Baby Girl is 3!

This morning, at 12:08 a.m., my Baby Girl turned 3 years old. I'm not quite sure how that happened.

It makes me feel really old.

Let me tell you about my little one.

She is a joy! I mean, we could have named her "Joy" and it would totally be fitting. She smiles and laughs and hugs and kisses all the time. (Well, most of the time. She has a pretty emphatic "NO!" going on too.) She is beautiful, with blond, curly hair and blue eyes. To look at her, you totally see the Norwegian (my) side of the family. But when she talks, she totally channels her Italian (DH) roots! Her hands are always going while she talks, and despite her pretty significant speech delays, she's pretty good at saying Italian words like "peppyomi" (pepperoni) and "cacciatore". In fact, for dinner tonight she told me she wanted gnocchi after I mentioned it the other day. I haven't made gnocchi in over a year, so I don't think she knew what it is. But it sounded Italian, so it must be good (it was).

Baby Girl loves her baby dolls, especially "Baby Emma", her Bitty Baby. She walks her, and hugs her, and sings to her, and whispers sweet things to her. She's sweet to her siblings to - she's the first to offer up hugs and kisses if someone is hurt, and she won't let them walk into the school building until she's hugged and kissed them goodbye.

When she was an infant, Baby Girl was completely attached to me, and wanted nothing to do with my husband. That has changed! (Thank goodness!) Baby Girl loves her Daddy! She wakes him up with hugs and kisses, and then brings him his slippers so they can have breakfast together. When she does something that we've been working on, she always tells me that "Daddy be proud of me!" and smiles. I get my share of hugs and kisses too, but I love watching their special little bond.

I am so incredibly blessed to be a stay-at-home mom. I love doing little things with Baby Girl throughout the week. Like, taking her to Dunkin' Donuts for a treat and listening to her tell me her stories as she eats a doughnut. Or taking her to the grocery store (her favorite errand!). She always reminds me if we need more juice, and she loves to be asked to find an item, and then pointing it out to me when we're in the right aisle. I think we have just the right balance between "us" time and "on our own time".

Since she is our last, I always get a little more sad when she ages. I don't really have a toddler anymore, I have a preschooler. And while I'm glad to be moving toward stages where it's easier to just go and do things, I always miss those early stages, especially since I don't think we'll be doing them ever again. Baby Girl is really NOT a baby anymore - she's potty trained, she's halfway to making her own peanut butter sandwich, and she's quite capable of scheduling her own day, with own agenda to be filled. (Knitting is on her agenda, by the way. She likes to take my knitting, put the needles through the fabric, and tell everyone she's knitting).

I know these thoughts are kind of random - I'm way too tired to put a well-written piece together, which is too bad, because she deserves one. Let me just close by saying that Baby Girl truly does make me laugh every day, and seeing her enjoy herself as she grows and learns is something I will treasure for always.

We are blessed to have such a happy daughter, and I pray that the joy she has now stays with her forever.

Happy Birthday, Baby!