Three and a Half!

 Kylie Bean is three and a half years old!

It is still so hard for me to believe that my little, preemie, peanut is a walking, talking three and a half year old. She is an actual human being, with actual thoughts and ideas, and her very own personality. I knew it would happen someday, but I didn't expect it to catch me by surprise so frequently. Kylie is a sweet, sensitive, thoughtful girl. She thinks of others and likes to try to make people happy. She asks about our emotions. "Are you happy?" and "Why are you sad?" are common questions. She is a great helper, and will typically do what we ask her to do without much of an argument. She is such a joy!

Kylie has a lot of favorite things, and is enthusiastic about them. She likes going to the park, running on the path, riding her scooter, playing with her friends, and doing gymnastics, which she calls, "kymnashtics." She likes to pick out her clothes and shoes, play catch, snuggle, watch TV shows/movies, and read books. Her favorite TV shows are Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Doc McStuffins, and Sofia the First, and her favorite movie is Frozen. She has several favorite foods/drinks including milk and water, cheese sticks, apples, grapes, mandarin oranges, lunchables, PB and honey sandwiches, peas, corn, carrots, pizza, meatballs, waffles, pancakes, cereal, and pop tarts. She adores her brother and tries hard to make him laugh when he is sad.

There are also a few things that upset her on a regular basis. The most difficult part of her day is being woken up both in the morning and after nap. If I have to wake her, she is a crying mess for at least 30 minutes. If she wakes herself up, on the other hand, she is as happy as a clam. The most logical thing would be to let her wake herself up all of the time, I know, but the blessing of it all is that she will sleep forever if I let her! She is also developing some irrational fears (I have no idea where she got that from.) like bridges and parrots. Parrots are definitely her biggest fear. She will cry and shake and want to be held whenever there is a parrot around...Thankfully, it's not that often. She is also starting to get a little picky about food. She doesn't like (won't try) pickles, brussel sprouts (she actually swallowed these whole so not to taste them), strawberries, oranges, and any type of melon.

Kylie is still changing and reaching different milestones regularly. Her vocabularly is still noticebly increasing. She uses words all of the time that I didn't even realize she knew. She recoginzes all of the letters and knows numbers up to 17. She can spell her name out loud, but is still working on writing it. She loves puzzles, and can do 48 pieces well, and has done a 60 piece one with a little help. She can color mostly in the lines when she is feeling patient. She has taken a recent interest in some new sports so we are working on some new gross motor skills (happy PE teacher here). She likes to practice throwing and catching and kicking. She also likes to work on skipping and walking on the "balance beam" (aka, anything that is slightly elevated and a few inches wide). She loves trying the monkey bars, though she just hangs, and likes to swing, but doesn't pump. She is still slighlty uncoordinated, but I like to think it's because of her height. Maybe wishful thinking!? She is tall though...like taller than most 3 year olds, and a lot of 4 year olds. People always seem to think she is 4. She is about 39 pounds and holding steady. She wears 4T and 5T clothes and size 10 shoes. She still takes a decent nap (1-3 hours) most days, but skips it about once a week. I am not looking forward to the end of that!

We feel so truly blessed to have such a precious daughter. We love watching her grow and change from a toddler to a sweet, little girl. She is amazing! We love you, Kylie Bean!