Three!
Baby Three is three! I'm always surprised when I see her in pictures. She looks so little! Her personality makes her much larger in person.
There is just so much Heidi in that skinny little body. She laughs maniacally and wants to be tickled aggressively and then screams with vein-popping rage if Ingrid touches her chair. Her emotions are always so close to the surface that they're palpable: when she smiles at you, you can practically bask in her exuberant delight; when she's mad, we all cower in fear.
Still, she's easier now than she was three months ago. She goes long stretches -- a week or more -- where she's generally sunny and delightful with only a few meltdowns. Then it seems like a switch flips and she'll be super emotional and disagreeable for several days. Like any other three year old, only more so.
School is going very well. I think it was the right decision to put her in Montessori, where she can direct her own activities, instead of following Ingrid at Berry Patch, where they have to move from activity to activity on a schedule and produce perfect, identical art projects. We still have 15 minutes of angst over what to wear every morning, and we must take a photo on the steps every day and blow kisses and wave, but she generally goes off with Grandma quite happily. It's been nice for her and Carol to have this little time every morning. Grandma says they chat and sing all the way there. Heidi reports every day that she did markers and play-doh, and she tells me whether they played inside or outside, but we don't hear much else about the work. Luckily, her teacher posts pictures on the school app so we can see Heidi building pink towers and examining the tablets and planting flower bulbs and such. Her three best friends are Hannah, Liv, and Noah, with Willa G. as a runner-up.
At home, she is my tiny shadow and Ingrid's tiny parrot. She especially loves to cook with me and is getting very proficient at cracking eggs and pouring liquids. She also loves to read, color, play dollhouse, run around crazy with Henry, romp in the snow, and twirl around to music. She likes the games with a lot of small parts, like the wooden dressing bears, puzzles, and sorting pie. Dance class is still the highlight of her week. She loves the fishies dance, the song we do in the dark with the disco ball lights, and the rainbow ribbons. Plus Nona is there, and she adores her cousin. Those two are going to take Kindergarten by storm together in a couple of years.
Sharing a room has been really good for the girls. Karl or I read stories to them at night and they're generally into the same books. Sometimes we hear them talking after we tuck them in, or peek in later, to find Ingrid curled up in Heidi's bed. They put a lot of thought and discussion into how they wanted the room to look. Still a work in progress, but it's very sunny and cute in there. They usually get up together in the morning and chatter away, and sometimes (sometimes) Ingrid can get Heidi to brush her hair.
Heidi still very much needs her nap. She can skip it occasionally if the schedule absolutely demands it, but she gets a little manic. We blew through the nap once last month when we had a bunch of people over, and after realizing Heidi had been MIA for half an hour, found her conked out in the middle of the action.
At bedtime, we read three stories and then cuddle up in bed. The day she turned three, she told me I could not sing to her any more, which broke my heart a little. I've sung You Are My Sunshine and the Riddle Song every single day since she was born. She told me they were baby songs and I could not sing them anymore. She could tell I was sad about it and said I could sing them when she was a baby again. That broke my heart a little bit more. I also wish you could be a baby again for a bit, sweet girl. Her first year was delightful.
She is excited to do more big-kid things this year. This summer, she gets to go to dance camp and art camp with Ingrid. Also swim lessons "in the BIG pool NOT the little pool with the slides."
Our favorite Heidi-isms are "That was weird!" and "I don't know...." She continues to blurt out the most ridiculous, unintentionally inappropriate things. The other day, we were singing the Music Together classic, "Ding dong, I've got the rhythm in my head....ding dong ding dog ding dong, hot dog!" Heidi sang her verse, "Ding dong, I've got the hot dog up my butt!" Oh, child.
We have been reading lots of Fancy Nancy books, Henry and Mudge, some Curious George, poems, and Elephant and Piggy. She has memorized dozens of books and loves to read to herself if I ignore her long enough.
She loves painting her nails (and mine, and Karl's, and visiting friends', and Jamaican nannies'). Our kitchen furniture will serve as a permanent colorful testament to this phase.
We had a fun little party at Rainbow Play Systems. It's a store where they sell backyard swing-sets and jungle gyms, and you can pay to play on the showroom equipment or have a birthday party, which is a really awesome resource in Minnesota winters. Her three buddies from school were there, along with Max, Charlotte, and Livia, the local family, plus Grandma Jane and her road trip pal, Pam. Bagels and ice cream cake per Heidi's commands.
We also had our traditional birthday meal at Carol and Dave's house, with chocolate pudding in cups with cherries on top, just like in Henry and Mudge, also per Heidi's command.
She's sincerely loving and concerned with all of her siblings. I can totally see her being the sister that keeps all the siblings in touch with one another after they all leave the house. She's crazy but seems to know that we all love her like crazy. Happy birthday, you ridiculous, delightful thirdbaby!
There is just so much Heidi in that skinny little body. She laughs maniacally and wants to be tickled aggressively and then screams with vein-popping rage if Ingrid touches her chair. Her emotions are always so close to the surface that they're palpable: when she smiles at you, you can practically bask in her exuberant delight; when she's mad, we all cower in fear.
Still, she's easier now than she was three months ago. She goes long stretches -- a week or more -- where she's generally sunny and delightful with only a few meltdowns. Then it seems like a switch flips and she'll be super emotional and disagreeable for several days. Like any other three year old, only more so.
School is going very well. I think it was the right decision to put her in Montessori, where she can direct her own activities, instead of following Ingrid at Berry Patch, where they have to move from activity to activity on a schedule and produce perfect, identical art projects. We still have 15 minutes of angst over what to wear every morning, and we must take a photo on the steps every day and blow kisses and wave, but she generally goes off with Grandma quite happily. It's been nice for her and Carol to have this little time every morning. Grandma says they chat and sing all the way there. Heidi reports every day that she did markers and play-doh, and she tells me whether they played inside or outside, but we don't hear much else about the work. Luckily, her teacher posts pictures on the school app so we can see Heidi building pink towers and examining the tablets and planting flower bulbs and such. Her three best friends are Hannah, Liv, and Noah, with Willa G. as a runner-up.
At home, she is my tiny shadow and Ingrid's tiny parrot. She especially loves to cook with me and is getting very proficient at cracking eggs and pouring liquids. She also loves to read, color, play dollhouse, run around crazy with Henry, romp in the snow, and twirl around to music. She likes the games with a lot of small parts, like the wooden dressing bears, puzzles, and sorting pie. Dance class is still the highlight of her week. She loves the fishies dance, the song we do in the dark with the disco ball lights, and the rainbow ribbons. Plus Nona is there, and she adores her cousin. Those two are going to take Kindergarten by storm together in a couple of years.
Sharing a room has been really good for the girls. Karl or I read stories to them at night and they're generally into the same books. Sometimes we hear them talking after we tuck them in, or peek in later, to find Ingrid curled up in Heidi's bed. They put a lot of thought and discussion into how they wanted the room to look. Still a work in progress, but it's very sunny and cute in there. They usually get up together in the morning and chatter away, and sometimes (sometimes) Ingrid can get Heidi to brush her hair.
Heidi still very much needs her nap. She can skip it occasionally if the schedule absolutely demands it, but she gets a little manic. We blew through the nap once last month when we had a bunch of people over, and after realizing Heidi had been MIA for half an hour, found her conked out in the middle of the action.
At bedtime, we read three stories and then cuddle up in bed. The day she turned three, she told me I could not sing to her any more, which broke my heart a little. I've sung You Are My Sunshine and the Riddle Song every single day since she was born. She told me they were baby songs and I could not sing them anymore. She could tell I was sad about it and said I could sing them when she was a baby again. That broke my heart a little bit more. I also wish you could be a baby again for a bit, sweet girl. Her first year was delightful.
She is excited to do more big-kid things this year. This summer, she gets to go to dance camp and art camp with Ingrid. Also swim lessons "in the BIG pool NOT the little pool with the slides."
Our favorite Heidi-isms are "That was weird!" and "I don't know...." She continues to blurt out the most ridiculous, unintentionally inappropriate things. The other day, we were singing the Music Together classic, "Ding dong, I've got the rhythm in my head....ding dong ding dog ding dong, hot dog!" Heidi sang her verse, "Ding dong, I've got the hot dog up my butt!" Oh, child.
We have been reading lots of Fancy Nancy books, Henry and Mudge, some Curious George, poems, and Elephant and Piggy. She has memorized dozens of books and loves to read to herself if I ignore her long enough.
She loves painting her nails (and mine, and Karl's, and visiting friends', and Jamaican nannies'). Our kitchen furniture will serve as a permanent colorful testament to this phase.
We had a fun little party at Rainbow Play Systems. It's a store where they sell backyard swing-sets and jungle gyms, and you can pay to play on the showroom equipment or have a birthday party, which is a really awesome resource in Minnesota winters. Her three buddies from school were there, along with Max, Charlotte, and Livia, the local family, plus Grandma Jane and her road trip pal, Pam. Bagels and ice cream cake per Heidi's commands.
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| Can't resist this one of the boys. |
We also had our traditional birthday meal at Carol and Dave's house, with chocolate pudding in cups with cherries on top, just like in Henry and Mudge, also per Heidi's command.
She's sincerely loving and concerned with all of her siblings. I can totally see her being the sister that keeps all the siblings in touch with one another after they all leave the house. She's crazy but seems to know that we all love her like crazy. Happy birthday, you ridiculous, delightful thirdbaby!
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