Abbie at 3 years old.

Our little pippers isn’t so little anymore.  She’s very quickly losing all of her “baby-ness” and is looking more and more like a little girl every day.  This little girl definitely keeps us on our toes…

Abbie is wearing many 4T clothes now.  She still fits into 3T sometimes, but the pants are all way too short.  She wears size 9 or 10 shoes.  She is mostly day-time potty trained.  She still wears her night time diapers to bed and for naps, although she’s beginning to wake up dry at naps now.  She knows all of her colors, can say her A,B,C’s and can almost count to 20.  (She still mixes up a few numbers, but gets most of them right.)  She’s learning to recognize numbers and letters when she sees them.  She can dress herself completely and puts her shoes on the right feet every time.  She sleeps from 9-10pm to usually 9am and most days takes a 1-2 hour nap.

Abbie is the definition of a strong-willed child.  She will test you at every single chance she gets.  To say it is exhausting is an understatement.  She does not take anything at face-value.  She asks zillions of questions, which is good sometimes, but not ALL the time.  When we’re riding in the car, she will ask 40 times where we’re going in a 20 min car ride.  She repeats everything the GPS says at least 3-4 times, but has to make sure you’re listening to her first, even if you’re trying to carrying on a conversation with someone else.  When you tell her no to something, she whines like the best of them and will follow you around the house for 15 minutes whining and crying about why you’re not letting her have what she wants.  If you tell her not to do something, she has to test you to see if you really mean it and then when you give her a consequence for not listening, she will throw a full on hissy fit.  We go through that routine about 3-5 times a day.  I sleep well at night.  Although Mark told her that if she has to go potty at night to get up and go, and then go back to bed, so now every time you put her in bed, she miraculously has to “go potty” at least twice within the first half hour of her laying down.

As most strong-willed kids are, she’s incredibly smart too.  She picks up on things that you have no idea she even notices, let alone understands.  Her vocabulary is very good for a three year old.  She loves to be outside and to go for walks, she loves all animals and she loves when you read her books.  She would watch TV all day if I let her, but we limit the amount of TV she gets to watch.

Abbie is very social.  She loves playing with other little kids and has no issues at all talking to adults, especially if they start up the conversation.  She is an excellent big sister and really loves her little brother.  No one makes Ben laugh like Abbie does and she’s always talking to the “little man”, as she calls him.  Whenever we go anywhere she always asks if we’re going to bring Ben along.  She is definitely a daddy’s girl too.

This was Abbie in the Ergo in January 2010 – 2.5 years ago.

And this is her in the Ergo today.

She’s growing up way too fast.