Romachino: 3 years!

Gabby turned 3!

3 year old stats: 31.6 lbs (55th percentile) and 40 inches tall (83rd percentile). She's tall enough for the rides at Disney!

I can't believe that my little girl is 3 years old! She's such a joy to have around. She's turned into such a little helper (especially with Louie), and is very sweet and sensitive. All we really have to do is raise our voices when we're upset and she cries and tries to make it better. If she's crying really hard, she'll remove herself to another room until she's done crying. She appreciates alone time, but loves to play with us as well. She gets jealous of her baby brother and all of the attention he gets (especially from me), but loves him so much just the same.

She and her dad are starting to bond more now that Louie's here. She still insists that only I can bathe her and put her to bed, but she loves nothing more than to play with Daddy upstairs while I'm taking care of Louie.

She took this picture of Brian (although he didn't let go of his camera)!

Selfies

Big smiles

She didn't regress too badly when he was born--the only thing we noticed was her insistence on sleeping on the floor. She does want to be carried (which I can now manage again) all the time, especially on the stairs, and if Louie's being held, she has to be held as well. That often means that I put Louie down and pick her up!

Her favorite shows right now are The Bubble Guppies, Doc McStuffins, Sofia the First, Yo Gabba Gabb, and Peppa Pig. She insists that she's Peppa, Louis is George (Peppa's brother), I'm Mommy Pig, and Brian's Daddy Pig. She's starting to get more of an imagination, and loves to pretend that she's another person. She loves books so much. I never have any problems with drop-off at daycare when they're reading a book! We read every night at bedtime, and she's started to memorize her favorite stories. She runs in phases with what she wants to read--for a long time it was How the Grinch Stole Christmas, now it seems to be the Little Critter books. I really love that she has an appreciation for books and hope she turns into a reader!

She is a typical 3 year old and throws plenty of tantrums. In some ways, 3 has been easier than 2, because I can encourage her to use her words more and express what she wants rather than just scream and yell. In other ways it's harder, because she knows now that she can ask for and receive things, and her memory has gotten so much better. I used to be able to tell her we'd do things later and she'd forget. Now she wants things done later!

She's also an adorable mimic.

She is absolutely doing what you think she's doing.

Since my video embedding doesn't seem to be working, click here for a video.

She fed the bear (she calls it "koala bear"

And put him to bed!

She continues to amaze me with her vocabulary. She speaks very clearly and in long sentences. She knows long words that I've taught her (condensation, shmutz) and uses them correctly. She's just starting to enter the "why" phase--she asked me today why there were trees there--but accepts "I don't know" as an answer. I'll enjoy that while it lasts! She still has some super cute mispronunciations. She says lellow for yellow, calls granola bars "gorilla" bars, still says "Owie Kitty" for Hello Kitty (although that's going away), but for the most part, still says things correctly and clearly. She's also memorized several songs and can sing them all the way through. She does get mad when she wants to hear a song and you don't know it (daycare has some weird ones)!

She also got her very first professional haircut. You may remember that I gave her one that didn't look so good. Well, it finally grew out enough to require a real one!

We watched Daddy get his done first, and then she sat on his lap.

She was very brave.

She did a great job and held super still. She got a lollipop as a reward!

We had her birthday party on Super Bowl Sunday (go Pats!), and invited our friends to come over. We figure this is the last year we can have a party that's really more for us than her--we've already gotten an invitation to a daycare friend's party at Art Beast, so next year we know we'll have to do something similar. We all had a great time hanging out. It was kind of a madhouse with all of the kids (10 of them!), but so much fun.