Anne Sophie Turned 4 Years Old!

Last Sunday, 18 September 2011, at 19:35 our precious daughter Anne Sophie turned 4 years old!

How can I express my feelings for my daughter? She is truly our best friend, the love of our life, our faithful companion in our travels and our everyday life events.

Anne Sophie

with grandma's Ukrainean cat

She may appear shy to those she meets for the first time. But that usually only lasts a few minutes. She is cheerful, playful, funny, smart, enthusiastic, she loves to play and laugh and run around! Her life force and love of life shine through her entire being.

in daddy's shirt on the beach!

She is resilient as she can walk long distances without complaining and she usually doesn't cry or complain when she falls or bumps against something or hurts something. Yet she is a sensitive child and can burst into tears when she sees other children cry. She almost never cries in order to manipulate, so if she does cry, I know that she needs immediate help and attention.

She is daring, yet cautious. She can climb all kinds of rocks and stairs and frames, but she is extremely careful at where she sets her feet and she would immediately ask for help when she realizes she's in trouble.





Anne Sophie likes playing all kinds of imaginative role plays with her toys. It's so much fun watching how she plays the different roles by changing the tone of her voice. At one point she plays a little child and at another point she is a mother or a father or her play group teacher. An interesting thing is that she doesn't play with dolls, but with her toy animals. And yes, in those plays we can hear so many things we tell her played out on her toys, which is a great learning experience for us!

Yes, she is our great teacher. When I sometimes get cross with Luda, Anne Sophie would tell me in a calm, almost mentoring voice: "Папочка, не надо сердиться на мамочку" ("Daddy, don't get angry at mummy.") She can also tell other children what they may or may not do.

She is enthusiastic and curious about the world. I like it when she asks "What is this? Why is that? What did they say?" She likes counting and reading letters and doing puzzles.

All in all, she's an enjoyable, lovable, "easy" child! But of course there are some things that need our attention:

• She likes to go to bed late, I mean really late. She usually gets into bed at about 10 p.m., but then she still wants to play a bit, she wants us to read a book, etc., so it's not unusual that she falls asleep at around 11 p.m., which is of course very late, especially as she is starting school in a couple of weeks. I'm afraid she'll be a late riser, just like her mum :)
• She likes to watch her cartoons either on DVD or on the PC, which is fine, but sometimes she spends too much time doing that. At least she doesn't watch television, in fact none of us do as we gave up our cable TV several years ago.
• She can be very stubborn about what she wants or doens't want to do or eat.
• She doesn't like to clean up and put away her toys (who does?), so our living room often looks like a mess. On the other hand, she gets really enthusiastic when all three of us do the cleaning up together! Just the other day we were giving our kitchen a serious clean-up, and Anne Sophie joined in with all her passion!

On Sunday we had a great birthday party for her with many guests, presents, games, lots of food, and a puppet show that I did together with a friend! It was a really simple story about an elephant that went missing from the zoo, but the kids really loved the show, and I am thinking of using it more often for both entertainment and educational purposes!

In just over a week, Anne Sophie is starting to go to school. It's no ordinary school, but a democratic school based on the principle of natural learning. We are all very excited, and I'll keep you informed about the developments!