Fiddle-de-dee, Sprout Is Three!

My baby girl isn't such a baby.

She talks like she's always known how, even if sometimes I'm the only one who understands her.  She walks and runs like gravity is for mere mortals, even if occasionally she gets tangled up in her own feet.  She sleeps through the night like an old pro, even if sometimes she wakes up and want rocking again, or to crawl into bed and budge up against me with a soft sigh that fades into a sweet little snore.

She argues, bites, pinches, throws toys, hits,loves, hugs, kisses, pats, and cuddles.

I call her "Little Heart" and her brother is "Big Heart".

Her laugh comes from somewhere deep within her and bubbles up like an auditory artesian spring, and it is marvelous.

She wants to help, or do for herself, fiercely independent and angry when she can't.  She can count to two, sometimes as much as five.  She knows she does not like fresh pears, and apples with peanut butter are coveted.

She loathes the shoulder straps on her car seat and wriggles free of them whenever she can, until I catch her and sternly admonish "Put your arms back in!", which she does reluctantly, protesting.  No matter how tight I make them, how secure I make the chest buckle, she can get free.

Sometimes she like to spend hours just mashed up against me, snuggled as close as she can get.  "Will you sit on the lounge with me?" she asks, and when I do she sits, lies, sprawls on me, one hand absently holding mine or patting me, staring at the television or out the window or at nothing at all.  Maybe there is a book, or two, or a dozen.  Maybe there is conversation.  Maybe there is just us on the lounge, warm and content, covered in cats and a sheet or blanket, still for a time.

She knows how to scream.  She has lungs and volume like me.  She can scare the crap out of her father and I when she cuts loose out of the blue.  She likes to sing.  Sometimes she sings all day long, and sometimes just a little here and there, mostly songs she makes up on the spot.  There is no rhyme or reason, but it is a happy noise.  Occasionally she dances, too.  She may entice one of us to join her.

My little wild, sweet, strong, smart little girl is three.

How glad I am for having her.