Savannah: 3 Years Old – Trav and Erin + 3

Wow. I just went back and read Savannah’s 2-year-old update from a year ago, and it is amazing how much she has changed and grown over the last 12 months. She is really turning into such a big girl in so many ways.

We went for Savannah’s 3 year checkup about 2 weeks ago, and she weighed 31.5 pounds (75th percentile) and was 38 inches tall (75th percentile). She has grown FOUR inches and gained 3 pounds since last year’s checkup. No wonder she seems so tall these days! Savannah is wearing mostly 3T clothes and can even wear some 4/5T shirts and shorts that Brooklyn was wearing last summer. She is wearing size 8 or 9 shoes depending on the brand. Overall, she has really thinned out and is losing that baby/toddler look, but she is still more stocky and solid than I remember Brooklyn being at age 3. Savannah’s hair has also really grown over the last year! I can actually put it up in a short ponytail or pigtails now (with a lot of hairspray and clips!). It definitely looks best when I dry it with the hair dryer; when she wakes up in the morning after going to bed with wet hair, it’s a pretty crazy sight :)

Savannah has gotten a little pickier in the last year, but I’d say she is still a good eater overall. Her favorite food is probably PB&J…haha. If given the choice between that and something else for lunch (or even dinner), she will always pick PB&J. It’s a toss-up these days about whether or not she’ll eat what I cook for dinner. You just never know from day to day. She loves meat a lot more than Brooklyn did at age 3 and even eats salad (always without dressing). She will eat pretty much any kind of fruit, loves potato chips, and is pretty good about eating most vegetables when she wants to. She is also a big fan of getting “bessert” after she finishes a meal :) She is almost always the last one to finish eating. It’s not unheard of for her to sit in her chair for over an hour eating lunch. When she eats all her food, if she’s still hungry, she’ll announce: “Sum-ping else! Sum-ping else!” This girl can put away lots of food in one sitting if she’s in the right mood. It cracks us up!

Savannah is a great sleeper most of the time these days. Her bedtime is around 8 PM (at least that’s the goal), and she usually sleeps until around 7-7:30 AM and sometimes later. We convinced her to stop using her paci a few months ago, and it had absolutely no effect on her nighttime sleep. So thankful that was an easy transition! Like Brooklyn, she isn’t really attached to one certain stuffed animal or doll, but she does like to sleep with “Pink”, her baby blanket that Sylvia Gougar made.

The one thing that has been affected by taking the pacifier away has been naptime. Savannah was an AWESOME napper when she had her paci. She would fall asleep no problem every day and sleep for a couple of hours easily. But now, we are lucky if she falls asleep for her nap at all some days. I’d say she sleeps during naptime about half the time. She definitely could use a nap every day, but thankfully she’s not too much of a bear on the days she doesn’t get one. Sometimes, that is ;)

I think it would be impossible to sum up Savannah’s personality in a few sentences, but I’ll try my best. She is reserved and cautious around almost everyone; however, around close family members, she really opens up and is much more comfortable letting the true “Pookie” come out. She is practically famous for her scowl and can furrow her brows better than almost anyone I know. If she doesn’t know you or isn’t happy with you, you can bet you’ll be the recipient of “The Scowl”. Basically, it’s very easy to tell if you’re in her doghouse. In fact, she rarely cries after a spanking these days; most of the time, she just scowls/glares at us and rubs her bottom angrily…haha.

On the other hand, Savannah loves to laugh and be silly. When she’s in the right mood, she can be a little comedian and downright hilarious. The best is when we all start laughing at her silliness, and she starts cracking up at herself with loud fake laughter. She also loves to say something funny and follow it up with “I’m just KADDING”! She REALLY enjoys music and singing; I think that’s a product of the Music Together classes we do and also learning so many songs in Bible class. She and Brooklyn sing off and on all day long, and I love it.

Savannah is also pretty independent these days. I feel like she is growing up a lot faster than Brooklyn in some ways. She wants to put her shoes on all by herself, wipe her own face after a meal, pick out her clothes, etc. etc. Anything that she thinks she can do, she wants to do without help. I guess that’s probably a function of seeing her big sister get to do most of those things. She also plays really well by herself. In contrast to Brooklyn who can’t stand to be alone, Savannah will go off on her own and play with blocks, look at books, or play with her dolls. She enjoys playing with others, but doesn’t seem to mind independent play one bit. She has a pretty long attention span and will sit and play with the same thing for quite a while before moving on to something else. She also follows directions well for her age and can clean up her room by herself without much help (when she feels like it).

This one sort of surprises me, but Savannah has gotten a little bit of devious streak in her lately. I really have to keep a close eye on her when she goes potty. She knows exactly what to do, but if I don’t watch out, she will be in there “washing her hands” for 20 minutes (a.ka. playing with the water) or put half of the roll of toilet paper in the potty and clog it up. She is also pretty good at doing mean things to her sisters or our cat behind my back while I’m not looking. Overall, I would say she does a great job of obeying and doing what we ask, but sometimes she surprises us with how sneaky she can be at doing what she knows she shouldn’t.

Savannah has the unique role in our family of being the only big AND little sister. It has been really neat to watch her relationship with Brooklyn grow over the last year. Their personalities are very different in a lot of ways, and sometimes it’s a struggle for them to play together without fighting and arguing. Brooklyn tends to be a bit on the bossy side and flits around from activity to activity all day long. Sometimes, Savannah is content to just follow along and do exactly as Brooklyn says, but not always. She isn’t afraid to let Brooklyn know when she’s fed up with her, and occasionally she’ll just go off on her own and play when she’s tired of being bossed around. But most of the time, I’d say she follows Brooklyn around doing whatever she wants to do at the moment. Savannah definitely looks up to her big sister and wants to do big girl things just like her.

I’ve also loved getting to see Savannah blossom into the role of being a big sister over the last 9 months. She absolutely ADORES Abigail. She gives her hugs all day long and always makes sure she has plenty of toys to play with. If I ever come by and see Abigail with 50 toys nearby, I know that Savannah has been there recently :) The main thing I have to watch out for is that Savannah hasn’t quite grasped the concept of being gentle. So, I’ll catch her squeezing Abigail too tight or bopping her on the head from time to time. I’m not sure she’s trying to be mean on purpose, but she definitely has room for improvement in that regard.

Savannah has really grown up in the last year now that she’s not the baby of the house anymore. I already mentioned that she’s not using pacis anymore. She also moved into a big girl bed last summer about the time Abigail was born and has done great with that. She is also pretty much fully potty trained at this point. She still wears Pull-ups to sleep in at night, but she almost always wakes up dry in the morning. She is pretty good about going potty when she needs to and rarely has accidents anymore during the day. I feel like she has made these transitions much more smoothly than Brooklyn did, but it’s probably partially because she has watched Brooklyn using the potty, sleeping in a big bed, and doing other big girl things already.

When I look back at where Savannah was a year ago with her speech, it’s truly amazing at how far she’s come. At 2 years old, she was still calling Travis “Gaga”. She was saying a lot of new single words but no phrases or sentences yet. Now, she is speaking in sentences, pronouncing most words correctly, and we can understand pretty much everything she says. It’s crazy that she was so far “behind” at one point that we were doing Early Intervention. I’m thankful that she is able to communicate with us so well these days; it certainly makes life a lot easier for Mommy and Daddy when we can know exactly what she wants or needs. Her main issue that I’ve noticed over the last 6 months or so is that she stutters from time to time. Some days/weeks are worse than others. There was a period of time a few weeks ago when the stuttering was so bad that she couldn’t hardly get a word out without repeating the last syllable 8-10 times. It was pretty hard for us to understand what she was saying at all. I know that stuttering is normal to some degree as kids learn to talk, so I’m hoping that this is just a phase she’ll grow out of. At the same time, I don’t want her to have a issue with it long-term, so at some point if it doesn’t improve, I guess we’ll look into speech therapy. Overall though, I’m so proud of all the progress she’s made in the last year!

Savannah likes: playing outside, building with Magna Tiles, coloring and drawing, princesses (especially Sleeping Beauty) and baby dolls, playing with her sisters, and taking her time (she’s rarely in a hurry to do anything except chasing Brooklyn!)

Savannah dislikes: being the center of attention (unless it’s just family around), macaroni and cheese (so weird!), swimming, and not being treated like a big girl