Dear Mackenzie,
Today you are turning 3 years old. It hardly seems possible that on a rainy, very cold night three years ago your daddy and I were heading to the hospital. That 9 hours later, through many hypnotherapy recordings and mutterings from doubtful nurses and midwives, you were brought into this world naturally…and natural you still remain today.
You are our little hippie girl, already yearning to be your own person. If we ask if you’re something silly like a bear, you promptly respond, “No, I’m me.” Can’t argue with that. You are positively unique and march to the beat of your very own drum. I can only hope that you continue to have such a strong spirit and keep forming your own opinions — even if I regret saying that when you become a teenager. You already act so mature most of the time that I have to remind myself you are only 3 and not 6 or 7.
You and Ayla are having more and more love-hate moments lately. You still really like to sit on Ayla and brush her, and you know that she’s your best puppy ever, but you are in no way a fan of all her kisses. The other day when she walked in the room, you immediately yelled at her, “No Ayla! Stop drooling on the gorilla!!” If she licks any of your toys, there is drama and they must be dried off as quickly as possible. But she’s still your dog through and through, and I know the two of you will be good friends for years to come.
Thanks to a few TV shows you get to watch and conversations with us, you’ve managed to get a fairly well developed vocabulary already. Sometimes you will just throw out the name of something you see and I probably look dumbstruck since I can’t recall ever talking about those things (and I sure wish I could think of an example right now). But it’s just incredible what you actually pick up on.
You are certainly starting to understand that if you hurt someone, you have to apologize to them. And you usually volunteer a kiss to make it feel better. Thankfully those of us who live with you full time have been the only ones getting hurt — which is just another reason I’m so glad you’re not a rough-housing boy.
You have the best laugh. It’s hearty and snarky and just über cute! It’s often followed up with the phrase, “That silly _______” — with the blank being filled in by someone or something that caught your attention and made you laugh. You really crack yourself up all the time, which certainly brings a lot more smiles into our lives as well.
You come up with the craziest games for us to play. A few nights ago, we were out walking Ayla and you were being especially funny. You looked ahead, pointed and exclaimed, “Look! It’s a pirate!” “A pirate??” we asked. “Noooooo,” you responded. “It’s just ice cream.”
I honestly have no clue where that one came from but it certainly caught both of your daddy and I off guard, as your games often do since we are never informed that they are starting. So one minute you’ll be talking about it raining in the house, and we’re looking around for a leak. And the next minute the house has become a train that we are riding in. It’s a crazy, constantly changing world!
I’ve finally managed to convince you that a few more of your stuffed animals can sleep upstairs again, which sometimes is not an easy task. You have memorized where everything in your room goes and if one creature is even slightly out of place, there will be hell to pay. No amount of trying to talk you into finding the toy later will do; it must be sought out and returned to it’s rightful home. Needless to say, getting rid of a big group of your toys anytime soon is an invite for trouble.
But I am happy to report that you let me put away your cow table from Aunt Katie for the winter (finally) and didn’t go too ballastic when I sold the little potty you have but have never once used. Hopefully the new second potty inset to keep you from falling in will suffice as a replacement in the future
I know you will probably read this one day and hate me, but I’m going to talk about potty training now. You still are not potty trained (which means you can’t yet start kindergarten, although I think you would love to) but you did make your first poopie in the toilet on your own. It was awesome! It’s not that you don’t know how to use the toilet, because you definitely do. By now it just seems to be a matter of convenience or perhaps just not wanting to risk an accident. But I know that one day you’ll probably wake up and demand to not have diapers anywhere near you … and that will be that. And I’m pretty sure it will be exactly one day after I’ve gone and bought another super-pack of diapers too. 
For a couple of days last week, you decided to take a (much needed) nap at 3:30 in the afternoon, slept about three hours and then stayed up with us until about 9pm. Although it was a bit unusual for us, I have to say the parents rather enjoyed it. Because after you’ve had a long nap like that, you are usually the funniest, most enjoyable person to be around…Which is a nice switch from the slightly cranky, always wired little girl who is so tired in the evenings that she doesn’t know what to do with herself. Since your Daddy usually gets to see that silly little girl when he comes home from work, it was a nice change for him to see more of the fun Mackenzie too.
Drawing and painting are still your favorite past times, and I seriously cannot wait to report back about what you think of your birthday present. We decided to get you your very own digital camera because you are obsessed with the two little film ones we have which take no photos at all (mostly because we’re too cheap you buy you an unlimited amount of film at today’s prices) and I have a feeling you are going to be amazing us with your photography before long.
You make us laugh every day and can always seem to brighten the mood, but you also have your moments when it just seems better to smack myself in the forehead because of your craziness.
And by the way, when you holler “I love you, mama” from your room after you’ve just gone to bed. Total. heart. melting. goodness. Those are the moments when you can ask for the world and get it.
All my love,
Mama
The post Dear Mackenzie: Can it really be 3 years already? appeared first on No Ordinary Homestead.
