Curran is 3!!

C-Bug, I can NOT believe you are 3 years old today! That doesn't seem possible! You are starting to really understand what your birthday means, and you have loved telling everyone {for a few months now} that you were going to be 3. We had your checkup this morning and you weighed 28 lbs {25th percentile} and were 35.5" tall {15th percentile}. You are sweet, smart, feisty, hilarious, loving, protective, bossy, athletic, sassy, and just plain PRECIOUS! Here are some things you are up to these day:

You are able to identify almost half of the letters of the alphabet. You've had a few down for a long time, but now your favorites to find are S, W, M and L. Every time you see an 'S' you say, "there's Sallie Cake!" I'm not sure where you learned that 'S' is the first letter in Sallie, but you find "Sallie Cakes" on every single thing you read, even when we're driving in the car. You call W's Uncle Walters, M's are mamas, and L's are Lillian {you must have learned that one at school}. You also like for me to identify a letter and then you find that same letter every time it appears on the page. You are learning to recognize numbers on the clock and are getting pretty good at it. Your teachers told me a few weeks ago that y'all played a Bingo-like game identifying numbers, and that you were the only one in the class to have two Bingo cards {apparently that meant you were doing really well}. I was impressed because you are in there with some big 3.5 year olds! All week they have been talking about how much you love numbers. :)

You know all the days of the week but have no clue which order they go in. You are starting to figure out which days you go to school and which days you stay home. Sunday and Tuesday seem to be your go-to days when answering questions. When I asked you last week what day we were celebrating this weekend {meaning your birthday} you answered, "Tuesday!" :) You are trying to figure out the timing of things- you frequently talk about things we did 'yesterday' {or sometimes 'yestermorning' :) }, and you constantly say things like "Can I help you TO-day" or "What does it look like TO-day?"  {it doesn't always make sense, and you always make 'today' sound like two separate words}.

You know most of the Our Father and Hail Mary, although there are a few lines you mumble your way through. It's still pretty sweet to hear though. I especially love hearing you say "Name of da Father, Son and Holy Firit, Amen." :) I love hearing you sing all the songs you have learned at school. Lots I also sung as a child, but some of them are new to me. You talk about some song you sing at school called Trust God {I guess}, and always ask me to sing that one, but I don't know it. :)

Your favorite TV shows right now are Dora and Doc McStuffins. You still love to play doctor and want to constantly give one of us a checkup. You know a few medical terms and it's funny to hear you pretend.

Speaking of pretend, you still LOVE to play dress-up and want to wear some sort of costume every single day. You are also starting to make believe with your toys. You play with your Buzz and Woody dolls much like a boy plays with action figures, turning them towards each other to talk, fight, make sound effects, etc. It cracks me up. You cook in your kitchen all day long. When you are supposed to be taking a nap/having quiet play time, you always come to the door to tell me you made some breakfast.

Speaking of naps, you skip them more often than not these days. It's not that you don't need them- you certainly DO- but it's hard to keep you in your bed. You always fall asleep in the car, so sometimes we use that to get you to nap. Bedtimes have gotten fairly rough lately. You have your stall tactics down to an art, and most nights you wake up in the middle of the night and either get in bed with us or have Daddy lay down with you. I'm hoping that will get better soon!

The other morning on the way to school you said, "Mama works at the doctor's office, and Daddy works at the golf." I laughed and then corrected you and said that I'm sure Daddy would love to work at the golf course, but that he actually worked at an office. The next day you said the same thing: that Daddy worked at "the golf ball." Finally after talking for a while I figured out why you called his office that- he takes you up there sometimes when he has to work on the weekends, and he has a putter and some golf balls in his office that he says you love to play with. :) So we're working on remembering "accountant."

You LOVE, LOVE, LOVE your baby sister! You want to take care of her all the time, and lately you have been telling me to leave the room so you can watch her all by yourself {sorry, but I don't let you quite yet}. The other morning on the way to school, you started crying so hard because she wouldn't look at your when you were trying to talk to her. One morning I came out of her room carrying her, and you were outside and started talking to her in the sweetest little baby voice, saying "Good morning, Sallie Cakers! Did you sleep well? Morning, sweet girl!" It was precious. When you get in trouble or get upset about something, the first thing you do is nuzzle up to Sallie Cate and rub your face on her hands or head {or legs if I'm holding her}. It's like it makes you feel better or something. :)

In some ways you are a lot like me as a child, but in most ways you are so different. Your favorite colors are pink and purple, you LOVE princesses, you love jewelry and playing dress-up, you sneak into my make-up all the time, and you like to wear your hair bows. You always ask me, "What are we wearing today?" And you always make sure you match. You get so mad if I try to put you in a tshirt and shorts that you don't think go together. And speaking of matching, when we were in church last Sunday I was wearing a rather bright chartreuse dress, and we were walking in the communion line behind this older lady who always wears a neon yellow sun hat during the summer, and you pointed to her and said, "Look Mama. You match!" :)

Curran, you are our precious girl and we are so proud of you! There are a million more things I could say about you. I feel so incredibly blessed to have been your Mama for these three wonderful years!

I love you!