Monday, January 25, 2010

Happy Birthday, Baby! Allison is 3!!

My sweet little baby isn't a baby any longer - she is a full blown preschooler! Although she tells me "Beeb (Melanie) is big; I am little." What a wonderful little girl we've been given.
This is a Hawley tradition dating back a few years - squirting whipped cream straight out of the bottle into little mouths. Allison's head jerks back in surprise every time but she keeps asking for more! (Sorry for the blurry picture; it's an action sport.)

Allison got paint for her birthday, which was probably her favorite gift. Our birthday celebration immediately turned into a painting party and a lot of beautiful finger painting commenced.

Allison seemed thrilled at the feel of the paint (she is so texture oriented), and the fact that I would let her get so messy.

What a wonderful day. At 6am, Allison came into our room (as usual) and when we said, "Happy Birthday!!" she said, "The Goodsons are coming over?" I said yes, and then she said we had to go downstairs and clean the house for the Goodsons. That family room was perfectly tidy by 6:30am, waiting for those Goodsons who weren't coming over until 7pm. Allison's version of cleaning meant shoving everything that was in the family room into the dining room, which was fine since we had a couple of hours to fill until the party started.

Allison's birthday consisted of going to Ikea to play and going swimming at the YMCA, with pizza for dinner.

My favorite things about Allison right now:
She says prayers all by herself, and always includes her list of friends: Minta, Reese, Kyler and Caleb. Every night in her prayers, she says, "Please bless Daddy can get a job so Beeb and I can get a pretzel at the Y, and Mommy can drive us there."

She loves to be held. And every time I come home from activity, she says, "Hi Mom! How was your exercise class (or wherever I was)?" And then, "Were your friends there?"

She loves textures, loves to explore through touch. One day we were driving by City Hall and there is a big fountain outside with water flowing down it. She said, "Ooooooo, I want to *taste* it!"

She knows how to say things like, "Melanie and I" when it's appropriate. She knows the letters of the alphabet. She knows how to count (finally!) by pointing at each object and giving it only one number. She still gets stuck after 11, counting like this: "...8, 9, 10, 11, 8, 9, 10!"

When we got a new and fuzzy rug in the family room, she fell to the floor and just rolled and rolled on the carpet, rubbing her face and any exposed skin on it. She does the same thing in the sand at the beach.

She is tremendous at expressing her big feelings - a huge wonderful smile, loud raucous laughter, and big loud screams. Recently at preschool there was a yelling contest (not at my house, of course) and the mom was surprised at how loud Allison was. I wasn't, but I'm glad that she reserves that for home.

Allison is a great big spirit in a little tiny body, and it will be exciting to witness her growing up. I'm so lucky!!

1 comment:

Christina said...

I can't believe she's 3!!! It's fun to hear what she can do now. What a great girl. Make sure she saves a slot on her date card for Isaac. :)