3

My first kid is no longer "two and a hat" years old. She's "wee." (In November. :D Yep, life is crazy busy, tomorrow is Christmas day, and our home is a mess right now. But we have a home!)

Shboogoo is so fun at this age. She finally is able to jump. She makes up songs and knows how to sing real ones. Since a few months ago when I memorized it, she has always wanted Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel) at bedtime. Soon after she turned three we used the last Pull-up and didn't buy more. She has stayed dry about 6 out of 7 nights, and only occasionally has an accident during the day. I'm really proud of her. She still loves books, and she knows all the letters pretty well. I should work on teaching her numbers more; she recognizes a few. She learned colors a long time ago. There are sounds she can't make yet (like s, k, f, g, sh). The pediatrician isn't worried about that at this point.

I love to see that Shboogoo is learning but also that she definitely doesn't think the way I do. She's egocentric. She thinks I should enjoy certain things as much as she does and I should play the way she wants me to. She'll say something like, "You can use my crayon." (It is great that she sometimes wants to share, but I'm already doing something else and I don't want to color at the moment.) One day she had in her hand an imaginary sticker. She asked me, "Where do you want this?" I told her where I wanted it, and then she replied, "No, right here."

A couple of other Shboogooisms have made me smile, too. For her, the opposite of night time is "wake time." A few weeks ago -- she may not have technically been a 3-year-old yet, but anyway -- she said she didn't feel good. I asked, "What kind of sickness do you have?" She answered "Dawberry." I laughed hard and said, "You have strawberry sickness?" Was she pretending she needed some red liquid medicine? She must really like strawberries in general. I tasted her sugar cookie (even though I dislike sugar cookies) and she told me, "It tastes like dawberry." When she moves a large plastic spoon around in a bowl she says she is making "strawberry soup."

These are some of the best photos (you can click here to see others) from the day this little sweetheart turned three, and then a collage for her birthday each year:














I found this on our computer: her aunt, now six and a half, at her 3rd birthday party!