Milestones - Sam at 33 months

Sam is now closer to the age of 3 than 2 1/2 - how did that happen?! She is getting to be such a big girl, bright and funny, with a crazy awesome giggle, and when she isn't being an overly dramatic toddler, she sure is a cutie!

Silly Sammy :-)

Since I haven't done a Sam update in a while, here are a few of the things that stand out to me as markers of just how big she is getting:

- She can unscrew the top on a regular water bottle and take a drink without spilling. She can also drink easily out of a regular cup, and sometimes Ryan and I just look at each other with raised eyebrows at how nonchalantly she will hold a cup with one hand while taking a drink, as if it is nothing :-)

- You can really have a conversation with her now! Not to mention, she has a pretty good sense of the English language already. She uses words like "too," "anymore," "all of us" and "either" in the correct context. She still gets a bit befuddled with the tenses of words like fall/fell/fallen and break/broke/broken, but she uses the pronouns me, I, you, she and he correctly 90% of the time, and can put together complex sentences. Sometimes I will be talking to her and get distracted and not quite finish my sentence, and she will finish it for me! She's one smart little cookie :-)

- She may be a good communicator, but still has a bit of trouble deciding exactly what she is feeling and being able to express it correctly. The other night, when I had gotten home after a long day at the gallery just in time for the end of bath time and putting her to bed, she gave me a hug and said to all of us (Ryan, Mom and Dad), "I like Mama best." I know she was just missing me, and no one was really offended, but it was kind of funny :-)

- Similar to the above, she is starting to discover logic and use it, although admittedly, hers is sometimes a bit flawed, in an adorable way :-) Examples: 1) Ronnie is a big cat and he doesn't bat at me, but Gigi is a "little" cat and she bats at me, therefore, all big cats are nice and all little cats are naughty. Or 2) Ronnie is a black cat and he is noisy. Our neighbor's cat, Stormy, is also black and noisy. But Gigi and Gary, our neighbor's other cat, neither of whom are all black, are not noisy. Therefore, black cats are noisy and other cats are not. Well, not quite sweetie, but good try!

- She is getting a sense of humor and is trying to be funny. Yesterday, when we asked her what she wanted to do after her nap, she said, "let's go to Cook's!," knowing full well that she had been there the other night with Neenie and Pippi. Then she quickly said, "I'm just kidding," and laughed into her hand, which is just the most adorable thing ever :-)

- She has finally turned a corner in the sleep department and been regularly sleeping through the night. HURRAY! Maybe I can finally catch up on some of the sleep I lost over the past few years! She's been staying up a bit later too, but is still usually asleep by 8:00 pm. Honestly, that is fine with me because it means I have an hour and a half to two hours to get things done before I go to bed myself! However, despite a later bedtime, she appears to only need around 9 to 9 1/2 hours of sleep a night, which means she is almost always up between 5:00 and 5:30 am. I don't mind it too much, as I have been sleeping better myself and it means I get some extra time with her each morning, but it does mean I usually need an additional cup of coffee every day!

- She has really started to do pretend play, telling us her duckie in the bath asked for some more "rub rub" (ie soap), making us coffee in her little kitchen, or cooking us up soup or ice cream in the sink or tub. So cute! The other night, it was ham ice cream soup :-) Oh, delish!

- Her coloring skills have gotten much better, but while she loves to tell me what she is drawing, be it a cow, a bunny, a fish, etc, it almost always ends up being some sort of scribble. Ha! She can make a straight line, a good circle, and every once and a while, even make a triangle, though, with her crayons or markers. She doesn't quite have the whole 'coloring in the lines' thing going yet, but hey, I say she's just being creative :-)

- She still loves to read, and it just cracks me up when she says, "this one is my favorite!" to a certain book. Of course, that favorite changes daily, or at least weekly :-)

- She is finally starting to show an interest in potty training! Over the past three or four days, she has been stopping in the middle of playing to tell us she needs to go potty, and lo and behold, 85% of the time she gets on the potty after that, she does indeed have to pee. Hurray! Perhaps our days in daytime diapers are numbered!!

- She is still sleeping in her crib, but we are thinking seriously about getting her a toddler bed. I sort of hate to interrupt the decent sleep thing we have going, but I know she needs to move at some point soon. Hard to believe we're really even contemplating this! How did she get so old?

- We actually left her overnight this past weekend with my parents - a huge step for us, and for her! And she did fine. In fact, more than fine. She was great for them, and seemed hardly to miss us at all. And I swear, she had gotten even more grown up in the 48 hours we were gone :-)

[Possible TMI alert... Depending on your point of view, and whether a fairly recent TIME Magazine cover made you cringe, you might want to skip the following point.]

- And, for me, perhaps the biggest indicator that she is getting big is that she is no longer nursing. Yes, I know. She is a toddler, a walking/talking little kid, and up until last month, we were still nursing at bedtime and in the morning when she woke up. I never ever would have imagined I would have been one of "those" moms; in fact, I was sure I wouldn't nurse past six months. But it ended up being what was right for us and it simply seemed natural to continue nursing her as she got older.  In any event, recently she had been showing less interest, and so we took advantage of that, talking to her about how big girls don't nurse, only babies, etc etc. And surprisingly after setting a deadline and talking to her about it frequently, we were able to stop nursing without much distress. Honestly, after a few days, she seemed to have completely forgotten all about it! And as for me, well, we nursed for so long, I really wasn't sad about stopping either. But it is another chapter completed, and it does just make her seem like such a big girl!

So, there you have it. Almost three years old, and such a happy, bright, energetic little girl. We are proud of her, and amazed by her, every day. Life with an almost 3 year old is tiring for sure, but we wouldn't want it any other way! We love you kiddo!