Maya at 3 Years

Today we went for Maya's 3 year check up which seemed like the cue for another Maya update. She's very healthy and developing well.

Here are the current stats:

Weight: 31lbs (55th percentile).
Height: 37 inches (40th percentile).
Teeth: All baby teeth are accounted for. Hooray!

How to begin with the new Maya? She's become a true little kid. She's full of questions about everything. "What day of the week is it?" "Does that fruit have a pit?" "Who is your Mommy and Daddy?" "When you were little, did you go to school?" She also loves to tell anyone who will listen the answers to many questions. "Did you know that today is Monday." "Cherries have pits. You can't eat the pits." And then for fun she decides, "Only monsters can eat pits." In her mind, it's very important for every rule to have an exception. "Mommy and Daddy went to school when they were little too." Talking with her is always fun and always exhausting.

She's really starting to have a bigger view of the world. She understands where we live and how it relates to other places. She's fascinated with the various states and knowing who lives in what state. She's also more aware of cities and streets and can correctly say her address. A favorite game is to make up silly addresses like "245 Banana Peel Street." Hilarious! She knows the three main bridges in our area and has decided to refer to them without using the word "bridge." She calls them "the Richmond," "the Golden Gate," and "the Bay." She has a great memory of who we saw where and what we did with them.

She loves being active and exploring. She's very good at riding her tricycle and she's having fun trying to play sports like baseball and soccer. She loves playgrounds and will frequently tell me to stay back so she can go make her own friends. We've started doing a bit more hiking now that we are in the North Bay and she is liking going into the woods and looking for animals. She likes gardening and is fascinated with the ants and bees.

She's very silly and likes to make "jokes." She loves talking and playing with anyone. She's become extremely social. Pretending is getting more advanced with longer storylines and more interesting scenarios. She's been collecting all the cars from Pixar's Cars movie and she loves having them do all sorts activities including some very interesting marriages. She also has a little mushroom house with some fairies and they get enjoy flying around the room and hiding under her potty. The fairies names are Maya, Maya, and Chewy (named by her of course). She also loves cooking in her kitchen or playing restaurant games. She is also just starting to understand how to play board games and loves playing Candyland and Chutes and Ladders.

Her love of music is unending. Favorite songs are the "Inception" trailer song, Beethoven's 5th, and the "Back to the Future" theme. I wonder why? She identifies the instruments in songs and likes to do her own conducting. We've been letting her watch scenes from a few kids movies these days (especially as a potty training bribe). She loves "Cars" and "Bambi" (she hasn't seen the part where the mother dies yet). She is beginning to get afraid more often and mentions that some stories have "scary parts" which we end up avoiding or discussing. She loves books and now has a few memorized. She will frequently sit by herself now and thumb through the books and tell them to an invisible person. She's starting to understand how words work and will spell "Maya," "Mommy," "Daddy," and "Zoo." Drawing is becoming more advanced with her trying to draw objects more often and trying to make fuller compositions. It seems like she is definitely starting to favor her right hand and will likely be right-handed.

It's interesting to be moving out of the fundamental areas of early development. Her eating and drinking are pretty established. She can be picky some days and not picky others, but for the most part she's able to eat what we do and likes a wide variety food. Potty training is pretty much done. After a long period of potty anxiety, it seems that she is okay with the whole thing now. She only wears a diaper at night now and has had relatively few accidents. It is so nice to use so few diapers these days. Her reliable afternoon nap is starting to break down. We are noticing that she is staying up later and later on the days she has naps and can handle the days with no naps better than she could before. We are trying to hold out a little longer, but I think the nap will soon disappear. Yikes!

It seems like we've hit a pretty significant milestone in her development at three. She's just about to start pre-school. She's much more of a companion and an active participant in everything we do and it's possible to do so much with her now. It's strange to see her as a person who is having her own independent experiences in the world. As parents, we are really feeling the very first instances of letting go. Our little girl is growing up fast.