Three and a half.

Dear Miss Personality,


As of Friday, you are three and a half years old. Six months away from being four years old. You being two and three was hard enough for me, but four?!? There's still a lot of "baby" at two and even some at three, but I don't know that I can squeeze any "baby" into four. Four seems so grown up. My baby girl has now become my little girl.

At three and a half you are full of personality. You laugh. You pretend. You whine. You cry. You play. You sing. You dance. You scream. You pout. You talk. You run. You make jokes. You love to smile. You are a charmer. You know just when to turn it on and just as quickly you will shut it off.

You are talking all of the time. And you ask lots of questions. You are one inquisitive little girl. You are in that "why" phase and I know it's just a part of your overall learning. You want to know why things work the way they do and why people act or do the things they do. You are so observant and you ask about all that you see. Everything. Sometimes that's great, sometimes not so great. You love to say, "Mommy, you are my best mommy ever" or "Kaka, you are my best grandma ever." You also say that about your daddy, Gator, your uncles and Dippin. You also like to say, "Mommy, I no share you and Daddy wif anybody." Ha. 

At night while your daddy and I are watching the news or on Saturday mornings when we are watching and laughing at music videos on CMT you stand in front of the TV in your favorite pink dress and ask, "Mommy, are you looking at me?" You twirl and jump and sing and you want 100% of our attention. All of the time. Also on Saturday mornings when we are all in the bed watching cartoons you want to be in the middle. You don't want me touching or hugging your daddy. You say, "He's my daddy." This could become a problem, little girl.


You love to play dress up and your favorite dress up article is your pink dress. You wear it every single day. And at night you put it beside your bed so you know exactly where it is the next day. You love watching cartoons and anything with music. You love to play hide and seek. And you have some really great hiding spots. You love to help clean and cook. You love to play outside and ride your jeep or kick the ball. You love jumping on anything - your bed, our bed, the couch, whatever. You really like playing doctor. We've taken lots of medicine and gotten lots of shots lately. You want to read all of the time. You have so many books, probably hundreds and I really think we have read every single one of them at least five times. You also like to color and draw circles. You adore Legos and love building.

Bedtime has gotten better. You are going to bed much easier, but you are still getting up every three hours or so. It makes for really long nights and really sleepy parents. Most nights you just want us to tuck you back in or let you use the bathroom and then you go right back to sleep. There are some nights where you just want us to sit for a little while. The sleepy, grouchy part of me wants you to go back to bed right away, without a fight. But, the sensitive, sentimental part of me just wants to appease you and sit with you - not just for you, but for me. 

You are still wearing a lot of 2T clothes and some 3T. Most 3T pants are the perfect length, but way too big in the waste. And your 2T pants aren't nearly long enough, but fit your tiny waist perfectly. I can't wait for summer when you can wear shorts and we don't have to worry about length. You are very tall and slender and your daddy and I predict that with your height and rhythm you would make an amazing ballerina. Or nurse or doctor or teacher or astronaut. Or really anything you want to be. You are wearing big girl undies 24/7 and you haven't had an accident in months. Knock on wood. You wear a size 6/7/8 in shoes - depends on the shoe. Your hair is finally growing some and I love putting your hair in pigtails. 

You love eating pancakes and fruit for breakfast. I think you eat lots of different things for breakfast at Roddey's, but you only want pancakes here. You love any fruit, especially bananas and pineapples. You love jelly sandwiches and macaroni and cheese. You also like pizza and lots of veggies. You ask for hot dogs, cheeseburgers and noodles a lot. You loving drinking water, milk and apple juice. Sometimes you ask for orange juice and you also really like those yogurt drinks. You are still a faithful goldfish eater and you also enjoy some candy. You usually eat just a little of the candy and then spit it out. I'm perfectly fine with that. I still haven't let you have bubble gum and I'm going to try and keep that going for as long as I can. It's not that I have a problem with sugar, it's just that it's sticky and gooey and can end up anywhere - your hair, my shoe, your insides, you get the picture. Not ready for all of that. 


Three has been a very interesting year, my love. And I know we have six more months. You've grown and changed so much. And I love all that you are becoming. With all of the good, there have been trying times as well. You are strong-willed and stubborn and determined. As much as I don't want to admit it, you get many of the qualities dead honest from your daddy and I. It's also true that you've been that way since the day you were born. I was so thankful for those qualities then and I am thankful for them even now. They are a little harder to handle now and sometimes Mommy isn't so sure what to do with it all, but I'm learning. We're learning. And we are all good learners.


I love you, baby girl. So big.