (sound sleeper, doesn't want to get up in the morning). She still has night terrors but not nearly as bad as she used to. When she has a night terror we usually just turn on a youtube video of lullabies and she calms right down (took us a while to figure that out, though).

She fell asleep hanging off the couch, lol

Malea at Home Depot one Saturday with Daddy

(at the kids activities they do the first Saturday of every month)

I am amazed sometimes at what comes out of her mouth. She is very mature for her age and just seems to get things. She actually reminds me a lot of me as a child, because I have been told throughout my whole life that I am "wise beyond my years". I feel that this is the case with Malea as well.

Malea is a big daddy's girl. She cries sometimes when he's at work because she misses him.

She has a great imagination which has definitely blossomed lately. I love just listening to her as she plays. It makes me laugh to hear the things she comes up with and how she throws things in there that sound an awful lot like me! Just goes to show how much our children see and hear from us parents!

One of the things we have struggled with Malea for a long time is anytime we are at the store she wants us to buy her something. It got really bad for a while and she just had such a sense of entitlement. To help with this we started doing a sticker chart with her. She earns stickers for different things she does around the house or with Isaac and then once she fills up her sticker chart she can pick out a toy or go on an outing. This has been very effective and she has been so much better about it. I still catch her getting that way when we do a lot of fun things in one day. Like for example we took the kids to see "Monsters University" a couple of weeks ago and then did a couple of other fun things that day and by the end of the day she was starting to get that entitled attitude again. We have to kind of bring her back down to earth and put her in her place when she gets that way. She also has a hard time with cleaning up. She does pretty well if it involves earning a sticker for her chart but I don't really believe that cleaning up her room or cleaning up a mess that she made earns a sticker (its more for extra things she does to help us around the house). So when it comes to cleaning her room or cleaning up a mess she made, it is like pulling teeth and she usually throws a fit unless we're ~~doing it for~~ helping her. ;)

Cute things Malea has said lately:

Yesterday after waking up in the afternoon from working the night shift I asked Malea what they had done that morning. She started to tell me this story about how daddy moved a big rock and how there were like tons of ants under it, like "a hundred and fifty one ants" under the rock. :)

The other day she asked me when we were going to have another baby. She said she wanted me to have a "girl baby next" because "boys are hard" (lol). I told her that I wasn't sure, that it would have to be at least when I'm done with school because having a baby is a lot of work. She said "well I will help you with the baby and I will take care of the baby if you need to help Isaac or change his diaper!" It was so cute and sweet. I don't doubt that if we had another baby she would be such a helper!
She loves to sing. It is fun to hear her sing along to songs on the radio that I didn't even know she knew. She likes a lot of Pink songs, just liker her mommy. :)
Working nights is pretty tough and a lot of times I have moments where I melt down. One time I was having a rough day, I was super tired and didn't have a lot of patience. I started crying about something and she gave me a hug and just said "you're having a hard day today, mommy." I think I might have a future counselor in the works, haha!

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