(3 years) A day doesn’t go by that I notice Emily doing something new. She has started to communicate at a different level and loves to pretend in play and conversation. I thought the changes at age 2 were significant, but age 3 has brought even more. She loves to notice things and points them out. She has been pointing out all signs that have symbols like Robby’s car does. She will say, that is like Daddy’s car. She just started doing the same for my car and last night pointed out the symbol from her Grandpa’s car and said “that’s like Pa-Pa’s car”. I thought this was astounding because we haven’t see Pa-Pa’s car since fall. We also discussed the shapes of clouds and she told me that the cloud she was looking at looked like a sidewalk.

(18 months) Julia is starting to assert herself. She tells Emily with screams and squeals when she doesn’t want to be touched (which is just about all the time). When Emily is not with us, she is quick to request to ride in Emily’s carseat with a please and impassioned pointing. She expresses a lot of displeasure yesterday at having to wait for her bath while Emily had a turn to take hers first. She put a puzzle together matching all the pieces to the spots; even though, we don’t spend much time working on that. The pieces didn’t fit up, but I was pleased she took the interest to put it together. I loved watching Julia try to sit in Emily’s lap the other day. She kept backing up and plopping down in Emily’s lap and then while Julia would get situated Emily would move and Julia would do it again.

I can only imagine what they will do tomorrow that will astound me.

We had a real picnic of goldfish. The girls were so good to share and take turns. They loved the idea of a snack picnic. I’m surprised they haven’t asked to have another one. There was a little dress-up play before our snack – the jewels and tutu were just leftovers. Fun, fun, fun!!

Emily’s favorite new game is to play picnic. She packs a ‘cooler’ with items and then carrries it to a blanket she has put out. She then opens up the cooler and starts to put out her lunch. Sometimes she invites others to join her. She decides what people are going to eat and assists them with condiments. It has been fun to watch. Julia loves going to the picnics too and helping to unpack the cooler when her sister lets her.

I can remember playing in my mother’s closet and my favorite shoes to pull out and try on were her high heels. Emily discovered mine in the closet and couldn’t decide if I should wear them that day or if she should. As it turned out neither of us did. I think we both had a good time with her discovery of my shoes.

Emily is also showing off the stickers that she had stuck to herself the previous day. I think it was her way of having bandaids like her sister had. Julia’s bandaids were easier to take off than Emily’s stickers. She enjoyed looking at them and showing them off until we removed them.

As an independent, toddler bed sleeping, three-year-old we have found naps to not be a certainty. Somehow, when you mix the carseat and mid-afternoon, we get our naps in.

The girls have been taking swim lessons. Emily is in her own level I class and Julia and I are taking a “Mommy and Tot” class together. I was fortunate and they are teaching the two classes at the same time so we all can participate.

Emily has been doing really well. Previous to this class she would swim with water wings, so this class has been a lot of getting used to how her body feels in the water without a flotation device. She has been very willing to try new things. With the help of her teacher and a buoy she swam the length of the pool and back, she has swum under the lane divider, she will bob her face in and out of the water, and she is having a lot of fun. I asked Emily what her favorite thing to do in the pool is and she said to hold the side of the pool with her hands and feet.

Once Julia gets used to the temperature of the water she is having a good time with Mommy. We sing songs, bob in and out of the water, practice holding to the edge of the pool, throw and swim to balls, put our face into the water, and get dunked once each lesson. She hasn’t gotten fearful of the water yet and is enjoying all the water. One of her favorite things to do is to look for Emily in the next lane. This past week she actually saw Emily kicking her feet while swimming and Julia imitated the kick motion. Her other favorite thing to do in the pool is to throw and fetch a ball.

We are hoping to have a lot of opportunities to practice what we are learning this summer in the pool!