*Edie at 3

I just want to eat Edie up right now.  I just love all her childlike mannerisms and the funny little things she says, her silliness, her imagination, how she talks about how big she is - it's so fun and so sad that it will start to slip away!!  I get mad when anyone tries to fix her funny ways of saying things, I want it to last as long as possible.

Some things that make her Edie:

- she loves animals, especially dogs and has no fear petting or getting licked, bumped around, etc.
- she will not let me put her hair up!! she promised she'd let me put it in a ponytail when she turned 3, though today she informed me that she will when she's four. She'd be so cute in little pigtails : (
- she still needs a nap! it looked like it was disappearing, but since our trip this summer she takes one almost every day - even asks for it!  It does make for a later bedtime, but I am so very thankful for the hour or two of peace and quiet.  Getting back to naps and rest has kept those delirious tantrums away!
- she is finally responding to discipline - if she does have a little fit she is normally sent to her room where she runs to her bed and cries for about 30 seconds and then usually comes out repentant.  She is definitely still a little stinker though and loves to get a rise out of Vera.
- she wakes up to get in our bed 6 out of 7 nights. Tonight I told her she could have a lollypop for breakfast if she stayed in her bed - she said she would rather sleep with mom and dad.
- she loves to help me cook and comes running to help if I'm doing anything in the kitchen. In her own little kitchen she is constantly creating something - finding little ingredients from all over the house to add to her soups or whatever. Any crayon she finds is broken in half and added to her ingredients and she takes laces out of shoes, rubber stamps from the craft stuff, tears up bits of paper... anything! I appreciate her creativity, but the messiness is a little much.
- she often quotes from the books we read throughout the day and in her play. My favorites are hearing her refer to "a pinch of salt, and a dry white wine" [Dr. Desoto], "flour, sugar, just a cup! in a bowl he mixed it up.. " and "gooey cocoa mocha silk" [Donut Chef]... can't think of the others.
- she says "lose" instead of use, "bahmembah" for remember, "suddabody" for someone/somebody, "thingah" for finger... it's fun to have her try to say a word with 'r's - she knows she can't do it.  My favorites are of course chowda and lobstah and bod [bird]
- she is incredibly silly and loves to make Vera laugh. lots of potty humor, sigh. her favorite movie quote is from Despicable Me when someone is on the moon and says, "poop" - she tells me this often.
- she talks a LOT about our baby and what it will and won't be able to do. about when it's going to come out, about whether it will have fits at bedtime, etc.

I noted down her bedtime prayer from her 3rd birthday. Usually they go, "Thank you that we had a great time, and that we had a good time... and that we had a good time..." This was a little longer:

Dear Jesus, thank you that we had a good time, and that we had a great time at my birthday party. and thank you that my friends were SO happy to go to my birthday party. and thank you that puppy lives in my heart and thank you that my mom's baby is healfy. Amen!