This baby....

....is really something else.  All day, every day, she keeps us laughing, and on our toes!  She is three and a half, but it's easy to forget that because she speaks like she's eleven.  She comes up with words and phrases that make us shake our heads...she remembers EVERYTHING!

At this moment in time:
-she loves books and being read to.
-she hates having her hair brushed, but never balks at letting me fix it.
-She likes knowing what is going to happen next...loves her "routine".
-she loves breakfast and pasta.
-She is the tiny "Meryl Streep" of our family....dramatic, and so good at acting, pretending and performing.
-Says "moka" for milk, and "yesternight" for anything that happened yesterday when it was dark outside.
-She has a HUGE sweet tooth, and even wanted to know what her dessert was going to be after BREAKFAST the other day.
-She is pretty easy going at this age, and isn't hard to discipline, UNLESS she has low blood sugar....then WATCH OUT.  She's just like her momma in this regard.  She can throw a massive fit over a tiny thing if she hasn't eaten.  (Maybe this is more of a girl thing than a blood sugar thing...)
-She still lets me dress her in whatever I pick out in the mornings.
-She loves to be told stories at bedtime...."baby stories" (about when she was little), "Chico stories" (Shawn's stories about Chico the bird who always learns a life lesson the end) and now "Sparkle The Princess Unicorn Stories".  You've got to be on your toes coming up with new material for this one, because she asks for stories all the time!  She loves repeats though, and will request one that I can't even remember telling.  She LOVES to hear about the time a scorpion bit me in the arm....I can't begin to remember how many times I've had to tell THAT one.
-She always asks for us to "lay down with me...for just a little bit" at night.  It's really hard to say no to that one!
-She isn't always affectionate, but gets in moods where she wants to be snuggled, and hugged on.
-She totally marches to the beat of her own drum.  I love this about her...she has such a good sense of self:  of what she likes and doesn't.  She is confident in her choices, and doesn't care yet what other people think.
-She has a fabulous imagination.
-She can be hard across the planet house when she's mad.  The other day, I heard her say, "I don't like you!  You are a.....stupid dang it!"  Of course she was disciplined for speaking that way to her brother, but I giggled a little bit at her rant.  I love that calling someone a stupid dang it was the absolute WORST thing she could think of.
-She loves her bath, and stretches out, taking up the entire tub.  This makes it hard to bathe another kid in there with her!
-She loves going to Mimi and Popo's, and asks about going every day.  She loves that they coddle her, and that they let her dictate the routine.  Mimi says that she gets over there and says, "First we will watch a movie with popcorn, and then I will take a bath.   Then I will sleep in the cradle."  Mimi has a crib at her house, and Sis calls it her "cradle" and insists on sleeping in it every time she's over there.
-She's obsessed right now with "staying little".  She tells me every day, "Mommy, I don't want to grow!  I just want to stay little!"  I want her to stay little, too!
-She can wear 3T tops, but has to wear size five or six pants because she is so long!!!
This little girl is empathetic and smart and hysterically funny!  I look at pictures of her from when she was a baby, and I can't believe what a hilarious, fun, precocious, imaginative little girl she's turned into.  Who knew that little six pound, eleven ounce thing would someday make me laugh so hard, or fill up my heart so much?