2 Years, 11 Months

I almost can't believe that a month from today I will have a 3 year-old. It's amazing.

Her imagination has just exploded - or at least I should say that her ability to express and use it has really exploded. She continually amazes me. I was doing laundry and had a bunch of her socks unmatched. She randomly grabbed two white ones, tried to put them on her feet and wasn't having much luck. Rather than giving up or even getting frustrated, she just put them on her hands and said, "Amelia has sock puppets!" Then she went out to the sun room and proceeded to play with her trains. How cute was that?

She is still a voracious "reader" and I caught her one night reading after I had put her to bed. She had gotten out of bed with her little Toby book and was stretched out in her doorway so she could catch the hallway light and see her book! (She is going to be just like me - using a flashlight, street light or whatever to read after lights out as a child.)

Amelia starts pre-school a week from Tuesday and she'll go two afternoons a week from noon to 3 pm. She doesn't have a point of reference for it, but we have an open house a week from tonight and after that she will - and I'm sure she'll be very excited about it. We're still having a few potty accidents, but I think once she is around other kids who are potty trained, she will finally catch on that last little bit of understanding the connection of urges and going. (The teachers are fine with the 3 year-olds not being completely potty trained as long as they're close.)

We had a handyman (finally) put a swing up under our deck and she swung tonight for the first time. She was SO excited and kept saying, "Amelia is swinging in her yard! I have my own swing." Too cute. I didn't get a picture because I didn't want to leave her alone to run in the house for the camera (and her daddy is at a high school football game).

Speaking of Daddy, she really likes to see him first thing in the morning. If she sleeps past his departure she is disappointed that he's not home. This morning she woke up at 6 am and it was still dark (baby dark as she likes to say, although it was darker than just a little dark) and she whispered, "He is home?" When I told her he was she scrambled out of bed and since he was still in bed, we both climbed in and she announced happily, "All three of us are here together!" She was a whole lot more awake than we were ...

She loves sitting on his lap when he eats his cereal and will sometimes ask for her own bowl of Daddy's cereal - which I give to her dry so she can snack on it. They're so cute in the morning and I've taken periodic pictures of them that are now starting to really show how much she's grown since they first started sitting together at breakfast.

Amelia's latest 3 year-old milestone is to have the cutest pouting expression as soon as something doesn't go quite her way. I am going to have to start carrying the camera with me at all times to try to capture it since it doesn't last long. She does it if another child is going down the slide first, if an animal is momentarily stuck inside Noah's ark, if the snack she wants hasn't materialized the same second she asked for it, etc. It's not a full out pout, no tears - it's just a fleeting facial expression and SO cute.

She still can't be bothered with dolls, but that's okay. She is starting to pay some attention to small beanie-baby sized animals - carrying them around, giving them names. Her blue bear one is called Mr. Floppy or something like that.

She adores jumping and I've trained her to wait until the last step to do it. Since our basement steps have a landing, she gets to jump twice which thrills her. She'll say, "That's a BIIIIG jump!" And I'll agree with her.

The other day I pulled out her Halloween costume from last year and she wanted to be a giraffe, so I let her wear it that evening, including on our nightly walk. The neighbors got a kick out of it. It's a little small which wasn't a problem until we tried to take it off.

Her hair is long enough to put in a ponytail or two on a regular basis and that's been fun. It doesn't make her too girly, though, since she also adores playing in dirt!

[pictures dated 8/08]