3 Years Old

Dear Edie,

You turn 3 years old tomorrow. With almost no reservations, your Dad and I would freeze you this age and keep you 28 pounds and all sass forever.  At your 3 year check up you proved to be in the 50th percentile for height at 37 inches tall (exactly half your dad's height and 2 whole inches taller than I was at my 3 year check up!). You weighed 27.2 pounds, which means you've gained less than 2 pounds since your 2nd birthday and are falling into the 10-15th percentile for weight. I swear we feed you all the time!


I want badly to try and capture the essence of you at 3 years old in my letter, but worry that I won't be able to do it justice. Most people describe you as:
- Funny
- Precocious
- Sassy
- Smart
- Up for an adventure
- Friendly and outgoing

And I think this is all fairly accurate. You definitely carry an intensity with you that makes me think you will do something interesting with your life. The London Olympics just wrapped up and when watching the mother of a young olympian be interviewed, she described her daughter as someone who from a very early age had a "certain intensity about her", and I felt a connection to that statement that made me wonder what you could do with this power of yours that almost everyone who meets you notices. Perhaps one day I could be rooting you on from the stands of some future olympic stadium.  Who knows.

One thing I find interesting is that most of the other children I meet who have the same spark of intensity that you do are often also instigators and love to boss other kids around. This is not to say that you are perfect and you certainly love to boss ME around, but you are much more concerned with fairness and following the rules than some of the other kids who share your other personality traits. To the extent that I sometimes worry you are a bit of a tattler. You enjoy reporting back to me about the activities of other kids, especially if they are unfair - but at this age it's hard to know how much is accurate reporting and how much is invented drama. Because boy do you have a flare for the dramatic.  The other night when I was tucking you in for bed, you wiped at your eye and said, "I'm just trying to get this water out of my eye Mom."  And then followed it up with, "Don't worry Mom, I think it's just a tear from joy."

You love going to Jen's house (daycare) 3 days per week but are almost always incredibly happy to see me at the end of the day - most days running from the swings yelling "Mommy! Mom! You're HERE!" almost as if you were worried I wouldn't show. Every day when I pick you up I ask how your day was and who you played with and you are always incredibly diplomatic and say you played with "all the kids" and that they are all your favorites. I asked the other day about a specific girl in your class and you said she was "a little bit fine, but a little bit bad." (she tried to take your painting that day).  When I asked about AJ, you said she was "A lot bit fine." and then when I asked how YOU were at daycare that day, your reply was, "Fine. But a little bit bossy."  Ha!

You make up elaborate fairy tale-like plots for your dolls when playing alone. They are usually a combination of 6 or 7 different fairy tales, so Minnie Mouse will frequently carry your doll on her back to save her from hot lava while they think happy thoughts and fly with fairies to slay a dragon. Your Dad and I hide in the kitchen to eavesdrop on you telling these tall tales in the living room so as not to interrupt your flow. You play by yourself so well and so happily that I sometimes wonder if I let you play solo too long, though you never ask for my involvement and in fact sometimes reject it if offered.

That said, you do love your friends very much.  Penny from 2 doors down is definitely a bestie and you guys play all the time, for little bursts as often as for half day adventures. Sometimes you seem curious about the other kids at a random playground, but when pressed to interact with them once, you told me, "I don't need new friends Mom. I have my friends at daycare. And Penny's my friend too."  Apparently you invited all your friends without me knowing to your "birthday party" this week. Sadly, we are not having a big party this year, so we had to break that news to your buddies.

You have a party at daycare for your birthday today, which you are sharing with your buddy Alison Jane (AJ), who is 9 days older than you.  I made Minnie Mouse cupcakes and we put together little goodie bags for you to bring and share with the kids. You were REALLY excited and started blurting out all the things inside the goodie bags immediately upon our arrival at daycare this morning.

I switched your daycare days this week so you and I will have a birthday day just the two of us tomorrow.  You said you'd like to go to the zoo.  Then we will have head to the neighborhood pizza joint for dinner. If there's time, we might hit up the nearby frozen yogurt place which you love because it has tiny m&ms, which you like to combine with mini gummie bears (which you call vitamins because of your gummy vitamins) on vanilla froyo.

Your real party will be on Labor Day this weekend at Gramma and Grampa Toby's house.  All your grandparents, aunts and uncles and a few great aunts and uncles will be there. We'll barbecue and if the weather is nice, hang out on the deck for a casual party. Last year's party with tons of other little kids was fun, but a little exhausting, so for a while I think birthdays will be family-only affairs.

Your favorite things right now:

The song Call me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepson - you have the entire thing memorized and belt it out everywhere we go. 

Unicorns - the other day you were trying to climb the tall bed at Birch Bay and asked for help.  I said I would help you to "fly" (i.e.: throw you in the air) to the bed but you had to think happy thoughts like in Peter Pan before I could make you fly. You closed your eyes all serious and smiled secretly and just said, "unicorns!"quietly to yourself. I about died.

Having your hair in "princess braids":

Helping your Dad go to the bank and deposit checks.

Having foot baths in the downstairs sink:

As always, your Dad and I love you to pieces. Time is flying by and it feels like at this rate you'll be starting Kindergarten tomorrow. Until then, happy 3rd birthday Shorts.

XOXO
Mom