Three years.. WOW.

It was a fun day… a bounce house (that she stayed in nearly all day), a few friends from preschool and her cousins, and a friend of mine and her daughter… cake, presents… and a late nap in the car on the way home.  It went well and she had a blast.  LOOOVED the bounce house.

And the Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl.   Awesome.

One of my very favorite things that the Kiddo likes to do right now before she goes to bed at night, is to climb into my lap and be held “baby” style, while either I sing alone, or she sings with me – “Rock a-bye Baby”.  Currently, she likes to have me/us insert various names in place of “baby” – hers, mommy, daddy, her cousins, etc..

If I’m short on time, that is, if she’s going to bed later than planned, I’ll try to keep it limited to just one or two rounds.  But on nights when there is no hurry, we’ll sing as many versions as she can think up people’s names, and sometimes even starting over if she doesn’t grow bored with it.

I consider myself lucky she even wants to sit in my lap before bed anymore.  For the longest time, she’d want to sit with me until she got drowsy.  Then she went through a period where she wanted nothing to do with sitting with me, she’d just climb in bed, get her good-night kisses and tucked in, and go to sleep – much to my chagrine.  But now she’s into this rock a-bye baby thing, and frankly I am quite completely fine with that.  Before long she won’t want to do any of it anymore, so I will let her do this as long as she pleases., because I know it will tear me up when she doesn’t want it anymore.

Earlier I was looking through the pictures in my gallery to make the badges for my Entrecard widgets, for a specific picture of some flowers my husband gave me for my birthday right after I found out I was pregnant with the Kiddo.  This of course meant I was scrolling through hundreds of pictures taken between then and now since I was going backwards from the current date.

Pictures from the Kiddo’s second birthday, second Christmas, the first time she met my sister’s youngest daughter, and then her second Easter.  Her first birthday, then her first Christmas.  Her first bout with the flu, which she caught after her first holiday pictures with her other cousin (my husband’s brother’s daughter).  Her first Thanksgiving.

And then the pictures I took of her after I got home from one of the most upsetting days of my life – the day I had to drive my mom, brother & his girlfriend up north after receiving a phone call from my grief-stricken father that my sister’s son had died during the night.  He was only 9.5 months old, and the only explanation the coroner could give was SIDS.  My daughter was born about two and a half weeks after he was, so I was definitely paranoid after that.  I think that night I checked on her at least a handful of times as she slept just to make sure I could still hear her breathing.  At the funeral, she was an absolute angel, and even though my husband and I were a little uncertain about whether to take her or not, both my sister & my mom said it would be fine, and that she would most likely help bring some light to an otherwise dark day.  And they were right.

Then loads and loads of other pictures preceding that, most of the Kiddo, but a few here and there of her cousins (him and his older sister), taken on my mom’s camera, which I had uploaded to my computer after his death, to make a picture DVD with.

To her first Easter, and then to her birth.  The monthly belly shots preceding her birth.  And then finally the roses I had been looking for.

It seems hard to believe that she’ll be three years old in a few months.  Every now and then when she’s doing mundane things like brushing her teeth, or standing next to the t.v. tray in the living room, I’ll think back to how, not too long ago, I had to hold her over the sink so she could spit water out of her mouth after I brusehd her teeth.  Or how she used to bonk her head on the t.v. tray because her head barely came up to its height.  And now she can lean over the sink without help.  And she practically towers over the t.v. tray now.

And she’s maybe only one inch shorter than my brother-in-law’s oldest daughter who is eleven months older than the Kiddo.

She’s growing up fast.  Slow down there, girl!