Abigail: 3 Years Old

Our baby girl is THREE years old! Abigail has grown and developed so much in the last year. One thing that hasn’t changed though is her strong personality. More on that later. We are just hanging on for the ride and hoping she turns out okay as an adult :)

Abigail is currently weighing about 27 pounds, and I have no idea how tall she is. I’ll update this post with her stats once we go for her checkup in a few days. She still seems tiny to me for a 3 year old, but I think she might be slowly catching up. (Update: On 8/31/20, she was 35 1/4 inches tall (25th percentile) and weighed 27.2 pounds (25th percentile). She is wearing mostly 2T clothes right now, although we have quite a few pairs of shorts that won’t stay up because she is so thin…haha. It seems like she is getting tall enough for 3T clothes, but I’m sure it will be a struggle to find things that fit her in the waist. I guess we’ll have to wear lots of leggings again this fall. She is wearing size 7 shoes, although her foot has grown a lot in the last few months and I think she might be getting closer to moving up to size 8s. She loves picking out her own clothes each day, and I’ve gotten to the point as a mom where I don’t even care if she picks out things that match…haha. I guess that’s what happens with the third child. Abigail’s hair has grown so much in the last year (although she still doesn’t have much compared to a lot of 3 year olds!) and the back is still full of curls. She actually even got her first ever haircut a couple of weeks ago. She now has all her baby teeth…her 2 year molars have all come in since she turned 2.

Abigail is STILL a difficult eater, although I think things are going slightly better than they were a year ago. She does a pretty good job eating breakfast (cereal) and lunch (usually PB&J, goldfish, fruit), but most of the time she is not interested in eating supper at all. We are now requiring her to eat one bite of each food at supper after I realized one night that it had probably been months since she’d eaten any vegetables at all. Sigh. I know one bite each night isn’t making much difference nutritionally, but at least she is being exposed to their different tastes and textures. Hopefully one day she will wake up and realize that dinner foods really aren’t that bad. She actually likes cucumbers…that’s probably the only vegetable she will eat with any consistency. She likes most fruits and loves sweets. She likes milk and drinks water or milk with every meal. I really think her refusal to eat at dinnertime is mostly due to her stubborn personality and not always whether she actually likes the food or not. Somehow she is still growing and gaining weight, so I guess she’s getting her daily calories somehow.

Thankfully, Abigail is sleeping well at night and rarely wakes up during the middle of the night these days. We had to take the front rail off of her crib a few months ago when she started climbing out over the railing, so now her crib is a toddler bed that she can climb in and out of herself. She does a pretty good job staying in her bed when we tuck her in at night, although occasionally she will get out and start playing if she’s not very tired. We try to get her in bed by about 8 PM each night, and she wakes up by 6:30 or 6:45 each morning (sometimes earlier). She definitely got the early riser gene from Mommy just like Brooklyn did. We actually had to turn the door knob around on her door after we took the rail off her crib because she started going in her sisters’ rooms and waking them up EARLY. Or coming in our room and waking us up early. So now she is locked in her room at night. Maybe that sounds terrible, but desperate times call for desperate measures ;) Now she just lies down by her door and screams under the door for me to come get her. I guess we’ve traded one problem for another. Some mornings she will play quietly in her room after she wakes up, but I guess depending on how long she’s been up, she gets impatient after a while.

As far as naps go, unfortunately Abigail has stopped napping on a consistent basis since she weaned from the paci back in February. Part of the problem is that she refuses to stay in her bed during naptime. Every day, it’s the same thing: we tell her to stay in her bed and close her eyes…she doesn’t listen and gets out of her bed, turns the light on, and starts playing…she gets in trouble and the cycle continues. Sometimes she will fall asleep on her belly on the floor right behind the door almost like she’s looking under the door to see if someone is coming to let her out of her room, but then her eyes just can’t stay open any longer. There are a few RARE days where she will actually stay in her bed and fall asleep without getting in trouble first, but those don’t happen very often. She loves to read a story and sing a song or two before I tuck her in at naptime or at bedtime. She doesn’t have a favorite stuffed animal or blanket of her own to sleep with…her favorites are usually ones that belong to her big sisters ;) One perk of virtual school is that at least if Abigail manages to fall asleep for her nap, I don’t have to wake her up to go pick up the girls from school!

Abigail is very active and loves to run and play. Whether it’s jumping, climbing, or doing somersaults, she tries to do anything that Brooklyn and Savannah do. She recently learned how to steer and coast on her scooter and scootered around the entire neighborhood! She loves being silly and entertaining us. Making us laugh is one of her proudest moments of the day. She has a tough exterior, but actually isn’t too rough and tumble if you really know her. She is afraid of wrestling Daddy like her big sisters like to do. And she makes a big stink if she gets hurt (mostly for attention, I think). I’d describe her as more of a princess/drama queen at age 3. She LOVES to dress up right now. I think she would wear a dress every day if she could, and the pink dress she’s wearing in these pictures is her absolute favorite. She wants to wear it every Sunday to church. She also loves dress up clothes and shoes and is always asking me to help her put on or take off a different princess dress.

As far as a potty training update, I think Abigail KNOWS what to do but isn’t interested in doing it all the time yet. She can use the potty (although lately she doesn’t have the patience to sit there very long), but we haven’t pushed her too hard about it just yet. With her personality, I feel like it would be very painful to try to get her potty trained without her being completely on board. I bought her some big girl Frozen panties for her birthday, but even that hasn’t motivated her enough. I guess one day I’ll get fed up with diapers and just say she’s wearing panties from now on and no going back, but I haven’t gotten to that point quite yet. With virtual school having just started, I can’t even fathom trying to potty train Abigail at the same time!

If it’s not obvious yet, Abigail is a very determined little girl. And that’s putting it nicely. Defiant and stubborn are some other words that come to mind, but we’ll stick to “determined” to put a positive spin on it ;) She wants to do what SHE wants to do when SHE wants to do it. Our biggest struggles are just getting her to obey simple tasks. If it’s not something she’s interested in doing at that moment, she is not very likely to mind. And she’s not shy about telling me, “No” or “I don’t want to do that” or “I’m notttttt”. She makes even the simplest requests difficult more often than not. I feel like we still haven’t figured out a good discipline method with her that will actually work. It feels like we are just banging our heads against the wall many days in getting her to realize that she’s not the one in charge. She also loves to be independent and do everything herself. She wants to be BIG and not a little kid anymore. She dislikes wearing a bib and sitting in a high chair. She wants to pick out her clothes, get herself dressed, clean up her room without help, buckle her car seat by herself, etc. If we can just get her to understand the concept of authority, I think she will do great things one day with that much determination. That’s my hope, at least.

Abigail is also SUPER chatty. She loves to talk and talks all day long. She is talking in full sentences and talks really loudly when she gets excited. (I think she got that from me…haha). This is a fun age because she is really enthusiastic, so it’s always fun to see her reaction when she is happy or looking forward to doing something fun. We can understand almost everything she says, and it’s funny to me that Savannah is like her little interpreter sometimes. Savannah can understand what Abigail is saying almost better than anyone else. Some of my favorite Abigail-isms right now are:

• “Anything didn’t come out” when she sits on the potty but doesn’t have to go.
• “My name’s not Peapod…I’m Abigail!” when she’s feeling ornery.
• “Don’t let the beds bite bite!” when we are saying good night at bedtime.
• “Why does Daddy motor and blower and we-weedering?”” (Why does Daddy use the lawnmower, blower, and weed eater?)

Abigail does have a lisp when she says her “S” sounds (this has been going on for a while now), but I’m not sure that it’s a big issue yet at her age. At least not according to what I’ve read online. But it’s definitely something for us to keep an eye on if it doesn’t get better.

Lately, Abigail has started telling me “I don’t like that person.” when it’s someone that she doesn’t know very well. This especially happens with men, but even with women that she’s not around very often. She also told me recently “I don’t want you to be my mommy” after I got onto her about something. I asked her if she wanted to go get a new mommy, and she said yes. Little stinker ;) She always want to be involved and wants to be in the middle of everything. She frequently gets left out when Brooklyn and Savannah are playing (because most of the time, Abigail acts like a bully or messes stuff up on purpose), but we are trying to encourage them to all get along. It’s a work in progress! She plays better one-on-one with Savannah than she does if Brooklyn is involved too. I think Abigail and Brooklyn butt heads because they are both alpha personalities. Abigail is a great staller at bedtime and is really good coming up with ways to delay going to sleep. She always wants to give everyone hugs and kisses before bed, pick out a different stuffed animal, read a book, sing several songs, etc. She is also always asking “When will I go to kindergarten? When will I have my own teacher?” She just wants to be BIG like her sisters are. I’m not sure kindergarten is ready for Abigail though! I’ve also noticed that she has really started to enjoy playing with Luke and Barrett over the past few months. It’s so sweet to catch them reading books together on the couch at Cici’s house on Sundays. Abigail is a wild child in the pool with no fear. She isn’t afraid of jumping off the side of the pool or off the steps, even if I’m not ready to catch her. She likes to put her face underwater in the bathtub too and blow bubbles. Apparently Abigail minds better for others than she does for us, so maybe there’s hope for her future! :)

Likes: getting big kid privileges, doing things her way, playing dress up, coloring and sticker books, Frozen, playing Lion King with her sisters (Abigail has been deemed the hyena!), riding scooters and tricycles, playing with sidewalk chalk and bubbles

Dislikes: being little, being told what to do/wear/eat, having help doing something that she wants to do herself, getting left out when her sisters are playing together

Abigail, you are full of life and energy and wear us out most of the time, but we can’t imagine life without you! We are proud of your determination and hope that you will keep growing and learning to obey and do what’s right. We love you SO much, our little Peapod!