Addison: 3 Years

Our baby, Miss Addison Leigh - you are 3!   These past three years have gone faster than we could have ever imagined.   You are so sweet, loving, and smart with a double order of attitude and sass.  You are such a great big sister to your brother and the sweetest friend to your cousins.   You already want to do big girl things like wear makeup and drive a car.  You have your Daddy wrapped around your little finger.  You will always be our baby girl, always.  The little one that made us parents and we love you so. 

 

 Here is a little bit of what you are up to these days.  You....

• are 100% potty trained!  It honestly took you 6 months from the weekend we did our 3-day training to now where you are in panties all the time, even at night.  Wahoo!!  We are so proud of you.   We had daily accidents (always #2) for 6 months.  Daily!  I knew it would just click one day and it did about a month ago. 
• talk constantly.  No one has to be listening and you will just talk.  Usually telling a story.  You love to talk on the phone and do this cute little lip smack in the middle of sentences like you are twelve.  .
• Point out the "letter A for Addison" a mile away.  Every single A in this world is for Addison.  People, just accept it.  And you can write the letter A!  You are so proud of yourself.
• Love hot dogs, chicken nuggets and cereal.  Your favorite veggie would be carrots or corn on the cob.  Your favorite fruit is a banana or orange.  You love some grapes too.  You would eat a cereal bar every chance you got if we let you!  And you have a love for muffins morning, noon and night. 
• Still don't eat sandwiches. 
• are obsessed with Frozen and always want your hair braided like Elsa.  "One braid, Mommy, like Elsa - not two like Anna."
• are paci-free and we survived the transition!   It took you about 3 weeks to quit asking for it once the Paci Princess came to visit.  That happened a couple months ago.

• Love to pretend and have quite the imagination.  You will play princesses, school, house, mommy, princesses, ice cream shop, princesses, etc.
• always want to play with whatever Luke is playing with and will steal it from him.  We are working on that.
• can throw a tantrum like no one else.  Girl, you have some lungs and a scream ... oh, the scream.  And the videos of the tantrums we will show you one day.
• MUST do everything yourself.  Everything. 
• get dressed all by yourself from picking it out to putting it on.   See bullet above.  If I dress you just to move a little faster in the mornings, you will UNDRESS yourself and redress on your own.
• love to take showers and "clean" the shower while doing so with a washcloth.  Strange.
• love to ride your bike and you are really fast!  We are amazed at how fast you picked it up.
• favorite color depends on the day... usually pink, sometimes purple.
• bite and pick your nails... horrible habit your mommy also did as a kid... ugh.
• don't really have a nickname.  We always call you Addison but sometimes will reference you as Miss A or Sister.

I love so much about this age and want to always remember:

• your sweet, soft kisses and big bear hugs
• how you call a car wash the "wash car"
• the way you say: 
• hamburger; "hangabugah"
• Saturday; "satuhday"
• Luke; "woook"
• how you don't really have much concept of the calendar yet but talk like you sure do.  You will do everything "next week" like turn 4 and go on a plane.
• how excited you get over groceries.  "You got that for me!!??  Ohhhh, thank you!"  It could be muffins or goldfish.  It's a celebration.
• how much you love to go shopping.  We got to the point that we started telling you to remember that for your birthday so we could leave a store without a scene or the item.  Well, your birthday came and went and we are still "remembering ____ for your birthday".  Wonder how long that will last?
• how you want to know everyone's name - on tv, in a store, at a restaurant - you will ask "what his name" or "what her name"... we will tell you and you will repeat their name and describe what they are wearing with a color.  "Amy is the green one?"  Time for Stranger Danger sister.
• how you climb the stairs.  You will climb up the stairs one foot on each step and go so fast but coming down you usually only step down with your right foot.
• When you have an itch you say "it's scratchin' me"
• When your foot falls asleep you say "it's shaken' me"
• I want to remember how you want Mommy or Daddy to lay down with you every night at bedtime.  I know it won't last forever and there are nights I may not want to or think you need
• how you want to hold my hand.  We may just be going up or down the stairs at home but you want to hold my hand.  I want to always remember how small your little hands were and how much joy you got just from holding my hand.

Perhaps my favorite thing about this age is the verbal communication that comes along with it.  It has its negatives (aka "no, that is not a good deal Mommy) but definitely far more positives and it is so fun to have a conversation with you... about your day, what you learned, what you are doing, where you are going ... and you always have a response.  We make up stories in the car on the way to school about the birds.  We think the birds are on their way to school too in that "really big tree ovah dare".

 

As we tell you everyday, I love you to the moon and back sweet girl and Daddy loves you sooo much!   You will always be our baby, even 30 years from now.  Thank you for being you!