Look at ME ME ME, I'm THREE, THREE, THREE!!!!

Pre-reading music note: I KNOW it's painful--the Barney song you are hearing at this very moment. But I couldn't help it. At age three we were smack in the middle of our Barney years. We saw him twice a day on most days. I know lots of mommis are anti-Barney because they can't stand the big purple guy--but I'm a fan and a Barney-believer!! They learned so many fun songs, games, and respectful ways to treat people from watching Barney. They'll still watch it from time to time. But hearing the songs takes me back to age three most of all.

You'll notice how talented this momma is in the kitchen in the picture of the cakes below!! That's as fancy as cakes have been at this house on birthdays!! The kids iced and "sprinkled" these themselves. On this third birthday we had their first "friends" birthday party. They had a Blues Clues theme with Blue and Magenta. A handful of other mommies stayed to help at the party. Thank goodness!! It seemed like a crowd, although the number of friends invited was only a small fraction of the next two years parties to come!!

Three is a really cute age. It's a great age for having eye-opening conversations with kids, and funny to hear them get words and ideas all mixed up. At age three Ellie kept telling us she saw a "hop-grasser". And Logan saw Darin's cooked oatmeal and asked if he could have some "granola bar soup". So funny!!

Logan started at the school district early learning preschool as soon as he turned three. It just about killed me to put my little tiny guy on a SCHOOL BUS!!! I said no way was he riding the bus. But the first day when I went to pick him up he was having a royal fit because all the other kids got to get on the bus. So...yep...I let him get on and I followed the bus to our house. He rode it from then on.

I did Joy School with Ellie the year she was three. She gave the other moms a little bit of a run-for-their-money in the beginning. But the experience was so good for her and she learned a lot from being around the other kids and moms. The kids also started swimming lessons the year they were three. Logan had no fear and was jumping off the diving board right from the start. Three is also the big year of starting primary. Luckily they had fabulous Sunbeam teachers and had a great first year in primary.

Three was the year they moved from being babies to being "kids". Which means the year they got a bit big to both be in the grocery cart--and I thought grocery shopping was hard when they were babies--pushing the double stroller and pulling the cart. Oh no, no--I had no idea how the challenge would increase once they were OUT of the cart!!! Since then I have always know the general vicinity they are in, which isle they are on, which rack the are under, etc. But I have also been known to act like I have no idea who they are!!! They ARE good kids, great kids!! But they do tend to forget they are good kids when they are in stores. I guess I can't blame them. The amount of time they have spent in stores is gigantic--and they have to entertain themselves somehow!!

Right at about age three we moved them out of their highchairs. More than any of the other large baby gadgets to go, I was most sad about the highchairs. I don't know why, since feeding time wasn't my favorite time of the day. But I bawled much when we moved those chairs to the basement. They were "big kids" now, sitting at their own little table on their own little chairs, in the kitchen. We also moved them from their cribs to their toddler beds right around this time. We were lucky parents because never once did they try to get out of their cribs--so we kept them in the cribs forever. The toddler bed stage didn't last long, because they kept falling out, or half their body would be dangling off the side. Big twin-sized beds entered the picture.

They just went and flew past the infant, baby, and toddler stages before I even knew what was happening!!! My "little guys" were three years old!!!