Makayla turned 3

I have been meaning to describe my little girl now that she is 3-years old. Her hair is still just as blonde as can be and has the most beautiful ringlets that really show when it is humid out. She is over 39" tall and weighs 32 lbs. The doctor said her weight is a bit low for her age and her height is above-average. Makayla is a very good-natured child. She impresses everybody she meets by how easy-going she is. I can't count how many times people have told me how they can't believe how easily this child goes to bed at night. She very rarely throws a tantrum. She is able to tell me how she is feeling so we are able to work things out by just discussing the situation. She thinks very logically, so much so that it scares me how logical this 3-year old is. We had some issues with Makayla being sassy to me and Clay just over a month ago and we had to give Makayla her first time-out. She hasn't forgotten it and still refers back to that time and how she doesn't want to go into time-out. She is also much more outgoing than she was previously. There has been such a difference between how shy she was around her 2nd birthday to how she is now. She is still cautious, but not nearly as shy as before.

We have been going through some phases over the last couple of months. The first phase included Makayla waking up way too early in the morning. She would get out of bed anytime after 5:00am. This seemed to start when the days were getting longer and the sun was rising earlier. I used to tell her that it was still dark out so she had to go back to bed, but I didn't have that excuse anymore. There were some very early mornings for a few weeks, but she came out of this phase recently, and I can't say that I miss it.

Shortly after this phase ended, another started. The next one includes her being scared of having a bath. She would become irrational and scream when I would turn the water on in the tub. She didn't want too much water in the tub and she didn't want it too hot. I would try to distract her by turning the water on and then taking her into her room to get undressed for her bath. She would try to get out of my grip and run to the bathroom to turn the water off. I wasn't putting more than a couple of inches of water in the tub and I would prove that to her when we got to the bathroom, but she just didn't seem to trust me. I seem to think she might have been scared of losing her toys down the drain, but I have no idea how that relates to the water being too hot or too high. I explained to her that her toys couldn't fit down the drain the same as the toys couldn't get sucked up by the vacuum (which her sitter had to prove to her recently as she was having a similar reaction at her house when she would start the vacuum cleaner). This phase seems to be ending right now. Yay!! I'm sure there will be another phase to take this one's place, and I'm confident that we will conquer it as well.

Makayla found a mole on her arm. She is used to seeing them as I have many moles on my body which she used to call boo-boos until I explained that they don't hurt like a boo-boo does. She was so proud to be able to tell me that she had a "polka dot" like Mommy has.

Makayla is able to spell her name if you ask her, and now she is learning to write it. She can write all of the letters really well but she struggles with the K. She tells me that the K is "tricky".

Makayla has a little lump on the back of her neck. It showed up when the black flies came out in full force and she had some bug bites on her neck. I figured it would go away when the bites healed. But those bites healed and others have come and gone since then, but the lump is still there. It isn't an open sore, it isn't itchy and it doesn't bother her at all when I feel for it. Since it's been there for nearly a month, I thought it best to get it checked out by her doctor, so we have an appointment next week. Hopefully it's nothing to be concerned about.