3 1/2 Year Old Maia

I stopped doing monthly updates of Maia a long time ago, and I didn't really do a great job of doing a proper update on Maia when she turned 3 in May (chalk it up to having a newborn around, will you?).  I've been thinking about how Maia is changing and growing, and I haven't really been documenting it at all.  Because of that, I'm going to do a proper update now. I know these are probably super boring for anyone else, but I love having a record of all of this, so feel free to skip it altogether!  :)

Food and Drink:
--Maia likes to eat, and really likes helping to choose her meals.  Perhaps I'd say she's a bit picky, but it's more about what she's in the mood for rather than what she likes and doesn't like.  We try not to accommodate after we've already prepared something, but we'll often take her suggestions before we make a meal.
--Maia loves helping me bake and cook.  She can crack an egg into a bowl, stir without spilling (usually) and dump measured dry ingredients into the mixing bowl for me.  She has a relatively short attention span, so we usually have to work pretty quickly or I lose my assistant.  :)

--She likes fruit (bananas and berries are favorites). When asked what her favorite fruit is, she said, "I love every fruit!"
--I just asked Maia what her favorite food is, and she said, "I like to eat raisins.  My favorite food is raisins!"  This could be because there is a bowl with some yogurt-covered raisins on the table, so it was the first thing she thought about.  :)
--Maia is not a fan of vegetables if she is choosing what to eat.  She has no real problem eating green beans (even though she'll tell you she doesn't like them), and she says corn is her favorite vegetable.  She doesn't really like peas, although she'll attempt to try most vegetables if she's presented with them.
--She loves yogurt of any kind.
--She likes snacks, of course, and will always eat crackers.  She likes cheese, and peanut butter and granola bars.

--She doesn't like drinking milk, but she always drinks water.  We don't really give her juice, but she does like orange juice when she can get it (rarely).  Sugar-free Kool-Aid or Crystal Light are also favorites when it's warm out.
--Maia is pretty good with a fork and spoon, but still wants to use her hands since it's quicker and easier.  It can sometimes be a battle, but we do ask her to use her utensils.
--She's been enjoying having a booster seat in a big chair at the table.  I think she feels more like a big kid, since Sam is the one in a high chair.

Sleep:
--Maia is sleeping in her own room, in her big bed.
--She sleeps with a night light on, and doesn't seem to be afraid of the dark at all.
--She likes her stuffed animal, Violet, to play "goodnight music" for ten minutes after we shut the lights off and say goodnight.  Violet turns off on her own after that time, so it works well.
--Maia usually sleeps sideways in her bed, with her head on her moose PillowPet (a gift from Marin), but she does make the choice to sleep with her head on a regular pillow, sleeping the "regular way" in bed about once a week.
--We start the bedtime routine around 6:45.  We go upstairs, brush teeth and go to the bathroom, get jammies on, and read two or three books.  Maia insists on having her hair brushed before she sleeps (because I told her once that if she doesn't brush her hair it'll get knots in it, and that completely freaked her out), so we'll do that.  She likes her green Nalgene waterbottle (a gift from my friend Kathy) to be full, so we'll fill that up if it needs it.  We then turn on her fan, blow "flying smooches" from the door, and say goodnight.
--After that, one of two things happens.  She might just say goodnight and quietly go to sleep.  OR, she might start yelling requests and protesting our taking leave.  And then scream and scream and sob loudly until we go back in (which we have recently stopped doing), or until we let her cry herself to sleep.  That second option is super fun, let me tell you!  Luckily, Sam doesn't seem impacted by her racket.
--Maia will sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, calling for me because she had a bad dream.  She can often tell me what the dream was about if I ask her, and it's usually stuff like spiders or bears, or being lost.  She's pretty easy to get back to sleep after that, luckily.  I've also heard her talking in her sleep, although it's tough to make out what she's saying.
--Maia sleeps decently late in the morning, which is nice when Sam also sleeps.  She's always up by 7:30, and is more likely to be up around 7:00 or so if we let her sleep.  I usually have to wake her up at 6:30 or so on Joy's days.
--Maia doesn't nap at home anymore.  She has "quiet time" in her room where she can play or read (she did fall asleep in her closet once) for about an hour.  It's really more for Brad and me, let's face it, but she actually really enjoys it, too.

Play:
--Maia LOVES anything pretend.

 Making lunch with her cousin, Cleary at Thanksgiving

Fishing from their boat!

--She likes making up and telling stories (which I'm always impressed have a real plot, with a conflict, a climax and resolution).  She wants us to tell her stories, which she insists always star a princess named Maia and a prince named Sam.  There's often a dragon who is mean, but then through a series of events, Princess Maia realizes that he just wants friends and she and Prince Sam decide to befriend him.
--Brad and I are often assigned roles out of nowhere, and for some reason I'm usually evil.  Like, Brad is the king and I'm the witch or I'm the evil stepmother.  Maia and I put on a full-out musical a few weeks ago, where I was a witch who was mean.  I sang a song about just wanting friends (it's a theme here in our house) and wishing people would be nice to me, and I did it mostly to make Brad laugh.  But then Maia came into the kitchen and started singing to me about how she would be my friend and we could live happily ever after.  We finished with a duet about being friends and being nice to everyone.  It was great stuff, let me tell you!  :)
--Maia still really loves books.  She will sit and read them herself for a long time, and is loves picking out which books we'll read at bedtime.  She has the majority of books we own memorized, and it always shocks me how much of any given book she can recite word-for-word.  She's been into The Lorax lately, and one night when I sighed, "Man, that's kind of a sad book!" at the end, she informed me that it's really about making sure we're nice to trees and protecting them.  I stood corrected.  :)

--Music is important in our house, too.  Maia has a great ear for music, and often recognizes a song when she's only heard it once or twice.  She knows lyrics and will sing them, which is better than Brad!  :)
--Maia also likes watching TV.  We struggled at first whether or not to let her watch TV, but my god is it ever a lifesaver sometimes!  I will say that she gets very involved in the story lines, and we only let her watch shows for kids, obviously.  Some of her favorites include Kipper, Backyardigans, Wonder Pets, and He-Man (yes, Brad introduced her to He-Man.  She will often tell us that she's She-Ra, Brad is He-Man, Barney is Cringer, and I always have to be some random character like Orco or the Sorceress.  Bitter!)
--Maia just finished her first dance class, and she continues to take swimming lessons.  She was the youngest in her dance class and definitely struggled a bit to stay focused, but had a good time nonetheless.  She's a good swimmer, and has no problem whatsoever swimming with her face in the water.  She jumps in all by herself, and will go down to the bottom to try to get a ring.

Behavior:
--Whoever said three years old is a rough age, especially for girls, is no liar.  Maia is a handful; she's exuberant and energetic and engaged.  She's dynamic.  And that's awesome when she's behaving well and doing what she's supposed to do, and god-awful when she's being naughty or not listening.  She makes me more angry and frustrated than anyone or anything in the world.  And at the same time, I love her more profoundly and deeply than anyone or anything else in the world (with the exception of a certain bearded fellow in our house, and I don't mean Barney).  I know that other parents know exactly what I mean.
--Maia is surprisingly polite.  She says please and thank you without prompting (although she needs reminders sometimes to ask us nicely to do things, rather than commanding).  She has learned to say "Excuse me" when she wants someone's attention, and she'll often say it to random people in stores.  They're usually pretty surprised when she does it, and then when they look at her she has to come up with something to tell them on the spot because she didn't actually have anything planned to say.  Yesterday she showed everyone in an aisle of Target her snack:  "Excuse me, woman.  I have fruit leather!"

"Excuse me, Sam.  Will you please stop pulling tufts of hair from my head?  Thank you."

(I think this is one of my favorite pictures from Thanksgiving--my mom is kind of shocked, Sam is hyper-focused on his grip, Maia is whimpering, and I just stand and take pictures.  Mother of the year, folks!)

--We use time-outs when she needs them.  Lately, she gets them for not listening or for hitting (she will give us a very light slap on the arm sometimes when she's REALLY mad).  We'll put her time time out, she'll scream and tantrum for a few minutes, but she won't get up.  Then, after 3 or 4 minutes, we'll go get her, she'll apologize and we'll talk about why she got a time-out.  It seems to be effective, but it doesn't stop me from wanting to shake her silly sometimes!
--Maia likes to make deals with us.  She bargains with us whenever she can.  "Mama, I have a deal for you..." In a way, it's good because it teaches her to compromise.  She definitely doesn't always get her way, though!  :)

New Sister Update:
--Mo continues to be a very loving and patient big sister.  I have never, not even once, seen her act in a mean or otherwise unpleasant way towards Sam.  She tries to cheer him up when he cries, sings songs to him and talks to him to make him smile and laugh, and even plays games with him.  She is patient when we need to tend to Sam's needs, and she has asked about getting some more brothers or sisters (sorry, kiddo, you're out of luck!).  From the way he looks at her and wants to see what she's doing all the time, I have a feeling Sam feels the same way about Maia.  :)

See?  She even shares her stickers!  :)

(I came around the corner to find this scene and had to grab the camera)

Overall, Maia is a fantastically fun and challenging kid, and I wouldn't have it any other way.  I tell her sometimes that when I pictured what I hoped my daughter might be like, Maia is exactly what I wanted--and that's absolutely true.  Minus the whining.  ;-)