Welcome to the Threenage Years

Dear Mackenzie,

Today you turn 3 years old. You are officially no longer a "toddler" but rather a "preschooler". Just in time too as you will be starting preschool next school year. You will be doing 2 days a week but I think it is going to be a huge adjustment for all of us and there might be quite a few tears on that first day (likely mostly from Daddy).

We had your 3 year old check-up today and you are getting so big! I can't believe you are the same 7 lb, 5 oz baby girl we brought home from the hospital 3 years ago. Dr. C said you are the picture of health! You are officially 31 pounds (55th percentile) and 38 inches (75th percentile)... Ignore the numbers on your board. That was made for your birthday party last weekend and was my attempt at getting your height and weight alone so I was off (as usual). Dr. C said you are growing perfectly. You actually have sat on the exact same growth curve for about 2 years now so it is looking like you will (hopefully) continue in that manner. Good news! That means that we are fairly certain at this point that you will be taller than me. We aren't hoping for WNBA tall... maybe just tall enough to reach those mugs on the top shelf of the cabinets. That way you can get one down for me when Daddy is busy. Haha! You did great at your appointment. They did the eye picture test again this year and we should hear soon if that looks good. You did everything Dr. C asked you to do and you chatted her ear off. You asked to use her stethoscope again and tried to listen to her heartbeat.

Speaking of doctors, you actually had your first dentist visit 6 months ago and will be going again soon. The dentist was so happy with your teeth. She said that she could tell you are good about brushing (which you surprisingly still love to do) and she was happy that you never used a pacifier or sucked your thumb. She specifically mentioned all of those things. You did great at the appointment too. You sat back and let them check your teeth and brush them for you. We were told that it is rare to have a child your age be so cooperative. Way to go, Kenzie! While we are on the subject of doctors, I also want to mention that you had your first major sickness this year. You actually developed Hand, Foot, Mouth. Will started it though we are not 100% sure where he could have picked it up. The only place we went was church but we never heard of anyone else getting sick. You had to be quarantined for about 2 weeks. It wasn't fun but you did okay. About a week and a half ago you actually had your first stomach virus too. It only lasted about 24 hours, but it wasn't fun. Teaching an almost 3-year-old to throw up in a bowl instead of on the floor and cleaning a carseat in the parking lot of Winn Dixie well enough to get you back in it (undressed) and home, wasn't exactly fun. You took most of it in stride though and the next day, other than falling asleep on your floor during nap time, it would have never been apparent to anyone else that you were sick.

You are growing into such an adorable little girl. You are definitely hitting these "threenager" years hard though. You are so independent and (I'll go ahead and say it) stubborn. You know what you want and you want it when you want it. You are 3 going on 13. I have heard that the age of 3 is way more difficult with girls than 2 is, and I can believe it. As we have inched closer to your third birthday you have become more and more independent. You love to say "I do it on my own!" to just about anything. Then, if you have trouble doing something, you break down in frustration. You started to hit the "terrible 2's" early and the same pattern has held for this "threenager" thing. Let's just hope that means you will come out of it sooner. You still have a lot of great moments when you are an awesome listener and you want to make good choices. You just want to be your own person (which we are all for and try to help encourage), but you get frustrated easily when things are more difficult than you anticipate. You are the most polite child though. You always tell others please and thank you. I say others because sometimes you seem to think that Mommy and Daddy do not need that same respect. We don't let you get away with it though and you will usually not argue. You have also learned to tell people "excuse me" when you walk by them. Sometimes you tell them that despite the fact that they are in no way in your personal space or even close to you. Most people think it's adorable. People are always so amazed at how polite you are. That makes me one proud Momma!

This year you went into a big girl bed. That's right! We officially transitioned you to a toddler bed and you did great! You actually didn't seem to realize that you could get out of the bed for the first few months. Now, you know and you often come into our room in the morning to climb into bed with us. You also stopped napping entirely at this point. We have "rest time" during which you play in your room quietly and you sometimes (read: very rarely) nap. After about 45 minutes you usually come out and ask if you can leave your room. We usually let you. We have had a few instances recently when you want to get into bed with us if you wake up in the middle of the night. We do not let you, because it isn't a habit we want to break one day. You have lounged once in the middle of the night when you were having a terrible night, but we moved you back before you fell asleep and explained that you need to sleep in your own bed.

Your personality is larger than life. You are still such a talker! As you get older and your language continues to develop, you talk more and more. I actually think you are going to start talking in your sleep soon since that is seriously one of the few times you are quiet and you are going to need to find a way to work more speaking in during your day. I'm kidding. Maybe. Hopefully you don't end up talking in your sleep too. Sometimes I need the quiet. You also ask about 500 questions a day. I think about 300 of those probably start with the word "why?" That's right. We have officially entered the "why" stage. I remember the "what's that?", "where?", and "who?" questions but those have all been replaced. We have even had a few older women laugh at us lately as you continue to ask me why questions and I try to patiently answer about 10 in a row before telling you "just because". They often tell me that they have been there and remember this stage but that it passes. We will see how long that takes. =) We think that part of the reason that your language is so great is because we have never used baby talk with you and we have always explained things to you, whether you asked about them or just as we were doing something we talked about it. Maybe that's why you talk so much. You think it is normal. Or maybe you are just your mother's daughter. I often feel like I should call your Nana and apologize for never stopping the chatter. It's exhausting. For a while early in your second year I could tell you that we were playing the "quiet game" and you would be quite for maybe 3 minutes. Then, you started whispering during the quiet game. Then you just started ignoring the quiet game. At least it worked for a while.

You still LOVE to read. You seriously have a thirst for knowledge and while you love to ask questions,  you have also learned to make inferences based on pictures in books. It's awesome to watch really. Even if you pick up a book we have never read, you can tell a story about it based on the pictures. If it is a book you have heard, you have an amazing ability to remember a lot of what you heard us read and you repeat it. As you hear the book more often, you start repeating it almost verbatim. I wish I could say you are "reading" when you do that because that would be quite impressive, but you aren't. I do think your memory is very impressive though. You remember EVERYTHING. So help us if we tell you something and then forget about it. You are also awesome at recognizing places when we drive. Even if we have been somewhere once, you remember what we visited there or you tell us that we passed those same places on our way to such and such. Hopefully you get your Daddy's sense of direction. Mine leaves something to be desired.

You have also added puzzles to the list of things you love. We are moving away from big, block like puzzles to normal jigsaw puzzles and you have finally started to get the hang of matching pieces and putting them together with minimal help. We are still working on all of that though. You can recognize some numbers and sometimes a few letters. We haven't had a chance to push those skills much over the last year but I plan to do so with you starting preschool this school year. You know your ABC's (verbally) and can count to 14. After 14 you skip to 17 and go to 20. I'm not sure what happened to 15 and 16 but I'm sure we will find them soon. They are just hiding, or something.

If you aren't reading or doing puzzles, we can likely find you playing dress up. As your imaginative play skills have gotten better and better, you have gotten more into dress up and you are finally actually acting out play scenarios rather than only wearing your dress up clothes around. You specifically love "tutus" which is basically any skirt you can find. Even your everyday skirts are tutus. You also love to try to dress up Will. He isn't so into that idea but I know it won't be long before he becomes a part of your dress up play. While talking about dressing up, I should mention that you are such a girly girl and, if given the chance, will choose to wear a dress every day.

You continue to be our picky eater. It's amazing to me that as an infant and even early into your toddler years that you ate just about ANYTHING we gave you. Now... not so much. You have determined that most foods are "yucky" despite the fact that less than a year and a half ago you ate them all like they were going out of style. I am hoping that you will grow out of this stage. It is quite frustrating for all of us. Sometimes you will surprise us and eat whatever we give you but then the next day I can serve the same food and you refuse it. Lovely. You still love fish, chicken nuggets, grilled cheese, and cheese quesadillas. Along with peanut butter sandwiches, you could live off those select foods. We always serve you what we eat though and sometimes you will eat it, sometimes you will not. Our only plus is that you will always eat fruit. There are only a few fruits you weren't into. Kiwi being one of them. Sometimes you are picky about your fruits. Mangoes and pears are a toss up. Ironic because as a baby you LOVED pears. Oh well. We just keep exposing you and trying new foods. I have faith that one day you will eat normally again.

You are still so, so very active. You seriously do not seem to stop moving unless you are sleeping or we are allowing you to watch TV. You love to dance and play music. We still think you are likely to be our musical child. You LOVE music. You have a specific playlist that you request any time you can. You know all the words to quite a few songs and (like your Daddy) you can identify those songs within the first couple of notes. Every day you request "dance parties" and lately if we are playing picnic or tea party, you request "dance music" to go along with our playtime. You also love to help me clean. You love to help me vacuum and mop. If I am wiping furniture or anything, you are right there with me using your own cleaning cloth. It is "helpful". Actually, it ends up taking me double the amount of time, but you love to help so much that I let you. Plus, I think it is important to teach you about making sure you appreciate what you have and that you take care of it. If that means cleaning, then teaching you to do that is important to me. You love to play outside. Bubbles, scooter-ing, and drawing with your sidewalk chalk rank high on your list of favorite outside activities. We just gave you your very first (balance) bike for your birthday so you are learning to do that outside as well and you seem to be enjoying it so far. You definitely love to be outside and play out there. That makes us really happy because we prefer that you spend a lot of time outdoors and not inside in front of the TV or some sort of electronic device. I hope that love of the outdoors continues as you get older. You completed your first year of swimming lessons this year. You officially graduated from the Red Cross Preschool Aquatics Level 1 program. I am so proud of you. You can swim to a wall without assistance. If you fall into a pool (or jump in) you can turn around and swim to a wall. You can swim unassisted and roll over onto your back. You need some assistance once you roll, but you can do the actual act of rolling on your own. You love to dive for toys and you have learned flutter and froggy kicks and the corresponding arm movements, though you are still working on the coordination of doing legs and arms together. You will take additional swimming lessons next year and within a few summers you should be taking lessons to learn actual strokes and everything. That is, if you continue to enjoy it as much. Your Daddy is a really strong swimmer, so we will see if you are similar.

We took you to Disney for the first time a couple of months ago. We have annual passes now but because of the heat, you have only been to Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom so far. You had a blast! I loved watching you enjoy Disney and seeing that magic world through your eyes. You went right up to Minnie, Pluto, Rapunzel, Mickey, Cinderella and other characters like it was nothing. We were amazed. We thought you might be reserved, but we should have known better. You seem to like Daisy the best and kept requesting to meet her when we were there. You were a bit starstruck when you finally did meet her. It was so much fun to be able to take you and have your recognize the characters and a lot of the places from either us telling you about them, or seeing them on TV. You have already made a list of rides you would like to go on when we are there again. We hope to go back in a few weeks. We would like the weather to cool down just a bit. It is hard to take the two of you out there in the heat. I think we will definitely be getting our money's worth this fall, winter, and spring. You have no idea yet, but you live in an awesome place and we are so excited to be able to share this fun experience with you as you get older. You are one lucky little girl.

You had a Doc McStuffins birthday party this year and you had a blast! You had a lot of people come to share in turning three with you. You are so lucky to have this many people that love and care about you.

We went on a few trips this year. You went back to Atlanta to celebrate your cousin's first birthday. We also went to Mississippi because my cousin was getting married. That trip allowed you the opportunity to meet some of your family in Mississippi that you had not yet had the chance to meet. This summer we took a family vacation to the Keys for a week. You had a blast at the beaches and pools. You definitely have grown into a great traveler. You love to stay in hotels and since you have moved out of a crib and into a normal bed, it is so much easier to travel with you because you can sleep with either me or Daddy. (He usually makes you sleep with me because despite being so small,  you can certainly take up most of a bed.) You are also awesome in a car. We always bring the DVD player for longer trips (our cut off for using it is usually that a trip needs to take 4 hours or more), but we rarely need to break it out unless the trip is exceptionally long. You ride really well and will nap or talk to us a lot.

You have grown to be the best big sister. You love your little brother. You love to give him hugs and kisses. That includes literally laying on top of him at times in a bear hug. You are always so concerned with how he is doing. I love watching you take care of him. You have your moments with him though. It isn't always sunshine and rainbows. I wish it was, but you have a normal sister/brother relationship. He loves to pull your hair (who can blame him? That hair is awesome!) and you aren't a fan of that. You have pushed him over a few times but we expected that sort of thing and we have dealt with it as it has occurred. Most of the time you love to try to play with him, though. I love watching your relationship grow and evolve as both of you get older. Currently, you love to do "crawling races" with him. You usually win.

I can't believe that our little girl is turning 3 years old today. You are growing into such an amazing little girl and you are one of the pieces to our whole. Watching you grow is truly a blessing and I am so thankful that you call me Mommy. I love you Kiddo!

Love,
Mommy

Went to bed 2-years-old

Woke up 3!!