“I’m 3!”

So it took me a few days after Helen Grace’s birthday extravaganza to get up the energy to tackle her ‘chair’ picture. I finally managed to get her clean, dressed up, and cooperative, and I bribed her into getting in her chair for pictures. I let her bring whatever animals she wanted to bring, and afterward, I was so relieved to finally have her three year picture documented…until I realized that night that I FORGOT HER HIPPO!!! Are you kidding me?! And everyone I asked told me that I had to redo it to include the hippo. I tried to talk John into PhotoShopping the &*%^%$ animal in, but he refused. Alas, I had to do the whole photo shoot all over again. Luckily, when she tried on her new ballerina tutu and shoes, she was so happy that she would do anything I asked. I scooped her up and ran upstairs to GRAB THE HIPPO and take the long awaited pic. Whew!

3 year old photo shoot #1 3 year old photo shoot #2

2 years old1 year old 1 week old

This has been a wild and wonderful year of firsts….first camel ride, first moving carousel horse ride, first trip to the beach, first time to be a flower girl, and first road trip to Opryland. And she’s finally accepted BOWS! The toddler fits peaked during this year, but thankfully (knock on wood), they seem to have tapered off a bit. Maybe I’m figuring out how to respond, and maybe she’s figuring out what she can and can’t get away with. Her imagination runs WILD, and she’s constantly pretending to see and do things and making up songs and stories. She’s still a mama’s girl but spends a lot more time now hugging her daddy’s neck and going on walks with him. She’s becoming much more comfortable in the pool and will jump off the side to us. We are having a potty training boot camp this weekend, so hopefully, we’ll be able to soon add that to her accomplishments for the year.

She’s pretty much a Bossy Bess with friends she’s comfortable with, although she can still be a tad shy or overwhelmed in a new environment. She loves to take care of her friends and make sure they are ok, and she’ll give out pats as a sign of affection. Luckily, she doesn’t seem to have much, if any, separation anxiety anymore. As long as we explain to her ahead of time what is going to happen, she can go with the flow. She’s just like her mama and wants to be prepared.

She is sleeping pretty well these days, although in phases, as usual. She will sleep pretty much all night in her bed (goes down between 8:30-9:00), and if she does wake up in the night, it’s usually pretty close to 5:00. She’s up for good by 6:00 most days, and we are still letting her sleep with us on Friday nights. She takes a great afternoon nap for 2-3 hours.

She’ll start Mothers Day Out at Maples Memorial Methodist Church for two days a week this fall, and she’s signed up for dance classes at Kids Only Gym and a week-long Princesses on Parade camp at St. Agnes this summer.

Camouflaged:  HG and Spiffer were watering plants on her patio. Spiffer had on a pink shirt and leaned down behind a plant with pink flowers. HG looked up and couldn’t see Spiffer, but when she stood up, HG said, “Spiffer! I couldn’t see you- you were camouflaged!”

Terrified:  Grandma and HG were playing in her front yard while Peggy was in the back yard. HG decided to run around back to find Peggy, but unbeknownst to her, she had gone inside and locked the back door. Peggy soon found HG hysterical and beating on the back door, and when she opened the door, HG said, “Peggy, I was terrified!”

Nervous:  John has heard HG say lately that she was nervous about something, and it wasn’t until we were at the zoo the other day that he understood why. As she was standing on a railing, I told her, “Don’t do that, baby. That makes Mommy nervous.”

During bath time the other night, she was telling me all about how the tooth fairy works, and then she stops suddenly with an inquisitive look on her face. “Mommy, what about the tooth fairy? Does she have teeth?”

At bedtime, every time I get ready to say goodnight and leave her, she’ll look up at me with puppy dog eyes and ask, “Mommy, you stay a tiny bit?”