My Little Preschooler

 I spend most of my days with our youngest daughter, Jean.  She is an active 3 year old, ready to take on the world!  This photo captures her spirit - thanks Aunt Janie!
It is hard not to compare our kids with one another.  Grace, our oldest, needed a nap every day when she was 3 years old.  I got 3 to 4 hours every day of peace in the afternoon where I could do all the things we need to get done around the house and have a little rest.  I had Grace at 3 years old and Alex as a baby so you would think I would find it challenging but I didn't - as long as I had a break, I was good!  When Alex was 3 years old I had 3 small children to look after - Grace was 5 and in school part time and Jean was a baby.  He gave up his nap early as well but he entertained himself and had a big sister and little sister to play with.  Those days were so busy... I can barely remember them.
Jean, at 3 years old, is a handful.  I often wonder why. 
She gave up her afternoon nap long ago (I don't understand why anyone wouldn't want to nap), she is not very good at playing by herself and she has no one but me to entertain her (and that isn't good enough for her).  She misses Grace and Alex like crazy in the daytime... spends the day wanting to go and get them off the bus. 
The next few months are my last with a child at home with me during school days.  I wanted to take this last year and cherish every day with Jean but in her own way, she is smoothing the transition to having all of our kids in school.  She makes many days very frustrating for me and I find myself looking forward to her being in school and I feel so guilty about that.  She is soooo ready for school.  She loves any type of playschool I put her in and I am thankful for that.  It would be so hard to have a child with separation anxiety. 
So what do I do? 
I am going to try to embrace her personality.  I am going to see the postive in her.  She is lucky she doesn't need as much sleep as the rest of us.  We are lucky that she loves going out and doing activities with or without us.  She will never let anyone "walk all over her" with her strong personality.  I am going to cuddle with her when she lets me and treasure the moments when she is playing with just me.  I am going to engrave in my memory the times when we walk down the laneway together, on our way to the bus, and have our little chats.  I'm going to miss all of it.