Tres Anos

Happy Birthday silly girl! 

This is the pose she gave me today when I told her I wanted to take some 3-year-old pictures of her. I guess it does a good job of portraying a)how exhausted she looked after waking up at 5:30 AM and b)her scraped up knees from a bad fall on the way to church today. This year we declared Sadie's birthday to be on Tuesday, the 24th, since we both had the day off (Pioneer Day) and Daniel was going to be traveling on her actual birthday (as usual- the only year Daniel was around on her birthday was her actual birth day in 2009). 

I'll do a separate detailed post on her fun birthday celebrations, but today I want to expound on Sadie. My thoughts are all over the place as I try to write about her. She is a unique kid. I know all parents think that about their children, but Sadie is really unique. :) She is hard to predict and, at times, hard to parent, but from most accounts she is just like me, but with a little more boldness. She has been surprising me lately with her friendship with Elise. It makes me so, so hopeful for the years ahead. A year ago I would have said that Sadie's tantrums were a part of her personality and not related to age, but I am happy to admit I was wrong.  Most of her tantrums are gone. She does things when she wants to do them and she will only do them if she can do it the way she envisions. I distinctly remember getting very frustrated in art class during elementary school because I couldn't draw something the way I wanted to. Sadie has done this multiple times lately while using her coloring books. She gets mad because she can't stay in the lines and she can't control the markers how she wants to. She frequently asks me to color things for her so they get done right. I have tried to get her to write letters lately but she won't even attempt most of them. She just tells me she can't and I can't even get her to try. We are still working on potty training. I am trying to be patient and let Sadie do it when she's ready. She wore underwear most of the day today without accidents. Sadie hasn't taken a nap for about a month. She is exhausted most afternoons, but she opts to play quietly instead of nap every day and I've just given up. She stays quiet for more than an hour so that's fine. 

Of course Sadie has been saying funny things lately like:

-"My baby is a trouble maker. Just like Louie Goo."

-A month or two ago Sadie looked up at Daniel on the stand during Sacrament Meeting and yelled "My dad is at the top! Mom, my dad is at the top!"

-After we saw a few minutes of Olympic badminton: "Bad mutten. Why it called bad mutten?"

-While playing princesses and dragons (I am the dragon and Sadie is the princess), Sadie made Elise be her grandma instead of the usual prince. Her goal in the game was to keep her grandma safe and she would drag Elise behind her as I chased them. 

-Also Olympics-related "Mom, that's not bally-ball (volleyball) that's basketball" after arguing with her for a few minutes about it I gave up, but what??? How many basketball games has she watched and she insisted volleyball was basketball? 

-"Louie, I am getting sick of you." (Unfortunately she may have heard this come out of my mouth before)

-When I told Sadie I was getting upset because I had called her 4 times for lunch she said to her coloring book, "I'll see you later, k? It's time for lunch. Mama's getting upset" (I also really love that she calls me Mama)

-After spotting her friend Claire, "My Claire, my Claire, my Claire, my frrrriieeeennnd Claire."

-When she opened up a card from her great-grandparents with $3 she gasped and said, "I got 2 million dollars! No, 8 million dollars!" 

-I told Sadie we live in the USA; she said, "No. I live in Utah"

-After opening a Tinkerbell barbie on her birthday she ran around making flying sound effects and declared "I'm flying to O-wu-guhn. Now I'm flying to Boston." 

-I tried to hide some of her birthday presents so we could spread out all the new toys. A couple days after her party she said, "Where are all my special presents?" I pretended I didn't know what she was talking about and she said, "Yeah, mom, my silly animals (Littlest Pet Shop animals)". Guess there's no more hiding presents after birthdays and Christmas