Saying goodbye to "Three"..

This girl of mine is growing and changing so much. Even as I start making preparations for her birthday, which is just a few weeks away, I can hardly fathom that she will soon be four years old! Blows my mind, somehow. Now that she'll soon be leaving "Three" behind I thought it was time to document what she's been up to lately. It's been a while.

So, lets see....we'll start with what she's really into right now. She still loves music and dancing and singing. She's into "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse"and all things Disney and has even requested a Minnie Mouse themed birthday. She also has discovered "SuperWhy" and "Special Agent Oso" and she still loves her "Little Einsteins". She loves books but she'll kind of get obsessed with one or two at a time and will only want to read that one (or two) every.single.night for about a week or so. She really seems to be trying to learn to read. She's constantly asking "what's that spell? Or "How to you spell ___? Although she often says "smell" instead of "spell", hehee. She's been able to read lots of "sight words" for a long while now, but lately she's able to read and spell other 3-4 words. She's still really into numbers, too, always has been. She very recently learned to count to 100 and can do it completely on her own. We used to have to help her between the 9's and 10's (you know, fifty-nine, sixty, eight-nine, ninety..). Not anymore. And she recognizes any number she sees, even double digits. For example if she see's 74, she'll say seventy-four now, and not "seven, four".

She's taken to calling us "Mom" and "Dad" half of the time and can often be heard saying things like:

"Actually, Mom..."

"..but as you could see..."

"That's fun-tastic!"

She still loves to collect, and arrange, and store little things in boxes, containers...whatever. If something comes to her organized in a certain way or order..they have to stay that way. I bought her a new pack of markers a few weeks and after they're used she insists on putting them back in order (you know, red, orange, yellow, green, blue purple...). She's still loving her "school" on Thursdays and I'm starting to look for a real pre-school program to enroll her in this coming fall.

Naps are pretty much a thing of the past unless she falls asleep in her carseat.

She's about 38 inches and counting but seems to have been hovering around 34 pounds for months now. She's so tickled with herself that she can now reach the light switch in her bedroom now. This led to a funny conversation recently that went something like this:

K: "Mommy, are my legs growing?"
M: "Yes, honey, they certainly are."
K: "Are my arms, gonna grow?"
M: "Yes, they are."
K: "Is my head getting big?"
M: " Sure, I guess."
K: " Are my cracks growing?"
M: " Uummmmm...what???"
K: " You know....these! " (pointing to the little folds in the bends of her legs behind her knees.)
M: (giggling in relief) "Yes, honey..I suppose as you grow, your cracks will grow with you."

But she's still not to big to fit inside this mixer box. I haven't had the heart to get rid of it because she's still having so much fun filling it with all sorts of random household "odd-jects" as she says. Including, obviously, herself. =)