Our THREE year old!

Adelaide is three years old!

Most people consider three to be out of the toddler years and into the preschool years. Since she’ll be starting preschool in the fall, I tend to agree with “those people”. So here she is, my PRESCHOOLER!!

Three isn’t nearly as shocking a transition as two was, for me. Maybe it’s because I have a baby to compare her to, and she is most definitely not a baby. Or maybe it’s because she has shed almost all of her baby tendencies and is maturing quite rapidly. It’s almost harder to believe she’s not four or five.

This little girl is so much fun. She talks non-stop, from the moment she wakes up until well past her bedtime. And even though the constant noise emanating from her location wears on me, I love knowing exactly whats going through her head at any given moment.

Some of my favorite words that Adelaide has come up with (toddler-isms) are:

• Last Morning: More commonly referred to as “yesterday morning” but to Adelaide, “last morning” makes more sense. I can’t say I disagree!
• Cycle Bike: deffinition: bicycle. For some reason she continues to switch these words around.
• Frindinger: pronunciation: FRIN-DIN-GRRR. This is the refrigerator.
• Scratchy Hands: this means that her nails are too long (or whom ever’s hands she is talking about)

She is constantly asking “what are you doing?” to Matt and I and she LOVES being included in every activity. She also insists on including us in every activity that she is doing, by either telling us exactly how she’s doing what she’s doing while she’s doing it, or by asking us it do whatever it is, with her. Her need for constant interaction is definitely tiresome, but I try to remember that her teenage years are likely to be the complete opposite, and I’ll be the one craving her attention. Still, we’ve instituted “quiet” times and “play by yourself” times in an attempt to strengthen her independence.

Since moving to her big-girl bed (and completing the epic sleep re-training we had to do once in that bed) she has become a world class sleeper! We put her to bed between 7:30 and 8, read her some books, sing her some songs and typically “cuddle” with her for a few minutes before finally leaving the room. Then she goes through her personal bed-time routine, which usually includes putting her baby/bear/bunny to bed, putting on/taking off socks (one time she put 9 socks on one foot!), reading herself additional books and singing herself additional songs. Eventually she falls asleep, usually by 9. Thankfully, she sleeps completely through the night, waking up for the day between 7 and 8 the next morning.

She’s still taking a nap (mostly). Some days it’s just an hour or two of quiet time in her bed reading books, but most days is a 1-2 hour nap. I’m trying to treasure these hours while I still have them!

She is completely day-time potty trained! Wheee! Like I said in my potty training post, I can’t take any credit for her potty training—the girl trained herself! All I did was take off her diapers! It’s been going great. She rarely has accidents, and they’re almost always when we’re in the car and can’t get to a potty quickly enough. I’ve learned to make a potty trip before we leave the house, and sometimes before we leave the store, to try and avoid the accidents. I’m super proud of her and she loves the independence of being able to use the potty all by herself.

Adelaide is still a very good eater. It’s rare that she refuses to eat and when she does, it’s usually a very flavorful “adult” meal (she’s not big on teriyaki, shredded bbq chicken sandwiches or marinara sauce, for example). Some of her favorite snacks are hot cocoa, ice cubes, Annie’s bunny crackers, bananas, honey crisp apples, grapes, pretzels, graham crackers and of course, ice cream. And like a lot of kids her age, she loves mac ‘n cheese, pizza, chicken nuggets and oatmeal. Unlike a lot of kids her age, she is a big veggie eater. Her favorite veggie is broccoli, followed closely by peas, sweet potatoes (is that a vegetable??) asparagus and zucchini. I’m so relieved that eating is not a battle we have to have with her!

This girl LOOOOOOOOOOVES to play outside. We can hardly keep her inside! In fact, a few months ago she started opening the sliding glass door to the backyard all by herself and letting herself out to play whenever she felt like it. Talk about a heart attack! More than once I came out of the back room after changing Cadence’s diaper and found the door to the backyard open and Adelaide was not in the house nor obviously present in the backyard. I panicked and stared yelling for her and eventually she came out of whatever little spot in the yard had grabbed her attention. Ya. Not cool! We started giving her timeouts when she went outside without asking. We only had to do this for about a week and ever since then, she’s been very good about asking whenever she wants to go outside. Now we hear, “may I please go outside” about a dozen times an hour. haha! At least she’s asking!

Adelaide’s imagination is becoming more apparent. She needs less and less of my direction during play time to become engaged in an activity. Her dress-ups get a lot of “stage time” and she is almost always wearing some kind of hat and a pair of sunglasses. She loves to take objects from her life and use them in make-believe play (cups, washcloths, socks, etc). She makes beds all over the house from some of the most interesting things. A lot of blankets and pillows, sure, but sometimes it’ll be the top to a box or a book playing the part of the blanket or pillow. It always makes me smile to see her imagination at work!

Adelaide is always so excited to play with “friends”. She still only has one friend that we see regularly (Emerson) but every time we go to a park she is quick to make a friend or two whom she plays with for the duration of our time at that play space. I can’t wait to get her into a classroom where she can make lasting friends. And of course, she loves her baby sister. Adelaide CANNOT wait until her sister is big enough to play with!

Overall, two has been a VERY fun age, and I’m super excited for all of the changes and growing up we get to see in her through age three!

Happy Birthday to my sweet girl! Three years ago today you made your entrance into this world and into our hearts. You made me a mother and you made us a family. We CANNOT imagine life without you!