Hello sweet girl, and happy Thirty-Month birthday! I am missing you so much tonight. You’re snuggled down and asleep many miles away from home at your Nana and Granddaddy’s house. I bet you’re tired after a super-exciting day – you got to play in the SNOW!  Granddaddy sent me these pictures, and said your favorite part was looking up to watch the flakes fall on your face and saying, “They tickle me!” I wish I could’ve seen you playing myself!

You went to stay with your grands because Daddy and I have been on a church trip, taking a bunch of teenagers to Disney World – and let me just say, I’m not ready for you to be a teen girl. My ears are still ringing from the general shrieking and hysterical laughter that frequently issues forth when several of them gather together.

We may have many years before you are a teenager, but I have a hard time believing that today you are just as close to three as you are to two. A few days ago, you and I were looking back at some videos recorded around your second birthday, and I was stunned by how much your language has progressed since then. We carry on conversations now, and I LOVE it!

We recently had a conversation I found amusing because I just didn’t expect it so soon. Two of my friends (also mothers of your friends) recently had babies, so we’d been talking about the babies in their bellies. Our conversation went something like this:

You: “Mama (pulling up your shirt), I have a baby in my belly.”

Me: “You have a baby in your belly? I don’t think so. You can’t have a baby in your belly until you get married one day.”

You: “Mama and Daddy got married.” (we’ve discussed this in the past)

Me: “We sure did.”

You: “I’m going to get married … to mama.”

Me: “Oh, well you can’t get married to me because I’m already married to Daddy.”

You: “Who I marry?”

Me: “Well, I don’t know sweetie. When you get older, if you want to get married, then maybe you’ll find the right person and you can get married.”

This seemed to confuse you a bit, so I changed the subject before we got much deeper. Although you can’t yet grasp the concept of marriage, I really like your current philosophy about family. We’ve been playing with playdough a lot lately, and you usually insist on having me make three of any particular kind of animal. “Make a duck family!” you’ll say, or “Make a giraffe family!” One is always the Baby, one is the Mama and one is the Daddy. After they eat cookies and drink orange juice (you were not impressed the day I made playdough broccoli for them to eat), they go to sleep. You put them right next to each other and say, “They need to nuzzle. Nuzzle, nuzzle.” Like this sweet cow family:

You’ve also been picking up on even more of the things we say, and some of them make me laugh because you sound so grown up. Like instead of saying yes, you often say, “It’s true,” or “Of course.” The other day, we were getting ready to go to the library and I asked you if I could come too. “Of course, Mommy. Of course,” you said.

You are still every bit as girly as before, perhaps growing even girlier by the minute. One day last month I painted your toenails – something that had only been done once many months before. You seemed quite pleased about the pink color on your toes. That night, you began whimpering as we started running water for your bath and I asked you what was wrong. You cried, “I don’t want to get my toenails wet!!” By the time we put you in the water, you were in crisis mode, even though we’d told you it wouldn’t just wash off. You spent that entire bath with your feet up in the air, keeping your toenails just above the water line. Silly girl!

One of your favorite things to do right now is play hide and seek. You don’t exactly play by the rules – usually peeking while you count, and rarely counting all the way to ten. You also like the be found, and when I say “Ready or not, here I come!” you often respond by running out of your hiding space saying, “Here I am!”

Your Daddy captured video of this recent game of hide and seek with your buddy Elsie in the park near our house.

Hide and Seek from Ginger on Vimeo.

Sweet girl, I can’t wait to play with you again tomorrow. I have ached for you these past few days, missing your tender hugs and your happy laughter. Nana and Granddaddy say you haven’t seemed too homesick while we’ve been gone, but when I talk to you on the phone you’ll say, “Mama, I need to see you.” Well, I need to see you too, angel. For now, sleep well, and know I love you, and I’ll see you soon.