3 Years Old

Yesterday Back Seat Girl turned 3. I meant to write a post ON her birthday, but I was busy baking 56 cupcakes while holding a baby and trying not to make too big of a mess, and then I spent all night cleaning up because I was not successfull at not making a big mess.

OK, BSG, what do I say about you? You are something. I'm sitting here struggling to figure out what to write about you. How can I capture your personality in a few paragraphs?

Thinking is your game, that's for sure. A question as simple as "Which Diego do you want to watch, the one about the llama or the one about the river dolphin?" makes you actually stop and think. There are bells going off in my head as I try hard not to say "hurry up already, dinner isn't going to cook itself!",but I let you decide in your own time, because I know you well enough now to know that if I did you'd take twice as long.

You also think before doing anything physical. You are almost more cautious at the park this year than you were last summer, and I think it's because you have an even better grasp on what could happen to you if you fell or something bad happened. It's very hard for me not to push you, and when I let you do your own thing inevitably you wind up playing a cute little pretend game that you made up on the spot. You give me glimpses into that brain of yours and I realize for as much as you talk, there is so much more going on up there than we realize.

The other day on the way home from your daycare you asked where the Twins were as we were passing the highschool baseball field. You answered yourself before I even had a chance to chime in by reasoning that it must be school time. When I explained to you that those were highschool kids we had seen a couple of months ago playing there and the Twins played at the big baseball field we went to last year with Grandma and Grandpa, you went into a whole story about how the big baseball field was on the way to Dawny's special house. Apparently there are lots of kitties and puppies there. The Dalmation puppies had names: Belle, Tinkerbell, Princess Aurora, Home Depot, and Regular School Bus. Yea, that's right, two of their names were Home Depot and Regular School Bus. The girl dalmation puppies had pink spots, but Home Depot was a boy so he had black spots. I tried hard not to drive off the road, because that was hilarious.

You can recognize letters in words, and I actually think you are much better at this than we think you are. Driver was wearing his Bear's t-shirt and you recognized the 'E' and the 'A', and you can even tell some upper and lowercase letters apart. You also were coloring the other day and said 'C' is for washable markers, which confused your father until he realized that they said 'Crayola' down the side. You love to find things with words on them and then point to them and tell us what they say. Amazingly they usually say things about you getting something you really want. When you open up books to read you always go to the copywrite page and say emphatically "this book was written in 19**". Lately 1968 seems to be a popular year.

You also do some simple math, like adding 1 to 2 makes you 3 years old, or taking one monkey away from 5 means there are 4 monkeys left (I knew that book was going to teach you subraction!!). The problem with you is, you are also very stubborn, so if we ask you "what letter is that?" or "how many cookies are there on the table" you will only answer if you feel like it. This makes it hard for us to know exactly what you can and can not do. It frustrates me to no end, but as I'm sure my mom would say, like mother, like daughter.

I guess since I've talked about your brain I will also mention your gross motor skills. You are about the least physical little girl ever. You have just recently started to demand to walk up and down stairs by yourself, and when you do you have to hold on to the railing for dear life with one hand. Many times you still opt to slide down or crawl up, and when I ask you to please stand up and do it like a big girl you look at me like "why would I do that when this is so much easier?",and then proceed to ignore me and do it your way. You have just recently learned how to jump, that is actually jump and your two feet leave the earth ever so briefly. Tonight we had to leave the house for a showing so we went to walk around the mall, and for the first time you jumped a couple of times in a row and jumped from point A to point B. Did you hear me? You actually covered ground while jumping. Driver and I were very impressed.

You are going through a stage now where you have decided that if we are telling you something you don't want to hear you just don't listen. It is exceedingly frustrating to me. I know it's what a 3 year old does, but I can't stand to be so openly disobeyed. You also try to rationalize WHY you didn't just listen to me, and since you have such a great command of the english language sometimes I find myself I actually giving your rationalization some thought. You always end up in the naughty chair when you disobey, and now you crawl on up all by yourself, sit there resolutely with puppy or Pork Roll or both, and when your time is up I ask you "why did mommy put you in the naughty chair?". Sometimes you remember, sometimes you don't. I always remind you and then tell you you have to listen to mommy. Then I make you apologize, which you do, with a bright smile and a big kiss and hug, and even though I know you aren't going to listen to me the next time I can't stay mad at you as you skip away to play another imaginary game.

You have the greatest habit of sining songs now. Most of them you make up yourself. They can be songs about stuff we have done, stuff we are going to do, or things we are currently doing. Tonight at the mall you were walking along singing "we're going home, now". Of course you weren't looking where you were going and you weren't walking in a straight line, which made it even funnier.

I just realized I haven't mentioned your talking, and I think it's because it's such a part of our daily lives now Idon't even think about it. You talk all day long, every day, only pausing to nap and sleep at night. You talk in full, adult sentences, using words that I'm pretty sure Driver can't spell. It's just a part of our life. The sun will rise, BSG will talk. and talk. and talk some more.

See, I knew I couldn't summarize you in a few paragraphs. There is so much more I could write--your penchant for running into walls and falling down (you came home from camping with a black eye and also had your first bloody nose the first day we were gone), the fact that you recently realized you can open your bedroom door, your love of pink and dresses, the fact that you have no fear of bugs or spiders, the way you think everyone at the playground or beach would like to play with you, no matter how much older or bigger than you they are, how you like to look under the stalls in public bathrooms to comment on people's shoes, or the way you have started interacting with your brother, but it's getting late and I need to go to bed.

Just know this, you are one in eleventeen (your favorite number) million, and we love you so, so much.