Happy Birthday Sweetie!

Sweetie is 3 today! She seems to have been three for a while. The last couple of months I just haven't viewed her as a two year old. She seems older. She's got such a great attention span and she's usually so quiet.

She still loves her coloring books, puzzles, Tag books and reading books. Her favorite TV show is Max and Ruby. She loves to torment Baby Dragon by taking a toy that she is playing with and running off with it (checking to make sure that Baby Dragon is chasing her for the toy) with a grin on her face. Sweetie is getting really good at pretending with her toys, often making her ponies Mother and Son. Sometimes she'll randomly call out, "Mother!" and I realize she's not calling for me, her pony is calling for its mother. Sweetie loves a good game of chase and is perfectly content being the chaser when Baby Dragon likes to pretend with her friends that Sweetie is the bad guy that they have to escape from.

Sweetie is talking a lot more and has cute little baby talk. I love when she says "Boo-i-fow" and "That's gwait!" Her r's and l's tend to be replaced with w's. It's the best when she wants something she'll cock her head to one side and say, "um, I want grapes." And I'll ask, "You want grapes?" And she'll say, "Me toooo!" She LOVES fruit.

She's pretty good at making sure she sits up to the table with food, but she really likes to sneak food out of the pantry. I'll see her randomly munching on crackers or chips that I did not get for her. She also likes to snitch the gum out of my purse. She will come to me and hug me and with a smile on her face softly say, "I want canny, or I want gum." Most of the time I can hardly hear her until she says it a couple of times. And then when I say no she'll say, "hmmm, why?" If I explain that she needs lunch first, then she'll say, "I don't like lunch!"

If something is lost and we can't find it, Sweetie will ask "where is it?" And then as we are searching she will tap her chin and say, "Hmmmm, maybe..."

If you want Sweetie to do something you start counting to three and she normally responds quickly. Or you give her two choices (repeatedly) until she chooses one. Once she's chosen she is pretty cooperative. You DO NOT let her get too tired or she is a crying monster. Her defense is always crying. Because she knows I can't stand it.

When she's tired she'll say, "I'm not so tired," out of the blue. She also wants a drink from her elephant cup (the bathroom cup for drinks after brushing teeth- bedtime routine). There have been times that she's been so tired that she puts herself to bed for a nap! I often tell her to go climb in bed and I'll come tuck her in for nap time. At bed time she still likes to stay up an extra hour or so reading books by the lamp light, much to Baby Dragon's dismay. And Sweetie wakes up around 6am.

When Sweetie has a stinky diaper and wants me to change her she'll tell me, "I'm so poopy." She won't sit if she is poopy. But I'm not sensing the desire to be potty trained any time soon.

She recently started whispering nonsense into my ear. That's pretty cute. She LOVES to give hugs and kisses. She will randomly come over to me with her face upturned for a kiss. She will see me or Handsome Husband across the room and say, "I want kiss you," or "I want hug you." She still says, "I want hold you," which we love to hear. She loves to climb on our laps and snuggle. Sweetie is my child who will come and crawl in bed with me in the middle of the night. She has scared me a couple of times just appearing at my bedside.

And Sweetie is a girly girl! She loves to come in when I am putting my makeup on and insists on a little makeup herself. She also likes to pull out my nail polish and get her nails painted about weekly. She will often pretend to put makeup on herself and on me.

Sweetie loves to sing along with us. She starts learning songs by just singing the ends of the lines and slowly adds words as she learns them. She can pretty much sing "I am a Child of God", "I Love to See the Temple" and the ABC song on her own. She has an interesting tone to her voice, she will be an alto.

I love my Sweetie.