Letter to Lucia: 40 Months

Dear Little One,

How funny you are these days. Full of funny voices and funny dances and funny walks. You find silly things hilarious, like making up nicknames for Greta—“Hi, Banana Pie! Hi, Chocolate Pie! Hi, Wall!” Few things make you laugh as much as screaming and laughing with your sister.

It’s not all fun and games, of course. You’re three. You’ve always had hoarding tendencies, which are becoming more pronounced now that Greta wants some toys as well. I thought I could avoid such squabbles by making sure I had great quantities of things, like Squinkies; when there are so many Squinkies, obviously there are enough for everyone. Not so. You now want all the Squinkies. You want both spinning flashlights. Greta got a pink corduroy cat from Gra and Pop-Pop for Valentine’s Day—she’s coveted your beloved cat for a while—but now you want her cat and yours. There seems no way to win this. Perhaps there never will be.

You seem very self-aware these days, and clear about your feelings. When I left you and Greta with a sitter last week, you told me, “When you leave, I will cry for a few minutes. I will play in my room, and then I will come down.” The sitter said you did exactly this. A minute or two of crying in your room when I left, and then you came down and had fun the rest of the time.

Mature as you can seem, you remind us now and then that you are, indeed, three. I’d been letting you have a highlighter and paper during Quiet Time, but this week I went into your room and discovered that you’d drawn all over your walls. With highlighter. Not washable. As soon as I gasped, you burst into hysterical tears, threw yourself into my arms, and said “I’m ssoooorrry, Maamaaa.” Heartbreaking strategy, child; how could I yell at you when you’re wailing with remorse?

Quiet Time continues to be more or less successful. You always instruct me to go into my office, NOT downstairs, and now and then you’ll wander in to ask a question or ask if Quiet Time is over. You always whisper, and you walk on tiptoes up and down the hallway. You’re kind of like a little ghost, often wandering into my bedroom without my knowing it to sip from a water glass on my nightstand or swipe a lipgloss. You go to the bathroom by yourself during Quiet Time—I hear you rattling around, putting on the potty seat and pulling over the stool. Sometimes you do funny things, like show up in the doorway only in your underwear and whisper-announcing that you’d decided to change your underwear into different ones.

You’re drawing faces now, with smiles and frowns. You can write C, D, G, L, M, O, T, U, V, W, and X. You are alarmingly adept at the iPad. More than anything, you love playing with your “tiny foods”—eraser foods that come apart (of course) into a million pieces. Your favorites are the desserts—donuts, cakes, a cupcake. You love Cinderella and are alarmingly fixated on the prince. “I want to see the prince,” you say as soon as the movie starts. “Where’s the prince?” You like laying out a blanket on the floor and calling it a beach, arranging toys on it, and going through elaborate routines of swimming away from whales and sharks. Creating “setups” continues to be more or less your primary way of passing the time.

Three is fun.

Favorite toys/activities: tiny foods, play food, Squinkies, wands, blocks, jumping in mud puddles, a stuffed manatee, your doll

Favorite books: Sheila Rae the Brave, Chester’s Way, Where Is Coco Going?, I Spy