Three Year Doctors Appointment

Hadley had her three-year doctors appointment this morning. Here are her stats from the appt:

Height: 37.25″ (50th percentile)

Weight: 32.4 lbs (60th percentile)

BMI: 160 (60th percentile)

Blood Pressure: 74/40
3 Year Appt
Hadley was VERY excited to come to her doctor’s appointment today. From the moment I told her about it this morning she has been asking for bubbles (which, I’m sure, the doctor uses to sneakily test things like coordination, dexterity, and physical abilities). Regardless of WHY he does it, she remembered and was looking forward to it.
3 Year Appt

We started the appointment with the nurse handing me the dreaded urine cup and asking me if I thought Hadley could get her a sample. We sat in the bathroom, Hadley perched on the toilet, me kneeling before her holding the cup between her legs. She flexed, pushed, and strained, but nothing came out. So the nurse gave Hadley some water to drink and asked us to try again before we left. No big deal. Then we went off to weigh, measure, and take her blood pressure. All good and normal. So she left to get the doctor.

He came in and started chatting away with Hadley. He asked her favorite color and she said, “Pink. Me and my mom like pink. But Ana doesn’t. She only likes green.” To which the doctor raised his eyebrows at me and I nodded in agreement. Then Hadley tacked on, “And my Daddy? He likes blue!” The doctor said it was great that she was so focused on detail and gave Hadley her first high-five of the appointment. Next he whipped out this little card with colored shapes on it and I instantly started to sweat. I had not prepped Hadley on shapes. Sure she knows the basics: circles, squares, and triangles; but this had pentagons, hexagons, and octagons. No way were we going to ace this. He asked her to point to the square and she pointed at the first square-ish shape she sees (I think it was the pentagon) and I know I have failed as a mother. Then he asks her to point to the circle then triangle, which she does. So he asks again to find the square. This time she gets it right. Then she points to the octagon, twists up her face, and says to the doctor, “I don’t know this one…but I think these are all in the same family.” and she points to the rest of the polygons on the sheet. He laughs out loud and says, “I think you are right!” Gives her another high five then nods at me and says, “She’s amazing.” Oh yeah. I may not have failed after all!!

Then he goes to check her nose, eyes, and ears. For the ears, he always meows when he checks in one ear and says he is looking for a kitty, then barks in the opposite ear, looking for a puppy. He made the cat sounds, then he and I started talking about something else while he checked her other ear and he didn’t make any animal sounds. Hadley stopped him and says, “That ear says ‘woof!'” The doctor paused, realized what she was telling him and said, “I can’t believe you remember that from last time!” This time she got a double high five!

We talked a little about if she was right handed and I said I was pretty sure she was. He asked if she could draw a circle and Hadley chimed in, “I can! I can draw a person!” so he busted out a sheet of paper and Hadley starts drawing a horizontal line. Then you could see that she remembered she was suppose to draw a circle (for the head) and she flipped the pen over in her hand and said, “Oh no! No eraser!” So he gave her a fresh piece of paper and she drew a circle (head), line (body), a couple legs, then went back to the circle, added a couple big circles connecting them with lines (glasses) and proclaimed, “That’s my Daddy!”

He finished up the rest of her physical exam, continually amazed at the things she was able to say, do, and recall from previous exams (I swear, much as I joke, I did not prep her for any portion of this appointment!). Then it came time to the physical test, jumping, hopping on one foot, then the other and Hadley was really excited because she knew the bubbles were coming. So the doctor filled the room with bubbles and let her dance around popping them.

Then he was finished and said he would send the nurse back in to give Hadley her flu shot. I knew we had a couple minutes so I took Hadley back to the bathroom and tried again for the urine sample. This time she totally did it! I thought she was going to fall off the toilet because she wanted to watch as she peed, for the first time ever, into a cup. Ahh the joys of having girls! Then Hadley didn’t even cry when she got her shot. Later she admitted, “That shot hurted, Mama.” but the nurse gave her a sticker and a sucker, so it was all instantly forgotten. All in all it was a very entertaining and successful annual exam. Can’t hate that!

A Letter: Thirty-six Months

Dear Hadley,
Last week you turned three years old. THREE. I am still in shock how quickly time has flown by. I feel like there is no possible way it could have been that long since I was pregnant with you, since you were born, learning to crawl, taking your first steps and then breaking your leg the next day, speaking in complete (and non-stop) sentences. The list of milestones completed over the course of those 1,095 days is far too numerable to mention. All those thing have happened in the blink of an eye yet are such impactful moments that they have dramatically shaped the person I am today. And I am so grateful for it.
Band-Aid Nose
We let you open a few gifts on the morning of your birthday. Then later in the day, when anyone would ask you if it was your birthday, you would say, “No. I already had my birthday at home.” You thought your birthday was literally opening gifts and didn’t understand that you got to celebrate ALL. DAY. LONG. Silly girl. Don’t worry, I’ll teach you how to maximize your birthday celebration.
Opening Gifts
We had your birthday party on Saturday… and I am still recovering. I don’t exactly do things half way and I tend to go a little overboard with details. Plus, your birthday is suppose to be all about YOU and I wanted it to be BIG because you are BIG. (You tell me this every day–except on days when you don’t want to be potty trained, in which case you tell me, “Mama, look at how tiny I am!”) So you picked the theme, Tangled (aka Rapunzel), and I ran with it. We had floating lanterns…
Hanging the "floating lights"
Pascal Cupcakes (green is happy, red is angry, and blue is melancholy)…
Pascal Cupcakes
Pascal party blowers where the blower was his little tongue…
Pascal party blower
Flynn Rider and Mother Gothel accompanied our Rapunzel cake as the table centerpiece…
Tangled Centerpiece
A long braid of “hair” (yes, I made it myself, and yes, it took forever) as the centerpiece for the kids table which acted nicely as a barrier to absorb all the spilled drinks from the “fancy glasses” you requested…
The Kids Table
Mini cast-iron frying pan party favors…
Frying Pan Favors
It was pretty awesome and it made you uncontrollably happy. So it was a win on all accounts.
Tangled Party Time
Hadley and her birthday cake
Normally I have a rule that we only have first birthday parties at our house. Once the kiddos are mobile we need to do them anywhere but here. The only reason I allowed us to have a party in our less-than-spacious abode was that we found a way to have the entertainment portion of the party outside of our house. Enter THE TUMBLE BUS.
The Tumble Bus
The Tumble Bus is this fantastic bus that has had all the seats removed and is filled with gymnastics equipment. So you and all your favorite friends were able to jump, swing, bounce, and well, tumble, but not inside my house. Genius. Everyone had a blast so we deemed the birthday a smashing success. So much in fact that Daddy and I enjoyed bottomless mimosas the following morning to celebrate the completion of such success.
Balance Beam
Jumping Girl
Earlier in the month we made our annual trek to the pumpkin patch and you loved it. You loved running though the corn maze holding hands with your best buddy, picking pumpkins straight from the vine, and all the fair-esque attributes like fresh kettle corn, caramel apples, and face painting.
I found my pumpkin!
Sparkly Bat Face
This year you were a monkey for Halloween. The costume was actually left over from when Ana was little (back when we still bought gender neutral costumes in case we ever had a boy) and ever since it came down from the attic in the 2/3T bin, you had your heart set on being a monkey. You were such a trooper at Trick-or-Treating too! You walked the entire time, carrying your own candy bag (shaped, of course, like a bunch of bananas), and when you weren’t too distracted by peoples costumes or decorations, you even remembered to use your manners. There were several times that we would be off the front porch and half way down then driveway when you would suddenly turn and run back to the house and shout “thank you!!” at their closed door. Better late than never!
Our Little Monkey
A couple weeks ago, while we were sitting around the table, doing “homework” (or rather Ana was doing homework while you colored on your dry erase paper) I asked you if you wanted to write your name. We had never tried, but a friend of mine had just posted about her child, who just started preschool, writing his name for the first time and I wondered what you could do. So I wrote your name slowly, in nice bold capital letters, telling you the name of each letter as I wrote it and asked you to write your name. Then you shocked me by actually doing it. I was very proud of you!
Hadley wrote her name!
First time writing her name!
Another momentous thing that happened during the last month is we decided it was time for your “Big Girl Bed.” Or rather you decided that you could just as easily climb in and out over the edges, so we safely removed the front panel to utilize the “toddler bed” portion of your convertible crib (learn more about it from here). You have been amazing at staying in bed and when you wake up in the morning you slowly open your bedroom door, peek out, and whisper, “I’m all done sleeping. Can I come out now?”
No more bars for Hadley
In her "big bed"
Hiding Under the Covers
While you can be quite silly, you are also very literal. The other day I said to you, “Are you my silly monkey?” And you responded in all seriousness, “No. I’m Hadley.” We then had a little talk about how you can be lots of things at once. Like you can be Hadley, you can be three, and you can also be a silly monkey. Sometimes language can be tricky. But, hang in there, I know you will get the hang of it.
Hiding
Oh, Hads, you are just such a character and I love every aspect about you. I love how you love to whisper in my ear, anything from “I love you, Mama” to “That noise was just my butt.” I love how your favorite word is “Oh” and you say it after I have answered any questions you have asked me. Most kiddos your age have started the “Why?” phase, but you my dear, still accept everything I say as fact. I love that you call “Big Al’s” “Wreck It Al’s” (like the movie, Wreck It Ralph) and I have no intention of correcting you anytime soon. I love how much you love your sister; you run up to her every day we pick her up from school and you two hug like you haven’t seen each other in a week, rather than just eight hours. I love that the other day you asked your Dad if he was a girl and when we asked why you thought he was a girl you said, “because he has eyelashes and only GIRLS have eyelashes.” I love your innocence, your simplicity, your complexity, and your enthusiasm. I love your snuggles, your cuddles, and your kisses (even if sometimes the only place you will kiss me is on my knee because you are “all out of the other kisses.”) I just love YOU. Happy birthday, baby girl. (And yes, I can still call you “baby” even if you are a “big kid now.”)
Birthday Girl
All my love,

Mama