Three and a Half

How is my baby girl 3 1/2 years old already? And how has she only been a part of our lives for 3 1/2 years? I feel like she's growing up daily right before our eyes. She's learning so many new things and absorbing just about everything.

Katie will finish preschool for the year next week and I am amazed at what all she has learned this year. The biggest things in my mind are using scissors and recognizing letters and their sounds. She's still not great at writing her letters or really much of anything other than scribbling, but she's getting better. She seems to have really enjoyed school and talks about her friends and teachers there a lot.

We haven't been to the dentist yet - I know I need to get on that like yesterday! I've been trying to show her pictures of friends whose moms have blogged about the dentist to show her it's not scary...But considering I'd rather have a month full of Mondays than go to the dentist, it feels like one big fat lie!

Katie loves to play outside, especially now with the play set in the backyard. She likes to play chase and a few semi-made up games called Base and Steal the Treasure. They all boil down to running around the back yard chasing each other. She also loves to play doctor to her animals - so I guess she likes to pretend to be a vet. She sticks band-aids on them and wraps them in blankets and does everything she can to heal them. She got a puppy and vet kit for Christmas and it's been her favorite toy ever since...If you've seen Katie since Christmas, she likely had Max the Pink Puppy close by her side. She loves getting new stuffed animals. Someone at Doug's office gave him a bag full of them a few months back and I pull one out to give her every now and then. She also seems to finagle new animals out of Target or WalMart trips. Once the new animal comes home, we spend literally close to an hour introducing the new animal to all her other friends.

She is still a very picky eater. Meat is probably her least favorite, but she loves pepperonis. She eats fruit and bread better than anything and never seems to eat much at meal time so I try to make snack time as healthy as possible. She can flip flop her tastes on a daily basis...one day she'll eat chicken nuggets and then the next day she acts like she's never even heard of them.

She is quite the talker...I remember thinking she'd never talk and everyone telling me that she'd start one day and never stop. They. Were. Right. A few of my favorite Katie-isms are...the way she says 'forehead.' She calls it a 'headford.' And she bumps it frequently on something so she's usually crying as it comes out. It's adorable and precious and I can't bear to tell her she's saying it wrong. She also still makes most double consonant sounds into an 'f' sound and it's really cute. Not something I worry about anymore as she's grown out of most of her other speech patterns. When she tells me she loves me, I always respond that makes me the luckiest person in the world...Somehow, she's gotten it mixed up in her head and she leads with that now...She'll tell me I'm really lucky and when I ask why, she says it's because she loves me. So humble!

Katie's worst behavior issues right now are not listening well at home. She rarely does something the first time she is asked which is trying our patience like no other. She does great in public for the most part, which I am incredibly thankful for - but at home, it's as if she making up for the good little girl she appears to be in public. And it only seems to intensify at bedtime. It may be because Doug and I are looking forward to spending time together or because she's tired and getting cranky - but bedtime usually ends with at least 2 of the 3 of us in a bad mood. We are working on listening and acknowledging the times she's being a good listener so that it doesn't feel like we're criticizing her all the time.

Katie is really sweet and sensitive. She wants to take care of her friends if they're sad. She has been very conscious of me not feeling well throughout the pregnancy and has asked me many times if I am feeling okay. She has seen me cry several times (from hormone overload, of course) and she gets so bothered by it. She starts to cry herself and it's so sad to see her get so sad at me being sad...Poor Doug having to put up with all these girl issues!!!

Katie is also pretty funny. She likes to reword songs or books to make them funny and then ask us if we thought it was funny. She likes to make funny faces and has certain looks that I'm sure are from some aged soul that has taken root inside of her...She can almost raise one eyebrow and can practically cross her eyes while making goofy grins! She keeps us entertained for sure.

Katie is a daily struggle, but an even bigger daily victory or reward. She lights up our lives in ways we never knew were dark. She is fascinating to watch as she learns more and more things about life. Her love for life is inspiring and I hope she keeps that spark forever.

Happy Half Birthday Bugs! We love you.