Brooklyn: 3 Years Old

There have been so many changes since Brooklyn’s 2-year blog post!! It’s hard to see the changes happening on a day-to-day basis, but then when I look back over the last year, Brooklyn has grown and learned so many new things. She is turning into such a big girl!

At her 3 year checkup, Brooklyn weighed 29.9 lbs and was 36.75 inches tall (50th percentile in both). She’s gained about 3 pounds and grown 2 inches in the last year. She is pretty thin overall, but her belly still pokes out a little, and it’s the cutest thing. Her legs are constantly covered in bruises from all the bumps and falls on a daily basis. Her pants have a tendency to  fall down if she doesn’t have a belt on! She is mostly wearing 3T clothes, which are usually perfect in the length but sometimes a bit big in the waist. She wears about a size 8 or 9 shoe right now; her feet have grown several sizes just in the last year. I’m loving her curls so much! They usually look good when I fix them in the morning, but after she rolls around on the floor and plays hard, her hair looks like a mess! Oh well…what can you do? :)

One of Brooklyn’s biggest areas of growth this year has been her vocabulary. She is talking in complete sentences that we can understand (for the most part). She doesn’t always pronounce everything correctly, but she speaks clearly enough that we usually know what she means. We are always getting comments (even from her pediatrician) about how well she speaks for her age; I have no clue because we’ve never had another 3-year-old to compare her to, but I’ll take their word for it ;) Not only does she speak well, but she speaks A LOT! I guess she’s a typical girl who loves to talk! Usually, she is talking unless she is eating, asleep, or watching a TV show or movie! She also loves to sing; her favorite songs are from Daniel Tiger’s neighborhood, her Bible class songs CD, or the songs from the music class we did together last winter. It’s not unusual for her to burst out in song in the middle of the grocery store; that always gets some comments from other shoppers :) She is also starting to learn some of the songs that we sing at church; Sunday night, I noticed she was singing the invitation song, and she sang some of the words to it as well as one other song on the way home. It’s interesting how much she picks up on that we don’t even realize, but she’s obviously listening and paying attention.

Some words that best describe Brooklyn at 3 years old: sassy, sweet, bossy, helpful, independent, dramatic, silly, entertaining, inquisitive, and observant. Basically, she keeps us on our toes! She wants to do things her way and on her own schedule. Sometimes she doesn’t have the best attitude when we ask her to do something, but we’re working on that. It’s a work in progress :) Some of her worst fits that she’s thrown are when we ask her to go potty; you’d think we were asking her to stick her head in a bucket of ice water or something. She can be such a sweetheart though! If Travis or I have a headache or don’t feel well, she is very quick to bring us a blanket or stuffed animal to help us feel better :) She gives out hugs and kisses pretty generously, especially to her little sister. She loves to be Mommy’s helper and is always asking if she can help me cook supper, put the clothes in the dryer, or do other things around the house. She loves to be in charge and frequently tells us “No, don’t sing!” if we try to join in while she’s singing something. Brooklyn loves to be the center of attention at all times. She takes great delight in being silly and making us laugh. She also notices so many things that I just pass right over; she has an eye for details even at such a young age. She’ll point out a speck of glitter on the carpet or some detail in a picture book that I completely miss.

Brooklyn is a pretty good eater for the most part. I wouldn’t call her extremely picky, but she won’t eat everything either. She still LOVES fruit and will eat pretty much any fruit. Some of her favorites are oranges, apples, bananas, and any kind of berry. Oh, and watermelon. She just recently figured out how to pronounce “watermelon” correctly; she used to call it “ma-wa-wa-wa-wa-welon” or something really cute like that. She also eats a good variety of vegetables (carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, zucchini, green beans, peas, and corn), although on any given night, she might not eat them. She usually doesn’t care for white potatoes, broccoli, or cauliflower. She will SOMETIMES eat meat, depending on her mood. You never know from day to day if she’ll eat it or not. She loves popcorn like her daddy, and one of their favorite things to do together is snuggle on the couch, eat popcorn, and watch animal shows on TV. She also got a pretty strong sweet tooth from her mommy :)

Brooklyn is still a pretty good sleeper overall. We aim to get her in the bed by about 8 PM, but it’s usually more like 8:15 or 8:30. She typically sleeps until about 6:30-7:15 AM depending on the day. She is still taking one afternoon nap. She usually starts her nap around 1-2 PM, and it lasts anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 hours. She is doing well sleeping in her big girl bed, although she has been known to get out of bed and run into our room in the middle of the night. That happens more often than we’d like; I think she’s hoping we’ll just let her sleep with us, but we usually try to just take her back to her bed. She still sucks her thumb to go to sleep, but I’m hoping we can tackle that bad habit in the near future. She’s got cracks in her thumb and a big callous from sucking it so much, so I feel like she needs to kick the habit pretty soon so she won’t have a permanent deformity ;) She sleeps with lots of stuffed animals and usually a couple of random toys in her bed; the big necessity that she has to have every night is “brown”, her blanket. She holds a corner of it while she goes to sleep and sometimes when she needs some comforting during the day.

We are right in the thick of potty training, and it’s been going pretty well for the last week or so! I feel like this has been a long time coming: she got her own little potty when she turned 2, but it’s just now been getting some regular use in the last month :) It just wasn’t worth fighting with her about it when she didn’t want to do it, so we’ve been waiting on her to come around to the idea. Still, if I hadn’t refused to put a new diaper on her one morning a couple of weeks ago, she’d probably still be wearing diapers all the time. We got her to fill up one sticker chart for using the potty, but once she finished that chart, she refused to use the potty for several days in a row until I told her she had no other choice but to wear big girl panties instead of a diaper one day. Of course, that idea was met with a lot of resistance, but she’s worn her panties during the day ever since then and has been doing great overall. She’s had her share of “accidents”, but I feel like we’ve definitely turned a corner. She is still wearing a diaper/Pull-up at night and during her nap, but sometimes she’s been keeping them pretty dry even while she sleeps. I’m very proud of the progress she’s made! We just had to push her out of her comfort zone to get her on board with it :) And getting an M&M and a sticker every time she uses the potty doesn’t hurt either!

Some of Brooklyn’s favorite activities at age 3: playing outside, watching Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood or Disney movies, playing with Savannah, painting/coloring, building towers and roads with her blocks, taking baths/any water activities like swimming, and reading books. She knows a lot of the words in her favorite books by heart and can “read” them from memory. She has gotten better at playing by herself and entertaining herself (she was forced to after Savannah was born), but she still prefers for me to play with her and is constantly asking if I will. She has a big imagination and talks to herself, her stuffed animals/toys, and her imaginary friends :)

Brooklyn has really blossomed into the role of big sister this year! She loves Savannah so much and enjoys making her laugh and smile. Savannah is finally getting old enough where the two of them can play together and entertain each other for a while, which is so nice for me when I’m trying to get things done! Brooklyn considers herself the “police” and thinks its her role to supervise what Savannah is doing at all times. It’s actually helpful sometimes because I don’t always catch Savannah right away when she’s getting into something that she shouldn’t; however, sometimes it comes off like she’s being a tattletale, even though I’m pretty sure she is just trying to help rather than trying to get her sister in trouble. Brooklyn is quick to bring Savannah a toy or bring me a burp cloth or pacifier when I ask. She does pretty well sometimes with the concept of sharing, but other times she gets visibly annoyed when Savannah “gets in her way” or wants to play with something that Brooklyn has. It’ll be a long process of teaching them to get along, I’m sure! :) But, it’s been neat to see how well Brooklyn has transitioned into being a big sister. She had a rough start for the first couple of months of Savannah’s life, but things have slowly gotten a lot easier for all of us. I’m looking forward to seeing their relationship grow even more over this next year.

I feel like I could go on and on describing Brooklyn right now–in fact, Travis and I often wonder, “How does so much personality fit into such a small little girl?” She is just so full of life, rarely sits still, and is always asking questions about the world around her. I hope she will always be so spunky and ready to learn!

Brooklyn, we love you so much! God truly blessed us when you came into the world three years ago.