On the Eve of Three

Tonight I kissed my two-year old daughter goodnight for the very last time. For tomorrow, she will be three. I can hardly believe it.

Three seems so big! So accomplished! She can ride a bicycle, use the potty, make up songs, do somersaults, help around the house, prepare her own breakfast, and knows her phone number and address. She can memorize stories, do complex puzzles and use complex sentences. Thankfully, no complex mathematics yet (although her Daddy, playing with her new abacus with her today, did start off by pointing out that when there were no beads on one side, that was the number zero. poor kid!) She is a bundle of emotion and a bundle of energy: why walk when you can run? why talk when you can shout? why tell a story when you can sing it?

And yet she seems so very little, and life easily overwhelms her. As an example, today she had two terrific melt-downs. The first was after she had used the potty and her friend Charis, who was with her (apparently girlfriend bathroom breaks start really young), reached over and flushed for her. Commence bawling: "mommy, I'm so disappointed! I wanted to flush!" So grown-up: to use disappointed in a sentence. So little: to be disappointed about not getting to flush yourself.

We celebrated her birthday with a bicycle and balloons party today: a festive affair when Teg was blessed by showers of love, affection, and wonderfully thoughtful gifts. Our huge storm blew in so the bicycle-portion of the party was relegated to being the cake decoration theme alone... but there was still a forest of balloons and plenty of fun to be had. It is amazing how loved we feel when people love our little girl.

Tegwyn: we love and adore you: our charming, vivacious, verbose, curly-haired, dimpled and delightful THREE-YEAR OLD daughter!