Three Year Old Belén

How is this sweet girl three already. !?!?!?!?

It's like she woke up one day and was like, "What the hick!?" (How she says it, not me). "I'm a kid!"

And she is. She is such a sweet, goofy, independent, mischievous, loving, smart, fun kid. One who always asks for the banana peel to be left on "cause it to dicky." (she'll get that s sound down one of these days). 

Me: "Let's do a human kiss. Muah. Now an Eskimo kiss (rub noses). Now a butterfly kiss (flutter eyelashes). All done."

B: "Now do a hair kiss!!" 

She then bowed her head and told me to do the same and we smacked the top our heads together and you'd better believe our hair kissed.

She LOVES coloring and goes through coloring books faster than I can supply them. Luckily, she'll happily color the not as nice mom-made coloring pages as well. 

When she isn't coloring, you can find her drawing these adorable potato people. This one has a hat :).

 Belén has a strange obsession for playing with toilet paper, paper towels, scotch tape, and diaper wipes. I discovered the latter one day after quiet time was done. I walked in to her room to find her behind her curtains with a HUGE pile of diaper wipes that had been freshly pulled from the case. She showed me how she wiped the windows with them and then how she would clean her face and arms with them. We now are more cautious of where we leave diaper wipe cases, but if she ever gets her hands on one, she'll grab one or two and start wiping off her dolls or ask if she can wipe my face. She often does the same with paper towels. The scotch tape she likes to use as band aids for herself or her dolls. The toilet paper works best as blankets for her dolls.

She has been asking for MONTHS when it would be her turn to do swim lessons like Shae, and her big day finally came. She has done so great in her first two lessons. Her favorite part is getting to jump in the pool at the end. She is slowly putting her face in the water (really just her mouth). She really hates getting water in her ears so it might take awhile (she always folds her ears over in the bathtub when we wash her).

She wore her goggles around all day in anticipation of her first lesson.

Me talking to Belén: "Thanks babe!" 

 Belén: "Me not babe! You babe! Daddy babe!"

Hoping she will someday grasp the right subject pronoun there. But for now we hear lots of sentences like, "Me not four, me three" and "Me be Elsa." Some days it really seems like she's figured out the "I" and other days it's back to "me." 

Almost in unison with the "amen" in prayers, Belén will point out that "Shae has his eyes open!" 

Me: "How much do you love me?"

Belén: "Hhhhmmmm, I sink, 2....24." 

Me: "We are going to take the highway now."

Belén: "But mom, why we no take the low way?"

 Belén is going through a stage where she has to be naked to use the bathroom. All the clothes, every time, on the floor. Once she is naked she will jump on the potty and without fail point at the towel across from her and say "The green towel name Shae, shut the *grunt* door." Same thing. Every time.

She must just be going through that naked toddler stage since this is usually how I find her playing with her dolls. I'm confident that if ballerina Barbie and swim Barbie didn't have clothing painted on them that they would be naked too.

She does not usually take her first potty break until 1 or 2 in the afternoon. So crazy to me since when Shae was that age, he went just about hourly.  Little hidden talent of hers.

None of her teeth touch. ZERO. 

She has never been as attached to things while sleeping as Shae, but we went ahead and got her a big fuzzy blanket at the same time that we got Shae one to replace brown blanket. It was definitely needed since she was sleeping with a little square baby blanket that she has outgrown.

She also, out of the blue, asked "where that orange cat I sleep with?" She slept with her kitty cat, Tabby, for a long time after she got it her first birthday. It's the closest thing she's ever become close to being attached to, but then awhile back decided she'd rather not sleep with stuffed animals. It was sweet to see her reconnect with her kitty.

She was also so excited to bring it to Shae's school on cat day. They've been doing a month of animals at his school and the teachers have been so sweet and let Belén stay once a week to play as well. She is in heaven. I overheard her as I dropped her off last week say to another girl in the class, "Jane, you play family with me? I be the mommy." 

I just love how full on in to pretend play she is. Introducing me to the imaginary king next to her, pretending that I am Pocahontas' father and announcing to me that she is going to use her arrows to get the dragon, grabbing the silverware basket from the dishwasher and telling me to be granny and "Me be little red, here my basket of bread and donuts." 

We got her some jelly shoes and the first few times she wanted them on she could never remember what they were called and called them her Peanut Butter shoes instead. Close. 

 There are so many days when I feel like Belén’s sole purpose in life is to find my breaking point (like putting stamps all over the side table, getting in to the fridge and somehow opening the hot dog bag and getting hot dog juice all over the floor, scaling the pantry for whatever she pleases, running away and hiding in her closet with my phone turned to Netflix, taking her coat and shoes off before leaving the house while I run to grab my purse, scrubbing the tub with our toothbrushes...the list goes on and on). And while I often don't know how much more of her I can take, thankfully that is just one side of her. The other side is cuddly and sweet. She loves to give me hugs and if I sit down to play with her, she is in heaven. She will give me a check up as my doctor, read books to me as a librarian, and dance for hours as we perform together. She loves when either Darin or I play dolls with her, always telling Darin, "Use you girl sounds when you play." She loves building things with the magnatiles (we love this toy so much, but man it causes a lot of arguments in our house over breaking each other's creations and there aren't enough to play together, blah blah blah all day long). Anytime I am in the kitchen she will grab a chair and pull it right in to cook with me. The past few Sundays she has asked Darin to nap with her (the only day that she actually does nap), so he curls up in bed with her to nap. She has fallen asleep with me a few times on the couch too and it is just the best thing (and also VERY rare).

We love this little Belencita girl so much.