Violet at Three

Violet had her three-year well-check this week, and all went very smoothly. She had one vaccine, and it was hard for me to believe how easy it was. I held her tightly, and she didn't even cry!

Size-wise, our pint-sized princess is barely clinging onto her spot on the height chart. At 34.5 inches, she is in the 5th percentile! I know she is several inches smaller than her same-aged (and younger) friends, and I know Stace and I are, um, diminutive ourselves, but wow. Ninety-five percent of 3-year-old girls are taller than Miss Violet.

Violet's weight of 28.8 pounds puts her in the 30th percentile.

Now, for some details on our 3-year-old.
Naptime has become a bit iffy with Violet. She still sleeps most days, but sometimes, she plays instead. Here, she made sure both lambies got a rest (with the basket she stole from the dresser), but she remained wide-awake.

Whether she sleeps in the day OR not(!), Violet has been falling asleep quite late into the evening. We'll put her down at 8, and she will still be awake and talking, playing, singing at 9:30 or even 10. Thankfully, she doesn't cry or demand much, and since she is alone in her crib, it's really not a problem. (Yes, crib - we haven't had any reason to move her into the toddler bed, and so we haven't. Maybe this summer...)

For several weeks, she was needing to use the toilet at least once, and often twice, after we'd left her at night. She actually would "go," but the routine was still tiresome, so last week Stace told her "no more." She hasn't been asking as much since that night.

She wakes up dry about half the time in the mornings, and has been day-trained since 2 years, 10 months.

See that gaping hole? Violet's days (or nights) of using a "night night" are over. Stace and I didn't even have to do anything to break a habit I thought would be much more difficult to end.

One non-napping naptime, she bit a hole in what I thought was her last dummy/pacifier. She went without for a day (with a lot of tears), and then I found another by her bed. A week or so later, she bit a hole in that one too, after lots of warnings that this was the last night-night, and wasn't she getting to be a big girl anyway???

She had no problems this time at all. She even said, "I'm a big girl, I don't need a night-night anymore," and was quite proud of herself.

That night, she also said she didn't want Seahorse (above) either, that it was "a baby thing." But we've kept that in the bed for her when she wants to play with it.

Our girl is a silly one. Here, she emerged from the bathroom with a new hat. "I have Minnie Mouse on my head," she said, in her husky, breathless, silly voice.

She also likes to get naked, especially when she's not-sleeping in her bed; several times when she was still "needing" to wee after lights-out, I went in to find her naked.
When I'd ask why she was naked, her answer was matter-of-fact: "Because I got my clothes off!"

She likes to make us laugh, and she laughs and smiles easily. Lately she also has been more defiant and slower to obey; we're keeping a close eye on this and hope to nip it in the bud.

She is a pretty girly little girl, much more so than Cora was at this age. She likes dolls, Calico Critters, fairies, bubbles and play-doh, and has begun to enjoy dressing up.

I still get the joy of realizing it's very quiet in the house, and finding her reading or playing with puzzles in her room.

She loves playing with Owen, Liana, Marley, and of course her kitties and Cora.

And she loves going to Ms. Diane's class; just another few weeks of My Buddy and Me, and then she'll be headed for the dropoff summer camp and "Terrific Tots" in the fall (both also with Ms. Diane).