April 13, 2014 at 07:11PM

Me: What are you doing over there Monster? Monster: I'm getting stuffs for my thing and the stuffs. from Facebook

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Third Birthday!

Dear Isabella,

Tomorrow you will be three. Three!! How did you get to be three so fast?

It's been an amazing year. The best one yet. I think I've said it before (probably when you started preschool or maybe when you stopped wearing diapers except at night) but you're really not a toddler anymore. You are officially a little girl. 

You sing and dance and have opinions (and you make them known!) and figure things out all by yourself. You test out new vocabulary - and you get the context and tone right most of the time! Your best friend in school is Eva and she's coming to your birthday party next weekend. 

You have full conversations with me and you pretend and you even (*gasp*) lie. Although I don't think you completely understand truth vs. not-truth you know how to say something to get what you want even if it's not true. Like if you ask for a napkin in the car "because I need to wipe my boogers Mommy!" because that's the only reason I'll give it to you but as soon as you get it you start playing with it. 

You're the sweetest girl in the world. You pick me a flower when we get home from school every day if it's not raining and if the landscapers didn't chop 'em all down. You give hugs if you know someone's not feeling well. You RUN! to me screaming, "Mommyyyy!" when I pick you up from school. Your hug and kiss goodnight is often the best part of my day. A lot of the time, Saturday mornings is just you and me, and I love having quiet time with you playing games on my lap while I slowwwwly wake up. 

You're also quite the stubborn monster. Terrible twos were sure full of our share of tantrums, defiance, and "no!" (from both of us), but they weren't so terrible after all. They say three is a time of purposeful defiance and really testing boundaries and testing for consistency. I think I'm up for the challenge - and it will be a challenge because you're too smart for me! 

You know your alphabet - capitals and lower case. You count to about 15 (sometimes you get up to 19). You can make a letter I by yourself and you draw faces by yourself. You figure out puzzles super quickly and you ask very intelligent questions about the pictures in your books. 

What will this coming year bring us? You'll move to the Honu class in June. It will be hard to not have Ms. Bree and Ms. Yuka as your teachers anymore but luckily you'll still see them all the time at school. Ms. Bree was the perfect first teacher for you. (Well actually Ms. Sandy at the 'scovery Center was your first teacher.) What else will happen when you're three? You'll get to see Aunty Sari and her new baby boy Riley. You'll get to visit GranGran in Wisconsin. Abuela is visiting you for your birthday party next week. Will you sit on Santa's lap on your own this Christmas? We shall see. 

Thank you for a beautiful patience-testing amazing wonderful awesome year my little monster. You may be officially a little girl but you will always be my little baby. 

Love always,

Mommy