My sweet girl is three years old and I have no idea where the last year went. All I know is that my baby is rapidly disappearing and a little girl is taking her place. She’s a lovely little girl, for sure, but I’m already missing that baby potbelly and those pinch-able cheeks and trying to figure out where all these arms (with the pointiest elbows known to mankind) and legs came from all of a sudden.
Two was a great year. I waited and waited for those terrible twos I’d heard so much about to show up but they never did. Ava is an easygoing child who is mostly compliant (although she can have her moments) and content as long as she’s included in what we’re doing. She’s a bit of a shy girl who takes some time to warm up to new people and activities and is still happiest in Mama or Daddy’s arms until she’s scoped out the scene.
She’s turning out to be a reader. She will sit for ages and ‘read’ us book after book after book. Some of these she’s memorized from many, many nights of reading the same ones (Pajama Time, Bear Snores On) overandoverandover and others she’ll just make up her own story from the pictures. She also reads to her toys, the dogs, the cats, and anyone/thing who will listen to her. And a TV watcher she is not (just like her mama). 15 minutes of Sesame Street to see the Elmo’s World segment is all she’s interested in.
She loves lambs (yams). My mom gave her one for Christmas and he’s become the center of her world who has spawned (not literally) a plethora of sheep around our house. Original ‘yam’ is no longer allowed out of our house after a scary gone missing episode so there are now several specific breeds of yams living here – there’s a daycare yam and a car yam and, well, you get the picture.
She’s finally learned to dance. She’s always been very good at slam dancing and had a promising future in the mosh pit but she’s finally getting it that the rest of her body can move, too. Now, if I could only undo the part where we thought it would be cute to teach her to sing and shake her KC and the Sunshine Band ‘booty.’ Yeah, it was cute when she was 18 months old – not so much now.
She’s our baby, our chick, chicklet, munchkin, chicken little, baby chick, silly goosey, baby turkey (to which she responds that Daddy is a big turkey – true words, little one) and many other nicknames (some that are even non-poultry) that came from out of nowhere. She can spell her name (thank heavens we gave her an easy one) and loves to look for A’s and V’s everywhere we go. I can sit her down with a word find puzzle book and it will keep her entertained endlessly while she looks for and circles all the A’s and V’s she can find. She can say her whole (very long) name with only a little prompting and already pronounces our multi-syllable and somewhat R-laden last name easier than I can after 14 years and better than 97% of the population does. She’s got our phone number down not at all (she can sorta get the numbers sometimes) and is convinced that 991 will connect her straight to the fire station.
Oh, and she does love the fire station. We must drive past ours at least once daily. That’s all J, by the way. She can spot a fire truck 42 miles away and will talk about it endlessly. You’d think I’d be used to this with her daddy already…
She’s a silly, funny girl who loves to laugh. She also loves to tickle and be tickled but only in the afternoon/evening. Heaven help you if you tickle her in the morning before she’s had a chance to fully wake up. You might pull back a bloody stump if you try. My little chick loves her sleep and will tell us it’s time for bed if we don’t have her tucked in by 8:30. She sleeps most nights from 8PM to 8AM and still naps for 2 hours during the day. The good sleep now is much appreciated after the not so much sleep after we first brought her home.
She’s failing (okay, they call it not progressing) Colors at daycare but after some frantic worry about colorblindness I’ve figured out that she knows her colors well enough but refuses to cooperate if you’re just flashing cards at her. So much for that compliance I was talking about earlier. And so much for all those visions I had pre-child of how much time we were going to spend on educational activities like flashcards. Well, she does like to carry them around in her purse so it’s not like it’s a total waste, I guess. Oh yeah, and her favorite color is purple.
She also has impeccable table manners for a toddler. She is all about no elbows on the table and will politely ask to be excused when she’s finished. The rule is that we all stay at the table until the meal is done and she’s pretty much fine with that. She is not allowed to be up and running around with food ever – at home or in public – and this has paid off for us in that we can pretty much take her anywhere to eat. It would only be more perfect if she came equipped with a working volume control button. She’s not quite consistently grasped the inside and outside voice concept yet.
I guess I could sum it all up by saying that she is most stupendous kid ever and we are blessed beyond measure to have her in our lives. She is kind and loving and fun and amazing and we love her more than anything in the whole world.
The time is certainly moving too quickly.
I love that picture of her peering through the bars.