Amelie is no longer a toddler, she is a preschooler. (Insert shocked face)! At three years old, she is such a little kid! She’s an absolute sponge when it comes to learning, and she just loves learning so much, no matter what the topic is. Books have long held sway over her. She has a very few words she can read (first and foremost Amelie) and write (Amelie, Mummy and Daddy, although the latter two she still sometimes needs some help with spelling). We haven’t actively taught her any of that, she just wanted to learn to read and write and so she has started, all on her own!
At night, before we turn out her light, she usually sits in bed with her ‘all the words book’. This is an old chapter book of mine from when I was eight or so, and it doesn’t have any pictures. She can’t read it of course, but she pretends to; staring intently at it, turning the pages every so often, and making up her own stories about what she thinks is going on. My theory is that she chooses to take that book to bed rather than one of her picture books so there is nothing to distract her from the words. Her whole life, Amelie has been an intently determined little perfectionist. When she decides she wants to do something, she just does it, and then we never go back. She did this with breastfeeding (on her first birthday she refused a feed and then she just…never breastfed again), crawling (she never really practiced, she just went from rocking on her hands and knees to proper crawling), walking (once she was up on two feet, she stayed up on two feet!) and countless things besides. I genuinely think she’ll teach herself to read, and I doubt we’ll know much about the process – she’ll just keep hiding away in her room looking at books, and one day she’ll casually read a street sign or something and that will be that.
When Amelie’s not reading, she’s usually drawing – her other favourite activity. Otherwise, she likes playing with her blocks, the dollhouse she got for her third birthday, her numbers, stickers (our house is a sticker graveyard), and dressing her soft toys up and either ‘putting them to bed’ or ‘taking them on holiday’. When we’re outside, she likes having running races, splashing in her paddling pool, riding her bike, or doing yoga with me. Her favourite places to be are in the country, at the beach or at a playground. She loves school and she loves her teachers. She has a few really good friends at school and she is mildly disparaging of most of the other children (not nasty, just…dismissive, I’d say). That said, she is getting to the age where she makes friends everywhere she goes! Other children really seem to like her, I think because she communicates well and makes up good imaginative games for them all to play. She is very much a natural leader.
She is still a very funny child, although her sense of humour is definitely that of a three year old! The funniest moments are when her humour is unintentional – for example, she’s been known to roll her eyes and chant ‘we’ll see’ seconds after asking me for something that she knows is a big ask – usually tomato sauce!
Speaking of tomato sauce, Amelie seems to view it as a standalone food group. Other than that, she’s very fond of ice cream, yoghurt, cheese, crackers – any snack food really. She professes to love cupcakes and cake but actually doesn’t have too much of a sweet tooth. She’ll eat some and then insist we ‘save’ the rest. Like most preschoolers she’s quite anti-green food, even when she likes the taste. Every time I make a green smoothie she demands some for herself, then turns her nose up after a sip or two – a reaction that is 100% based on colour and nothing else. Thankfully, she’s pretty good with other vegetables. Kumara, capsicum, carrots and cucumber are usually welcomed. Even more thankfully, she is a rockstar when it comes to trying different food! Our rule is that she has to at least try everything on her plate, and to her credit, she very rarely fusses about that.
There is so much more I could write! She’s become very focused on ‘pretty’ recently, which is kind of strange. She wants to wear ‘pretty’ clothes and have ‘pretty’ hair. If she’s not going for ‘pretty’ she wants to either dress exactly the same as Hayden or me, or like anyone else she admires, including some of her friends at school. It’s funny how all of a sudden she is open to influence like that!
Finally, it would be remiss of me not to mention the tantrums. They’re absolutely next level. Two has nothing on three when it comes to tantrums! I’m not going to say anything more about that because the less time thinking about them the better. Suffice it to say that being three can be hard. The vast majority of the time it’s just fun, though! Amelie is still the best kid in the world, obviously, and Hayden and I feel so lucky to have her.
The Judd Crew 