I only have a few hours before Kylie turns three years old. That's right: THREE years old. How absolutely crazy. I remember the day she was born like it was yesterday. You can read about those memories
here but in this post I'm going to focus about what an amazing year it has been since her last birthday.
Kylie has grown up so much in the past year. Well, I take that back. She has actually maybe only grown an inch since turning two. She is almost the exact same size that she was this time last year. But if we aren't talking about her physical body, then it's true that she has grown up a lot. The conversations we have are just so much more grown up. She asks a lot of "why" questions and has to know how everything works. She reasons so well, which also means I'm hearing the phrase "but mo-om" quite frequently. She makes up her own stories which have become increasingly more creative. Yesterday she told me a story about windows in a castle that were too high for her or Eve to reach. Speaking of Eve, she is also starting to "talk" for her little sister: "Mom, Eve says that she's hungry. [...] Mom, Eve doesn't want to eat a sandwich for lunch, she wants cheese." You get the idea. Eve has been talking a lot more too recently, yet Kylie still thinks that I need her to translate for her. It's very sweet.
Some other Kylie facts at not quite three years of age:
- She hates baths. I also have started to dread bath time just because I know what a battle it will be to wash Kylie's hair.
- She hates messes. If she spills a tiny drop of something, she insists on forcing me to clean it up immediately. And I do mean immediately. A funny story about Kylie at about the time she turned 2.5: We were walking in Target and there was some mud on the floor. Kylie exclaimed in a very loud voice: "Mom! It's dirty in here! Someone needs to clean this up right now!" I'm sure some associates gave us a bothered look.
- She will throw a fit if she asks someone a question and someone else answers it. We really have to listen in our house when Kylie asks a question. It seems to anger her when the wrong person answers, so we have been
trying to teach her that sometimes people will join in a conversation. She does have some control issues and I'm trying to figure out if it's a first born thing or a personality thing. I'm a first born myself, so I can relate to wanting to control everything.
- Her favorite games right now: duck duck goose, hide and seek, finding hidden toys in the room and "mackio" (Mario on the Wii with her daddy). She also made up a game a couple months ago that she called "practice walking." We had to walk around the room and randomly fall down on purpose. When someone fell down, the other people had to ask him/her if they were ok. When you answered that you were ok, you could get up and practice walking again. She made up the game and the rules all on her own, but hasn't wanted to play it in a little while.
- She has gotten a case of the sillies. I love it! We recently borrowed the book
Pickle Things from the library. She thought it was hilarious and will randomly say things like "pickle nose" to me or just sometimes shout out the word "pickle" and giggle hysterically. She has learned that randomness is funny, so she will just sometimes yell out random words and laugh about it. It cracks me up too.
- She is a chatterbox. Seriously. She gives commentaries during movies, tells me all her thoughts throughout the day and asks a billion questions. But I wouldn't have it any other way; I love hearing her talk.
- Her favorite music right now is Laurie Berkner. If you have young children, I would highly recommend buying some of her music. Kylie's favorite song is
I Know a Chicken. I love hearing her belt it out!
- She prays the same prayer every time she prays: "Dear God, thank you for this day. Amen." We've tried to teach her to personalize her prayers and that at dinnertime to say thanks for the food, but she has never said it any differently.
- She is very good with numbers. She can recognize how many objects she has by sight (from 0-5 or so) and can count until up in the teens. She has made it to 20 every so often, but is not consistent with that. She can also recognize most of the letters of the alphabet and knows all her colors and shapes (but I'm pretty sure she was doing that by her second birthday.)
- She can draw people now with all the main body parts and even some fun bonus ones like "eyebrows." I need to take some pictures of the drawings she has done because I'm always impressed.
- She is very social and loves playing with other kids. When we go to the park, she always makes new friends or at least tries to. She has amazing little church buddies that she talks about all the time. She just light up when she is with other kids her age.
She is such a sweet little girl and I am so lucky to be her mom. I'm sad she is growing up, but excited to see what the next year holds. I'm happy to say that the twos were not terrible at all!
