3 Years!

Today my baby turned 3 years old!

THREE!!

How time flies!!  My cuddly little baby is now an inquisitive, independent, feisty, yet loving and sweet child. She makes me marvel at things she says, laugh out loud, she is loads of fun and at the same time she can drive me crazy with the incessant talking and generally not listening.

In other words, she is a typical three year old!

Here are some things she is into these days:

• Her language is continuing to develop with leaps and bounds. She makes complex long descriptive sentences using words such as,"finally", "considering", "thinking", "cul de sac", "worried", "luckily" in the correct context. She loves to talk and will tell me what she did in school and who did what, as in the other kids. It is interesting hearing her world view.
• She loves music and singing, so we sing a lot. Many of them are made up songs I have been singing to her sine she was a baby. Its funny to see her singing them now. Our fav song is Edelweiss which we have been singing together for months, if not a year now.
• Reading is very popular in our house. She loves books and we ready daily at bedtime and other times of the day, too. There is nothing better than snuggling with her reading a book.
• She is loves pretend play with her dolls and stuffed animals. One of our favorite game is Doctor. I am the Dr and she is the Mommy who brings in her sick babies. She also likes to play "school" where she is the teacher and I am the mommy dropping off my baby to school. It so cute to see her mimic her teachers and tell the boys to play nicely - she uses her real classmates in most of her games too. Pretty normal I was reading at this age.
• She loves art which I am thrilled about. We usually paint or do other artwork (cutting and gluing) every other evening. I find it really relaxing too so I encourage it. She is very good at holding scissors and cutting.
• She loves puzzles of all shapes and forms. A friend gave us a nice big floor puzzle of the US map which we really enjoy. She is learning the names of the States and what they are important form eg Washington state has apples.
• She loves to "cook" so having parties and cooking is another favorite game that gets played often.
• One of the big milestones is that she is now in the beginning stages of writing. She will say she is writing my name, or making a  list, and will make squiggles in a straight line as though she is actually writing words. Pretty cool!
• She can now wear her jacket, pants, shoes and socks. She can undress herself but still struggles with wearing a T-shirt since they go over her head.
• Still not a fan of washing her hair so that is a struggle. She will dilly dally taking a bath but once in it she has fun.
• Food and eating is getting better. She will eat but pretty much her standard fare of milk, cheese, and tons of fruit. She is enjoying PBJs and likes to take it to school for lunch. She likes cucumbers and is back to eating her veggies. She less picky than a few months ago when I was struggling with getting her to eat, but she is still not much of a meat eater.
• We started dance a few weeks ago and she is really enjoying it.
• She loves to help and be involved in everything I do. That is a double edged sword as most of you can imagine :-) She will get me the eggs out of the fridge and mix pancake batter and wash the veggies.
• Another BIG milestone this year has been finally giving up the binky.  She has not asked for it directly, but has clearly not forgotten about it either since sometimes she will say "I think my mouth wants a binky" - lol!
• Potty training is moving along at a snail pace. She is good about going upon waking up and before bath/night, but during the day its a hit/miss. Now that she is three, I need to up the ante a bit and move along.
• She talks a LOT, pretty much non stop from when her eyes open in the morning and even after she goes to bed. She talks some in her sleep and its funny to hear what she is dreaming of. Even in the mornings the moment she wakes she asks the most random questions - its quite funny.
• Sleep - that is whole another post! All I can say is that she does sleep though the night but being in my bed its not restful for me. Plus she sleeps really late - about 8:30pm or 9 on school days. The kid has SO MUCH ENERGY!!! I have to admit by 9am I am so done with all that that I end up getting snappy at her which I hate to do, but its like "can you just sleep already???!!!".  And thought she does sleep through she wakes up several times the first hour or so sensing I am not in bed, so that makes it difficult for me to do anything after she sleeps since I have to hover around.

I think that is most of it....she is bright and beautiful and has a smile that can melt a rock. She is cute and crazy and fun and drives me close to the brink of insanity sometimes.

Happy Birthday, my angel. I love you!!

Love,
Mummy

.