400th Post!

To recap Maggie's development at 3 years, 2 months, I'll sound like a broken record: her vocabulary and memory continue to amaze us!  This past month as we've seen caterpillars turn into butterflies and tadpoles turn into frogs, Maggie has learned- and uses regularly- the word "metamorphosis"!  It had been at least a week since we'd talked about the word, when she randomly asked while riding in the van, "What does metamorphosis mean?"  She has also learned the word "amphibian" after observing Granddaddy's tadpoles in his aquarium.  She has also been talking about and using the word "habitat".  We're really not trying to turn Maggie into a scientist, but she craves information, remembers and repeats it easily, and will ask questions about things she does not understand.

Maggie also enjoys workbooks of any kind.  Coloring books don't engage her for long, but (with my help) she will do work in a workbook for at least 30 minutes.  Rather than coloring pictures or writing letters and numbers independently, she enjoys tracing, circling, underlining, matching, and completing mazes.  Today I got her a new workbook from the dollar store and surprised her with it.  She was so excited and said, "Thank you for the workbook!  Let me give you a hug!"

This past month she also has started writing the letter "M" and counting to 20.

I was thrilled a few weeks ago when she learned how to play the card game "Go Fish".  With help she can also play a Sesame Street Checkers game.  We've played Memory, Candy Land, and Hi Ho Cherry-o before.  She understands those, but she gets bored with them easily.

Maggie is often a little leery to try challenging gross motor activities on her own.  We were very excited this weekend when she independently climbed this wall at a playground, without even asking for help.

Maggie's articulation is so clear that it's cute to hear a few of her speech errors.  She tends to add an "r" to the beginning of some "a" words.  For example, "appear" becomes "rappear", "apartment" becomes "rapartment", and "appointment" becomes "rappointment".  She also has trouble with the "th" sound, so she calls the baby "Baby Brover".  She still calls a blanket a "blank-a-let" and strawberries are "strawbellies".  I don't want to correct these sounds yet, or she really will sound too grown up!

In spite of all of her accomplishments, Maggie is not without her set of issues that come with the 3-year-old territory.  Maggie is very sensitive and tender-hearted. So, if she even thinks someone (other than me or Brendon) is reprimanding her, she becomes very upset and often (weeks later) does not forgive the person.  She now gets shy and overwhelmed going into a group of people, so I try to go early to birthday parties and other events so that she can warm up to the situation.  Maggie is very clingy to me now, which I hope is not related to the baby on the way.  I have to remind myself that these things will pass, and if I wish them away too quickly, I'll miss all of the fun stuff, too!

Maggie is my little buddy and best friend.  Although I'm very excited about the baby's birth, I'll miss the days of just "Mama and Maggie"!