Four Year Old Behavior

My granddaughter is visiting for several weeks with her mom, my daughter.  So, no, this isn't about Trump.

There's lots of love and hugs.  Curiosity.  Sometimes brave - like taking the metal mesh tram over Winner creek.  Sometimes shy, when meeting new people and leaning tight against my leg, face into my let.

Stubborn sometimes. When she decides she isn't going to put on her jacket, or pick up the pen she just threw down, or when she grabs my fingers and pulls them away from the keyboard.  Or when she's walked enough and just quits until I put her on my shoulders a while.

Dave at Off the Chain DIY Bike Coop

She has good reasons for why she doesn't want to do things, but can't always articulate them.  Like when she didn't want to ride with me on her little bike attached to mine.  We'd gone to Off The Chain to get the hitch more solidly connected to my seat post so it wouldn't slip and pull her bike in a strange position.

Even though she'd really liked it when the hitch was working right, she didn't want to ride any more even after we fixed it.


Finally, after lots of questions, she said she didn't like it when the hitch slipped around.  And even though I assured her it was fixed, her fear continued.  Her mom urged her to go with me.  No!  Then she was hungry.  I suggested we could stop for a snack on the way to the post office on the bike.  And that did it.  OK, and we biked away.





After putting the letters in the mailbox, we went across the parking lot to see about eating.  Was SnoFlo even open?  And what food did it have?  The place looked deserted from outside, but inside were about a dozen people eating and talking, mostly under 25 I'd say.  A strange hidden hangout.  Z got a shaved ice.



She likes trying out the different equipment at the playground, but she didn't want to take off her shoes and go into the creek with the other kids.  But she was very interested in the fish that one of the boys was catching in his net and putting into little buckets.

She loves to take pictures with my camera.  Here's one she took of me and a baby musk ox at the Musk Ox farm Friday.  But she doesn't want me to tell her how to hold the button down half way to focus or to not jerk the camera when she pushes the button down.  But she does want to see the picture she just took.


She like to hit my arm and have me hit her arm over and over again.  Same thing with pushing each other.  Lots of giggles.   (She has three older half-brothers, so I'm guessing that comes from them.  A boy thing.  Her mom and grandmother disapprove.)  She also likes to sting me when she's wearing her bee shirt.
She just came upstairs and is jumping up and down and wants me to come downstairs and see "Dusty" on the computer which is just like she saw in a book at play school.  Be right back.

OK, back.  Not excited about what she's watching, but screen time is inevitable, even when your parents really don't believe in it.  It's just too easy a way to get a break from non-stop four year old.  But she and I are going to take the bus to the museum in 20 minutes.  So let me finish up.

We also visited Hatcher Pass after the Musk Ox farm.   Here are some chocolate lilies we saw there.

Oh, and she has her own rules for lots of games, like Scrabble.  Here's a picture of her letters.

As you can tell, I'm having lots of fun.  And being with her is a much better investment in the future than anything else I can think of.