Anyway, back to MM’s third birthday party. At least once a day I sing to her You Are My Sunshine and when I asked her what kind of birthday party she said, ‘Sunshine party! Lots of yellow!’
{Well, to be truly honest, first she told me she wanted a surprise party like on Caillou.}
And I loved the idea. I could do yellow. ’Cause my little girl is our sunshine. A true ray of happiness in our lives.
First, the invitation. I had Loralee Lewis design them {she did them for her cookies and milk party last year}.
I maybe so Type A, but I just love it when all the party-goers wear a certain color {we did pink for her first birthday} and so of course I added “your sunniest attire!” to the invite. MM wore a cute little number from FaithWorks4U.
As for food, I planned the party at 11am because of MM’s nap, but then I got to thinking that it wouldn’t be a good idea to feed the kids {MM’s cousin and two friends from her class} a bunch of cake and suckers and cupcakes at 11 and then expect them to eat a normal lunch afterwards. So I did chicken nuggets {from Chick-Fil-A}, homemade mac ‘n cheese, Goldfish/tortilla chips, a tray of pineapple and banana halves, cheese cubes, and homemade mini cornbread muffins. All yellowy and orange goodness.
As for the dessert table we had a yellow cake {MM’s request}, yellow cupcakes, and a “candy bar” of yellow sweets. {For drinks I had a big container of lemonade and a tub of iced down orange Crush in bottles. And precious striped straws with little flags that said “Mary Margaret” and “Sunshine” on them. But I didn’t get a picture. Boo.}
For decorations I did three yellow pom poms, a fabric garland, a ‘Oh, Happy Day’ banner {my favorite song}, and a little sign I bought long before this party planning began. The party favors were little yellow buckets full of yellow candy, bouncy balls, bubbles, tangerines, etc.
…now for the surprise part. I had C. and his best friend take MM to breakfast {and to Petsmart where they bought her a betta fish that unfortunately passed away yesterday–I think our cold house killed him (her?)}. Everyone gathered in the dining room and when MM came in the front door she saw me peeking around the corner. Of course she had to run to see us…and that blur? That’s how fast she moved. She was so overwhelmed with the “SURPRISE!” that she hugged my mom for a few minutes until she got used to all her family standing there smiling at her.
It was a good party. Can’t believe my baby is three. My, how time flies.
And another thing that is just amazingly sunny in our lives right now? This little guy, who I got to see during an ultrasound on Tuesday. Weighing in at 4 pounds, 11 ounces he’s a little ahead of schedule. We might just be having ourselves our February baby!
Oh, dear me, how can it be that the long, skinny newborn of mine be three years already?
How can time pass so quickly?
I swear it was just yesterday that I stared down at her in my hospital bed, achy and medicated, feeling such a love and such a bond that it physically made it hard to breath. I knew the first moment that I held her I would die for her without a second thought, no question.
And my, what a joy it has been to see her personality emerge.
Serious. Inquisitive. An old soul. Slow to trust, but loyal. Loving. Thoughtful. Stubborn. Polite. Funny. The light of my life.
What an amazing baby toddler little girl that she is.
I am one lucky lady to be her mama.
Mary Margaret Elanor, your mama loves you to the moon and back and I love watching you grow. My only prayer for you is happiness. I pray everyday that you will chase your dreams and never doubt yourself because, my special girl, you can do anything you put your mind to. Always know that your daddy and I are here for you. Always.
And what a difference three years makes. Her Birth Day:
Her First Birthday:
Her Second Birthday:
Her Third Birthday:
For an hour every Wednesday she gets to dance and sing with an instructor and two other little girls. Mommies aren’t allowed to watch, but I could hear the little girls laughing, dancing, and singing through the door.
She LOVES it. I knew she would–she’s been talking about it for weeks–and now that she’s gone to one lesson she’s talking about it even more.
I love my beautiful dancing girl.
I just love Plum District. It’s a Groupon/Living Social type of website geared towards moms and families. Last week they had a spend-$10-get-$20-worth-of-food at the Roswell Teahouse. As soon as I saw it I knew this would be a *perfect* place for MM to have her first official tea party at almost three years old.
And boy, was I right!
{The Roswell Teahouse is just wonderful…I really can’t say it enough. The food was amazing–honestly the best chicken salad…and tomato soup…green tea ginger dressing, etc. were the best I’ve ever had. Oh my goodness, y’all, go there today. I know we’ll be back.}
I asked Little Miss what she thought she should wear to a teahouse. She decided on a dress, a hat, and some gloves. And “lots and lots of sparkly jewelry”. Yep, a girl after my own heart.
So I found my childhood Easter bonnet, her little white gloves from Easter this year, some faux pink (!) pearls, and a little vintage bracelet and my baby ring. We were all set for our tea.
When we got there she took all that stuff off and got down to business. Sipping her pink “Teddy Graham” tea and tackling her tower of goodies {including peanut butter and jelly, pumpkin woopie pies, cucumber sandwiches, etc.}.
I was so surprised that she actually loved the tea after it cooled off. She drank three cups!
Tea drinking is serious work, don’t ‘ya know.
After bellies were full and lots of loving on two of her grandmothers we left.
{But not without first picking up many acorns…that she then stuffed in *my* pockets and laughing about it.}
Her first tea party was a hit and she’s already asking when we can go back.
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‘Ohhhhhh, Mommy, ‘ she sighed as she held my hand through the bars in the hospital bed. It was the saddest little voice I’d ever heard. And yet the bravest. No tears at all. Just holding on to my hand for comfort while they drew blood out of one arm and put an IV in the other.
The nurses–who each brought someone in to help them restrain her–looked at me quizzically. ’She’s not crying? Every child cries when they get an IV!’
Not my baby.
And while I see myself in her in oh-so-many ways {starting with just looking in the mirror, we are copies of each other}, this–the brave, strong-willed child–that’s me. I’ve never cried in pain. Not during multiple needle sticks, surgeries, recoveries, cancer.
She gets it from me.
And she lays there and lets them poke and prod her. Take x-rays. Do tests. Examine her all over.
They determined she had a terrible virus that wrecked her little body for five days. That gave her chills and a horribly upset tummy. And a fever that got up to 105°. She never once complained and the only way we knew she was sick was when we couldn’t wake her from her nap easily and touched her boiling skin.
This one is brave. And a fighter.
And I’m so glad she’s back to herself.
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But everytime we drove by her preschool–which is less than a 1/2 mile from our house in a beautiful historic church–we’d wave at it and she’d talk about playing on the playground.
And we spent hours (totally not kidding) picking out her book bag and lunchbox on Etsy. She wanted it to be red and it had to be perfect. We got a special apple hair bow and Mimi got her a blue and red dress to match. She helped me plan her first lunch and was sooooo excited about that {I think the lunch was the biggest thing to her-HA!}.
And when her daddy and I dropped her for the first day she went right in and started playing with the dolls like at open house.
She never once looked back.
Part of my heart hurts from this–Aren’t you going to miss Mommy?!–I want to say, but then the other part of me is so proud of her for being confident. She knows we’ll be back and that she’ll be taken care of while we’re gone. Just like her Daddy and I when we were her age. Independence is a wonderful–and sometimes sad–thing.
And here she is when she got home. All smiles. Lots of stories {a fish song, drawing, a girl in her class who had a potty accident, her lunch}. And a sticker because she was “very good” she said.
And to really get the above picture you have to know MM. She tilts her head to the side and bats her eyelashes a lot when she tells a story. Here she is telling me why this sticker was such a big deal that she wasn’t sure if she could nap because it might fall off.
Thankfully I convinced her it wouldn’t…and she slept almost four hours.
I’m glad her day went so well and even though I missed her and thought about her the entire time she was gone, I’m glad she went. I can’t wait to see how she grows this year.
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‘Cause you know that girl doesn’t have any toys.
Right.
Anyway, she picked up a great three foot tall dollhouse to keep at their house {MM is in LOVE and has talked about it constantly since Mom got it}. So this morning we ran by Toys R Us to look at furniture that fits in the dollhouse for possible Christmas presents.
And then C. found the bikes.
And then MM fell in love with a ‘Pinkalicious’ bike with training wheels. Unfortunately she doesn’t have the coordination to pedal AND steer just yet {When do most kids learn to ride a bike with training wheels? We’re thinking of getting the bike for her third birthday in January. Does that sound right?}, so she spotted a little scooter.
That she could clearly ride around on! {And it was on sale since it was the floor model. Score!}
But she wanted a basket {to put a doll in of course} and a horn and a helmet like the ‘Pinkalicious’ bike she loved.
So we rigged up a little basket-horn set to put on her little scooter and got her a ‘Pinkalicious’ helmet. And this little girl is in heaven. {And so is her daddy in case you couldn’t tell.}
She got fifty cents for helping wash the car. Another fifty cents for helping Mamaw put toilet paper on the stand in the bathroom and getting out the paper towels. She earned a dollar for crawling underneath my parents’ bed and getting out all their slippers {easier said than done!}. And she was given a WHOPPING two dollars for helping drag limbs to the burn pile in the back field.
And not only does it teach her the importance of helping and hard work {or at least I hope so}, but it’s also fun for her because that girl likes to shop.
This week she purchased an Elmo dollar store balloon for herself and this afternoon she bought a $3 flower headband at a local farmers’ market. And you should of seen her face as she dug her money {“num-me” as she calls it} out of her pocket and handed it to the lady–pure preciousness. The whole way home she held it {she called it a “hair-bane”} in her hands and oohed-and-aahed over it.
I once thought two was too young to teach responsibility, but I’ve been pleasantly proved wrong.
]]>I asked her randomly if she wanted to be Corduroy for Halloween and she enthusiastically said yes. She talks about the bright green overalls, the mismatched buttons, the bright purple patch for the pocket. And oh, those ears–she can’t wait to wear those ears.
Yesterday it changed though when we checked out a Halloween book from the library which she had my grandmother read to her over and over.
And that prompted her to start this conversation with me this morning:
Her: My don’t want to be to Corduroy for ‘Aloween. Now I be scary ghost or witch!
Me: I thought you loved Corduroy. We like to be nice things at Halloween, not scary or mean.
Her: It okay, Mommy. I scare people, but then I give them high five and hug them. See? It okay.
Wow, I’m already having to debate clothing choices with my two-year old. I thought I had at least ten more years before that!
She’s also been on a kick lately to take pictures. And since my camera is on it’s last leg, after all {it’s seven years old and has taken over 35,000 pictures–poor old girl}, I have to be careful. So we use the tripod and all she does is push the button. We catch pictures of us dressed as twins, her request yesterday.
And random photographs like this one. I didn’t even know she took it. Part of me wanted to hide it {oh, that hair alone!}, but part of me really wanted to study it. To catch a glimpse of a me that isn’t peering straight into a camera lens and smiling. So that’s what I look like on lazy, drizzly summer mornings. I am a thirty year old wife and mother, crazy hair and puffy eyes and all–and I finally saw the real me–captured by a two-year old.
{In other news, I’ve been on the phone with everyone I can about the site problem. Seems it’s not malware at all, but an issue with an old Google program that is somehow in the “bones” {theme} of my site that’s now re-routing visitors to the now de-funked site. So basically, I’m still working on it.}
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Mimi bought her first pair of flip flops without a back strap on them. She walks in them about as good as I walk in my heels!
There are three pieces of advice that have really stuck with me.
1. Get them on a schedule. Oh lord, what would I do without our wonderful schedule?! MM has always been a good sleeper (thanks, schedule!) and was still taking four naps at 18-months old. Had I not known when those would happen I would never be able to plan anything.
2. Hold them as much as possible because they are only babies once. Uhm, yeah. TRUE. I don’t think she took a nap in her crib for the first three months of her life–we all just held her while she slept and watched her. I still try to hold her as much as I can, but it’s getting less and less the older and more independent she gets.
3. Pick Your Battles. I didn’t really get that until a few months ago. Because there now are battles–some I fight and some I let her win.
You want to watch another Barney and stay up another hour? Uhm, no.
You want blueberries instead of peaches with dinner? Sure.
You want to wear your bright winter bonnet with your sundress instead of the nice pink bow I had picked out? Why not.
You want to get your toenails painted bright blue with fish and lots of glitter? Okay by me.
And on a unrelated note…MM has two favorite songs Three Little Birds by Bob Marley and Walkin’ After Midnight by Patsy Cline (I’ve been singing her these “lullabies” for a while now). I didn’t realize she knew the words ’til she started belting them out all by herself last week. On Saturday I got her to sing one for me–but she does get a little silly for me at the end because it was nap time and she wanted to sing another song {and another…and another…and another} to prolong going to bed {yep, one of those battles I will fight and win}. I think she’s pretty dang cute if I say so myself!
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