Kate: 3 Years, 7 Months

Kate has decided she’s a hunter. We’re not sure where she came up with this (no one in our family hunts) but if you ask her what she’d like to do she’ll reply, “Let’s go hunting!”

In Kate’s world “hunting” means going for a walk and scavenging for treasures such as acorns, flowers, and butterflies.  No permit required, and we do it on the daily.

Another one of Kate’s loves is morning snuggles.  Lately, when she wakes up in the morning she’ll come into our room, crawl into bed with us, and we snuggle as long as we can before needing to start our day.  It’s my favorite!

Another favorite of mine?  Kate says “very” instead “really” – a grammar error I find way too cute to correct.  For example, she’ll say, “I very love you, Mom.”  Or, “I very want to go hunting!”

I very love it.

Kate’s love of books continues and she is starting to focus on recognizing certain words.  So far she can identify the following words by sight:

Kate
Mommy
Daddy
Sun
Frog
Cake
Hen
Hat
Stop
In
On
Off

Ever have one of those moments when you look at your child and the simple sight of them takes your breath away?  I get caught in these every so often, this month included.  I looked over at Kate one day and felt so overwhelmed with joy and pride and wonder that she is mine.  I couldn’t take my eyes off of her as I studied every detail of her face – her eyes, her cheeks, the curve of her upper lip which matches her Daddy’s, her delicate eyelashes as she blinks… “She is so beautiful,” I thought with amazement.

Kate looked over and caught me staring at her, but didn’t say anything.  She just stared back at me with a beautiful look of innocence, and I knew we were sharing one of those special mother/daughter moments.  “I love you SO MUCH!” I thought as I looked at her, certain she could feel the love radiating from me as I committed every feature of her three-year-old face to my memory.  We sat there, staring at each other and basking in our bond, until Kate broke the silence:

“Are you looking to see if my face is dirty?”