There were days during the time from 18 months to 3 1/2 that I was ready to send LG back where she came from. Okay, not really, but you know what I mean. She tried my patience. A lot. Now, I want to be truthful here, because I’ve seen other kids that age that are just normally thousands of times worse than she was at her worst moment, but those hard times are hard no matter what because you’re not used to them when they don’t happen that often. You know what I’m saying?

Anyway, in the last few weeks, there has been a marked change in her behavior. As in she has become unbelievably sweet. So sweet that I feel like I need to brush my teeth after I experience it. She says shes loves me. She says I’m her friend. She says, “I like you, Mommy.” She even said, “you’re the best in the whole wide world.” Holy cow. I knew motherhood would be awesome, but I never knew how awesome. And there were times during that terrible 2/trying 3 stage that I wondered if I’d live through it. But now that she’s nearing 4? I see this beautiful, sweet amazing little girl. This little girl that I just want to hug and hold on to and sometimes eat her up because she is just that yummy and sweet. And I wonder how I managed to help create this amazing little creature.

It’s not the big things in life that are the really good stuff. It’s not fancy computers and exotic vacations and fancy restaurants. Nope. The good stuff is the feel of a little hand in mine, a smile, a whisper, a little flutterby flitting throughout the house singing the songs she makes up. It’s hugs and kisses and saying prayers together and her asking to “snuggle up”. This next year is the last year that she’ll be home with me all day every day. And I’m going to enjoy all the good stuff - every minute of it. Because the good stuff is simple and beautiful and perfect. And I never forget how very lucky I am to have it.

Yesterday, Little Girl turned 3 2/3. How did this happen? How did my little premature baby, so tiny, get to be almost 4 years old? Ready to start her first “formal” dance class in a week. Going potty on the big toilet all by herself without any help whatsoever from the two of us. Telling me that elevator sounds like alligator. Talking to strangers and not being shy. Giving hugs to little girls she’s never seen before and probably will never see again at her dad’s mall gig. Playing ball with little toddler boys. Able to be amongst people she doesn’t know very well and chit chat and smile and not be clinging to my side every moment. Where did my baby go?

I was talking the other day to a friend about how I took the classes on child development, so I know what’s supposed to happen, but to actually see it unfold before my eyes is beyond amazing. She now tells me what certain signs say. “That’s says Target, Mommy!” or “That says PetSmart!” or “That sign says Stop, Mommy!” She’s “reading” and it’s a glorious sight to behold.

The other day, Mike gave her a stack of paint chips (you know the little pieces of cardboard you get with different colors of paint on them when you’re trying to decide what color to paint something), and she sat there and sorted them, so that all the different sizes were in their own piles. And yes, I know this is a typical thing for a 3 year old to do, but it’s the watching her do typical 3 year old things that blows me away, because I’ve never been able to watch a child develop before my eyes.

These are cherished moments, not because they’re earth-shattering, but because they’re simple and amazing. There is nothing more precious than watching your own child grow and develop and see how their awesome little brains work. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Here are some pictures from the past month… (Read on …)

Yay! I went to the eyeglass place this morning and got them to agree to replace the progressive lenses with single vision lenses. Of course that means I still don’t have my new glasses, but my old ones weren’t that bad, so I’ll live. Really the best advice I got at the original appointment was to use the Refresh Tears eyedrops. They have made a world of difference for me. I am still going to try and get them to refund me some money, but one step at a time.

After we left the eyeglass place, LG and I went to the mall to look at bedding because she is about to outgrow her toddler bed. We still have most of the pieces of the canopy bed I got when I was four years old, so we’re going to refurbish it and she’s going to have a canopy bed or a “castle” bed as she calls it. She’s very excited. The mall didn’t have much in kids’ bedding and zip in canopy bedding, so I’m still on the hunt for that. (I have found some online, so that will do if I don’t find anything else.)

After the mall, I decided that going to Macaroni Grill for lunch sounded like a good idea and after making sure that Rochelle was working, we headed that direction. As we were getting closer, LG announced she had to go potty. We were close to home, so I thought that would be the quickest place to stop, and then I realized we were passing our church, so I pulled in there and we ran inside to the bathroom. (Okay, actually I carried her because I figured that would get us there faster.) And YIPPEE!!!!!! not only did she make it, she went on the adult toilet for the first time. She and I both got a little freaked out about the fact that there was no soap in the church bathroom. *sigh* (Luckly, I had some hand sanitizer in the car.) She also had another dry pull-up this morning. So, even though I’m not quite ready to officially call training over, for all intents and purposes it is, and you probably won’t be reading about it here anymore. I think she’s passed all the tests now. ;)

Oh, and we did finally get to Macaroni Grill and have a very nice lunch!

Yay! for LG who (even though it took getting all three of us up twice during the night) got through the night with a dry pull-up! Now that doesn’t mean I’m ready to chuck the nighttime pull-ups all together, but we’re on the way. Hurray!

Boo! for my new glasses (with progressive lenses) which I just picked up and cannot see out of. Um yeah. Oh, wait, if I push them all the way down to the tip of my nose and hold my head at just the right angle, I can see. And if I turn my head instead of just moving my eyes to the side, I can see. But other than that? Can’t see. Get a headache with them on. Yes, I know there is a certain learning curve to wearing progressive lenses, but come on. I have a reasonable expectation that they’re going to be usable and these glasses are not acceptable. I don’t know if it’s because they didn’t get the lenses divided correctly, or if they just somehow screwed up my prescription, but the reading part doesn’t help me at all and it screws up the other part which actually works (if I’m in the exactly right position of coruse). I’ll be taking them back tomorrow and they WILL be making it right or they will be seeing the wrath of Karin. Not paying $400 for a piece of crap.

And how is your Monday? :P

It was an eventful weekend in HeartSongs land…

You know how they say that the plumber’s plumbing never gets fixed and the painter’s walls never get painted? Well the handyman’s house never gets finished either. But every once in awhile, I get frustrated and tell Mike I want this or that DONE already. Last week, it was the vanity in the master bathroom/closet area. So we started designing.

Saturday morning we had to go pick up Mike’s truck on the other side of town, so since we had to drive all that way anyway, we’d decided to stop in at Home Depot Expo and The Great Indoors and see what was out there. I have decided that I really want vessel sinks in the vanity because I just think they are cool. I think this sink is the one we’re going to go with because I had thought about doing coppery highlights in the bathroom area anyway and this seems like it will go with that idea. The sinks will be our splurge item, and everything else will be as inexpensive as we can get it, including tile. Mike wants to do 24″ tile for the countertop because it would only take 4 pieces. Luckily, he can lay tile himself and install all the stuff, so it’s just a matter of finding what we want and getting it in there. In the meantime, I’m working on cleaning out the closet and vanity area so that he can get started!

I had written a song a few weeks ago called “Eat This Bread” for church. I wasn’t planning on writing a song that weekend, but something compelled me to walk to the piano and hit a G chord and it flowed out from there - first the chorus and then the verses the next day. I even managed to figure out the chords myself - and usually I have to have Mike do it. He changed the melody of the second line of the verse, but other than that, the song is all mine and I’m pretty proud of it! Anyway, we did it at our mass a couple of weeks ago - the week the other music director was filling in for Mike - but this week the other choirs did it at the other masses as well. And it was a hit! I got a lot of nice comments about it from different people, but the biggest compliment of all is that people were singing along with it. I love writing singable songs. And I love that I was able to write a communion song. I’ve been wanting to do that for awhile. (And Marlene, I’m sorry we’ve done it the weeks you haven’t been there and you haven’t heard it yet!)

Speaking of writing songs, last weekend I wrote a song called “Giggle” for LG. I’ve been trying to write a song for her for a long time, but I kept going the mushy serious route and I could never get it right. But after hearing “Bubbly” the other day, I decided I’d like to write a happy bubbly type song and “Giggle” flowed out. She loves it and sings it with me and I love it because it is exemplifies what I feel about her.

Yesterday LG and I got to go see Social Butterfly’s dance recital. She danced beautifully! It was interesting watching the other groups dance. They all do the moves correctly and are technically good, but there are girls who had “it”, who just make it look so easy and effortless and then there are girls who don’t. SB is one of those who make it look effortless - especially in hip-hop. I’m not the biggest hip-hop fan, but it is so much fun to watch her dance hip-hop! The Princess danced in the next show, but we had to get to church, so I wasn’t able to be there for it. I’m sorry I missed it, but we did get to see her dress rehearsal earlier in the week and of course she was the best one! :)

LG did pretty well sitting there for 3 hours (there was an intermission at least), but about a quarter of the way into the 2nd half she started to get wiggly and antsy. She is not one to sit still for very long, so I know it was tough for her, but she was quiet for the most part - just wiggly. Then she managed to bump her head on the arm of the seat and started to cry. I was in the middle of the row so I had to weigh which was going to make more ruckus - sitting there and calming her down or trying to get out with her in tow. In the end, I finally got her calmed down in the seat, but she was tired so she whined a little bit more than usual. But you still cringe inside when stuff like that happens because the last thing you want is to be one of “those” parents.

So, it was a busy weekend, but a lot of fun!

Since my mom is no longer with us, we tell LG that her Grandma L (Mommy’s mommy) is in her heart.

Today she told me that her grandma has “a bed and a blanket and a pillow and she’s sleeping inside my heart!”

I think I like that picture. :)

I thought I should record, for posterity, the fact that LG had her first full day with no accidents of any kind whatsoever in the potty training department. Hurray!

“I’m a good girl.  I’m not in trouble.  I’m okay.”  It almost always means she’s been doing something she wasn’t supposed to and she’s probably in trouble.  But it’s pretty endearing anyway. ;)

Earlier today I was eating some ice cream and LG came over and sat next to me and proceeded to open her mouth like a little baby bird going “ah ah ah”, which is her not so subtle way of asking me for a bite. Sucker that I am, I indulged her, giving her the bites with the chunks of cherry in them that I don’t like anyway, and keeping her happy until it was all gone. She then looked at me, and I swear I could see a halo, wings and an ethereal glow as she smiled and said, “Thank you for sharing your ice cream with me, Mommy.” And you show me one person in the world whose cold heart would not melt at that and I’ll show you the root of all the problems in the world today. Because if we just smiled and said please and thank you a little more often, we’d all be a lot better for it.

We got the opportunity to visit Mike’s mom at the hospital yesterday. It was hard seeing her down because she’s a lot like Mike - not one to sit around and not do all the time. As we were leaving the hospital, LG looked up at Mike and said, “I think Grandma will be all right. I think your mom will be all right, Dad.” The first time she’s really connected the fact that Grandma is her dad’s mommy. And I thought the fact that she was trying to comfort him was pretty precious. It’s amazing what they can process at the age of 3.

The news today is that they will be doing several surgeries to clear out all the clots in her leg. They were going to do the first one today, but there were no open slots, so they will be doing it tomorrow. I don’t know much more than that at this time, and I’m sure that the surgery will go well. But surgery is surgery and there is always a risk, so please keep sending those good thoughts and prayers.

LG has been really whiny this weekend and crying at every little thing. Around here we like to call it pre-PMS, because it seems like it happens about once a month, just like it happens for us grown-up girls.

Whining is probably my biggest pet peeve, and the one thing that I have zero tolerance for. It drove me nuts when my students did it and it drives me nuts when my daughter does it. It kind of makes me want to either lock myself in the bathroom with the radio turned all the way up and the shower on full blast, or it makes me want to scream at her to stop whining already! So far, I haven’t done either one of those things, but I have been trying really hard to get her to stop so that I don’t end up doing one of those things.

It’s days like these that you have to take a deep breath and remember why you’re doing this in the first place. I will be celebrating my fourth Mother’s Day in a few days after years of wondering if I’d ever celebrate Mother’s Day again after I lost my mom. I am blessed. Very very blessed. Whining or no whining, I’m so honored to have had a beautiful mother for as long as I did and to have a beautiful daughter now.

That beautiful daughter turned 3 years and 5 months old a few days ago and I managed to forget to post my monthly photo retrospective - I’ll just say it was a crazy week and leave it at that. But here are some photos from the last month - photos that remind me exactly why I’m doing this thing called motherhood.

When you become a mom, you learn how to celebrate the little triumphs. Like, take potty training for instance. We’ve not really been pushing it too much because she just doesn’t seem all that interested in it, and since there’s no particular reason to force the issue at this point in time, it didn’t seem like a battle that was worth fighting. However, she’s pushing 3 1/2, so the day is coming when the pull-ups go bye bye and I do laundry every day. Or something. We set the date for June 2 - after most of our major obligations are over until September. June 2, the day she turns 3 1/2, is the day we get rid of the pull-ups and use the Elmo and Curious George panties that are waiting patiently in her drawer.

But maybe, just maybe, it’ll happen sooner. I kept hoping that she might just train herself and I wouldn’t have to battle with her. And tonight? Out of the blue, as she was watching her favorite television show before bedtime, she said she needed to go potty. And since you’ve got to take every little opportunity to encourage these things, I said okay and took her off to the bathroom, even though I figured it would be another false alarm and she’d probably already gone in her pull-up. But what do you know? She hadn’t and she went in her potty chair. So, that means, she felt the urge to go and told me BEFORE she went. For the very first time ever. I’d say that’s a pretty big little thing. It sure made the ending of my day better than the beginning of it. (Which was waking up to my monthly visitor (which is not so monthly anymore) and the fact that my daughter had leaked out her pull-up all over my bed while I was trying to get a little extra sleep while she watched the Disney channel.)

This post brought to you by Too Much Information.

Yesterday our Little Girl turned three years and four months old, which I think mathematically puts us at 3 1/3. This past month has had some challenging moments, but mostly she continues to make us laugh and smile and love her more all the time. Here are some photos from the past month… (Read on …)

Thursday LG and I went to Target to get some candy for the church’s Easter egg hunt. (Of course, I bought several more things because it is impossible for me to just buy what I went in there for.) I told her she had to ride in the cart and she was not happy with me, so she “growled” at me. I told her that “we do not growl at people”. “But Melody growls,” she said. Good point, but Melody is a dog, LG is a girl, so no growling.

This continued throughout the day - LG growling whenever things didn’t go her way and me reminding her that “we don’t growl”. It did finally sink into her head by the end of the day and the growling went away.

Last night at dinner, Mike said or did something that irritated me, and I reacted with a “grrrr”. LG said, “Mama! Don’t growl!” Gotta love it. Called on the carpet by a three year old. ;)

Yesterday was LG’s first experience with dyeing Easter eggs. She pronounced it “fun” and after we had dyed our dozen eggs, Mike used the rest of the dye to make tie dye t-shirts. I have no idea how well they will hold up to washing and wearing, but it was pretty fun. Here are some pictures…

Ever heard of mittelschmerz? I hadn’t until today. It’s a medical term for “ovulation pain” or “midcycle pain”. Who knew?

I used to get pain in my ovaries on a fairly regular basis when I was ovulating, but I haven’t had any for years, so when I felt it last night, I was rather startled. It was gone when I woke up this morning, but decided to make a return trip while I was in the grocery store. It’s not excruciating, and it’s not really debilitating, but it’s not fun and it’s annoying. And it makes me want to just sort of lay in bed all day.

I did a little research and found out it becomes more common as you grow older. So I guess that means I’m doomed huh? Freaking ovaries. Only ever did one good thing for me my whole life. :P

By the way, so that I can end this post on a positive note, that one good thing is 3 years, 3 months, and 3 days old today. And when this picture was taken, she was 3 hours and 18 minutes as well.