3 years

How has it been 3 years already? It feels like I've known this little girl for my entire lifetime...or at least half.

Lillian Jeannette. My girl. My most traumatic birth story. My most difficult baby and toddler (so far). My singer. My pretend play master. Miss Independent with a mommy-girl streak in her. The only baby to say Ma-Ma before Da-Da (that's right...I remember...and I'm keeping score). Miss Opinionated. Stubborn. Dramatic. Hilarious. Endearing. Ticklish. Oh so ticklish. Tough. Occasionally cuddly.

My Lily. How I was terrified of having a girl. How I thought that I would be a terrible mother to a girl. But, of course, you are MY girl after all. You don't care about clothes or dressing up. Although you are the first to compliment someone else on their outfit. You love dolls and playing house, and pink is your very favorite color, but you also like to pick up bugs and wrestle and fart. And talk about your bootie. But I really blame Andrew for some of those things, not myself. We love to do things together, "Just the girls", but we so rarely get time to do it. I love snuggling with you at bedtime and reading books with you and being Daisy to your Minnie. I love watching you color your faces (her latest thing) and make your Cheerios talk to each other and listening to the long stories you make up (the latest is the spooooky woods story). I love your invented songs and your sweet compliments towards others and how you stick up for yourself and when you show me your moves.

You are so different than your brothers. So far you are the most challenging, but I welcome that challenge. You have only been here for 3 years, but you have such a big chunk of my heart all to yourself. I love you and can't wait to see all that you do this next year....there will be battles fought and new skills learned, new independence tested and experiments tried. And I hope we survive it, you and me. Nah, I KNOW we will.

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Three!