E at 39 months

Indulge me, internet, whilst I ramble about our lovely little bundle who is three years and nearly three months old.

She is a chatterbox. She talks in full sentences with only an occasional mispronunciation, grammatical error or misused word. One of her funniest repeated malapropisms is, when interrupted at play, shrieking "stop it! You're destroying me!" Speaking of shrieking, she is almost incapable of speaking quietly. Everything takes place at full roar.

She is gradually learning letters and numbers. She can count reliably up to about 10 and can recognise "E" ("E for me! that's my letter!") and "M" for Mummy and "D" for Daddy. I learnt recently that the word for the ability to accurately recognise or judge the number of objects in a group is "subitise" - anyhow, she can do that for up to four items.

She started 3 year old kindy at Moerlina School two mornings a week this term and loved it from the start. We were so relieved as she never really enjoyed daycare. As we are all onto our third cold for the winter (and it's not even the end of June!) we are also really relieved that D's parents are happy to look after E on a Monday morning instead of her going to daycare. Now that she is at kindy we don't worry so much about her needing time with other children and are just happy to cut down the number of germy noses and fingers she is exposed to each week.

Her imagination appears to be in constant overdrive and she entertains the kindy teachers by announcing who she is each morning. The most frequent characters have been elephants from Barbar (Isabelle, Flora, Celeste) but Angelina Ballerina also makes regular appearances. Interestingly, given how imaginative she is, she has become more demanding about play. I feel as though six months ago she was much more capable, or possibly just willing, to play on her own for short periods. Now she wants constant company and interaction.

She goes easily to bed in the evenings and reliably sleeps from about 6:00/6:30pm for a good 12 hours. The trade-off is that day sleeps are completely a thing of the past.

Her favourite foods are still, unquestionably, pasta and fruit. However, she is becoming more willing to eat red meat - lamb chops and meatballs were recent hits.

She has times when she really enjoys other children's company and times when they simply frustrate her and she cannot understand why she has to share or take turns. During these time she is a real little charmer and pushes and shrieks and snatches. She claims she does not like little boys and is developing favourites among the girls at kindy. She talks in the most heartbreaking manner about "my best friend so-and-so" but I don't think she properly appreciates the concept of "best friend."

She is frustrating and endearing all at once. She has completely selective hearing when it comes to instructions or requests she doesn't want to hear. She has learnt how to bargain "just one more minute Mummy" - accompanied by waggling finger. She does scarily dangerous things without any appreciation of how dangerous they are (running down the driveway at full speed towards the street and attempting to jump out of the pram at the traffic lights are two examples from today). When she is silly with tiredness she runs naked from the bath,  jumps onto her bed and hides under her blankets, still dripping wet, giggling delightedly. Thirty seconds later she has a meltdown because she doesn't want to brush her teeth. Then she demands "all the kisses" and tells a story (Daddy's particular bedtime routine) and sits on my lap and cuddles me and pats my face whilst I sing hush-a-bye-baby. Then D and I escape out the door and I am both overwhelmed by love for her and overwhelmed by relief that she is safely in bed for the night.