Turning the page to 3

I love that this blog has become a holding place for our memories and a file cabinet of time.  We recently had our rental car broken into and laptops stolen.  :(  And the suckiest thing about it was that I lost many picture and video files from the past 3 years.  Luckily, so much has been shared here on the blog.  For Jack, we'll be able to say "check out all these sweet videos of you as a baby" (backed up on our hard drive) and for Cora, we'll luckily say "read about your early years on the blog."

I found myself getting sentimental last night as I thought about saying goodnight to my two year old little girl, knowing she'd be waking up as a three year old.  This time in life is passing so quickly!

I would so regret not capturing this moment in her life.  What a spit fire, vivacious, dramatic, expressive, "lives at the extremes," beautiful, smart little girl.

We are at the beach this week and we are getting some witnesses to Cora's extremes. I mean doesn't it suck when the birthday girl gets sent to time out before breakfast?

What is Cora like at just-today-three?

BEAUTIFUL.  I try to be mindful of telling her how beautiful she is because I think there are so many more important ways to define yourself. But I also can't help myself (nor can Jacob) because we just are wowed by her eyes, her curls, her soft sweet skin.  Just lovely.

CAPTIVATING. She has a whole book of facial expressions.  And gestures.  She is adorably emphatic, easily excited, and makes us laugh so often with the way she recounts events, asks questions, and even argues back.

SMART. She's very intuitive.  I'll never forget how at barely 2 she asked "why you frustrated Mommy?" She also knows how to push buttons and work situations. We're so in trouble with this one.

IMAGINATIVE. Oh Lordy!  Have you met Mimi and Da-da, her imaginary friends?  Sometimes Mimi is a mommy, sometimes a baby, and Cora also told us that it was Mimi who broke into our car and stole our computers... :)  This little girl is so happy with the simplest things - a stack of wash cloths, an assortment of rocks, even just dirt.

A JUXTAPOSITION. She can be loud; she can be shy.  She can be super cuddly and so sweet and downright mean a few minutes later.  I imagine a lot of this has to do with her age as she's just not sure how to handle some of her emotions.  Which leads us to:

IMPULSIVE.  A great example: This week, we told her it was time to get out of the pool. She didn't want to be done swimming.  So she just jumped back into the pool.  Without floaties.  Without anyone waiting to catch her.  Luckily Grammy hadn't gotten out yet and grabbed her.

CAN'T HANDLE BEING TOLD NO.  Ay-yi-yi  This one is killing us lately.  Cora gets SO easily offended if she is corrected.  I seriously worry she'll walk out into traffic because she almost compulsively does the thing you tell her not to, no matter how good and obvious your intentions are.

She's also killing us with her particular version of the whine.  It's a high pitched "Ehh!" when she's offended, wronged, annoyed, etc.  Her teachers loved her this year, but one of them spot on imitated this sound.

Sometimes these days I look at Cora and she just grabs my heart as I imagine that she's struggling some with the recent changes in our family.  She's at a challenging age and I think this must be a hard spot to be in with a little baby so easily attracting love and a big brother who is so proudly reaching new milestones of independence.

And then at other moments...my thoughts are less generous.

It's been so much fun to anticipate this birthday with Cora and I'm excited to share our birthday present with her tonight: an enamel "treasure box" with nine little drawers to hold her many treasures.  (I've seen these before at TJMaxx before and always wanted to have a reason to buy one!)  My family all contributed little treasures from their houses and she's going to love the pretty rocks, shells, old lockets, etc. that we filled it with.