This crazy, compassionate little person is now 3 years old

It both seems like so long ago and so recently that we welcomed Zoe into the world. And from the very beginning she has been ready to experience life.

If I could use one word to describe Zoe, it would be EFFERVESCENT. That kid, she is just a bundle of something. She is exuberant, enthusiastic, funny, joyful, compassionate. She just wants to be part of life and make sure that you enjoy it too. One of the things that Chris and I love about her so much (but also feel bad for her a little bit because we don’t want it to be a burden) is how completely concerned she gets with people’s happiness and well-being. If she knows either Chris or I are upset she very quickly asks, “Mommy, are you happy? I give you a hug and make you feel allllllll better.” My mom recently got back from Croatia. She was supposed to come home a week earlier, but she got a concussion while working out and the doctor’s made her stay a week longer just to monitor her (she’s totally fine now, but yes, I was a little scared having my mom be many thousands of miles away hurting). I told Zoe how Grams would be coming to see us a bit later and broke the news that she threw up. That was a mistake. Zoe does not like when people throw up and that became a big topic of discussion for several days – if she was okay now, where she threw up, who cleaned it up, how many times did she throw up…Zoe needs to take control of the whole situation and ask every imaginable question. My step mom Wendy was sick maybe 5 months ago and Zoe still asks if Nana feels sick. It’s such a sweet and wonderful trait of hers. It warms my heart that she feels such empathy for people. It definitely makes me feel bad sometimes though because I don’t want her to think that she is responsible for everyone’s happiness.

Zoe herself: such a happy kid. Always smiling, laughing, likes to tell jokes, likes to tell you stories. She’s entered an stage of imaginary play and it’s a lot of fun

I remember when she was a bit younger and she would ask what everyone’s name was. She still does ask that a lot, but now she likes to make up names for things herself. It’s pretty hilarious. The names are never any “real” names like Jim or Molly. They’re usually just a combination of sounds. We have given ourselves all pretend names that she calls us when she wants to goof around in her room (it’s usually always this game in her room). Zoe is Kassandra, I’m Francesca, Merritt is Bubaloo and Chris is Jumbokin. You’re welcome for that creativity 🙂 Zoe finds it hilarious, “Francesca, do you want to go to the park with me?” And I wish I could properly convey the sing song voice she says it in. It’s adorable.

She LOVES to play in her room, “Mommy, do you want to play in my room with me?” I love how much she loves her room so much. It makes me VERY happy. She had a little bit of a tough time when we first moved with temper tantrums. And she asked a lot if we were going to go back to our old house. And I definitely get it. Especially with how routine Zoe is. So it’s really nice that she has adjusted and asks just about every single person who comes to the house if they would like to see her big girl room. And then she would LOVE if they came in a played with her. That would make her so happy. She even dragged our painter into the house to play in her room with her. It’s hard to turn that kid down 🙂 My heart melts a little every time that we were able to create a space that she loves so much. It really does make me so happy. She thunders around in there playing. It’s awesome

That girl LOVES to be helpful. LOVES to get a task assigned to her. “Mommy can I help?” I mean, how awesome is that? If I’m super crunched for time or in a frustrated mood sometimes agreeing to this is difficult because I just want to be able to blow through it and get the task completed. She’s usually pretty good if I say something like, “Well, I’m almost done, but how about next time?” A lot of the time though we appease her and let her feel like part of what is going on.

She LOVES to help in the kitchen. LOVES IT SO MUCH. Ever since she was little she has really seemed to like the communal aspect of food. She loved eating and sharing her food with you. It almost seemed like the happier she was the more she wanted to share her food with you. We always joked that she somehow knew that my step dad never ate any carbs (he’s a crazy worker outer) because she just ALWAYS wanted to feed him bread – here, you need this, bread makes you HAPPY! 🙂 On the weekends I frequently make pancakes and she gets very excited to bring her stool up in the kitchen and help me pour things into the bowl and make the batter. When it comes time to cooking it she brings her stool over to the stove and I let her help me pour the batter into the pan. She likes to try and flip the bacon. She helps me make my salad a lot of the time before work at the A’s. We let her at the stove, but no knives yet – I feel like a responsible parent 🙂 Sometimes people are AGHAST that I would let my 2 year old (at that time) be at the working stove with me. I found that ridiculous. I obviously wouldn’t let her do something like that if she couldn’t handle it. But I also think it’s important to let her discover the things she likes and learn that it can hurt you. I used to tell her, “Don’t touch, don’t touch, don’t touch.” Finally one time I just let her touch it —- OUCH! But she hasn’t done it ever again. And she’ll even tell me when we’re playing at her toy kitchen, “Mommy, don’t touch, you have to be really careful.” At least she pays attention sometimes 🙂

She also LOVES to help out on house tasks. If we’re painting, or installing a closet system, or Chris is putting in a light…Zoe is always right there with us handing us tools or watching very carefully. I’ll let her paint sometimes or Chris will supervise her with a tool. It’s really awesome how much of an interest she takes in these things. We’re careful not to push it because I don’t want her to feel like she has to like it, but it’s definitely cool that she likes it now

She LOVES music. We always listen to music in the car. I can only handle nursery rhymes so much, so usually it’s music of my taste. For the most part she likes it and will ask for certain songs. We’re currently listening to a CD that Chris made for me and she loves many many many songs on it. Favorites of hers are “Wake Me Up” by Aloe Blacc, “Daylight” by Matt & Kim, “Lights” by Ellie Goulding, “Lazy Eye” by Silversun Pickups, “Twilight Speedball” by Mos Def and “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons. The crazy thing is how quickly she picks up on lyrics. She listened to Radioactive about 3 times before she would sing the whole chorus. I’m always impressed by how quickly she sings the song and how accurate she is. Obviously she gets a lot of words wrong, but she understands the sounds and so she’ll sometimes make up a word or insert another word that sounds like it that she knows. I love listening to music with her. Even if I do have to listen to “Radioactive” literally 6 times in a row on the way to day care.

We used to always sing songs when she went to bed, but we don’t do that as much anymore (she goes through phases of what she likes to do before bed). It was the same thing though, she would listen really carefully as I sang the song to her, then she would sing them herself. One of her favorites was “One Tin Soldier,” an anti-war song from the 60s. I only sang the first verse and then the chorus because they start talking about killing people in later verses, but she listened about 6-7 times really quietly, then she asked if we could sing it and she sang the whole chorus. Another 5 or so times and she sang the whole song with me. After a little more she could sing the whole first verse and chorus by herself. I would always give her a high five after and she would be very proud of herself.

She doesn’t like movies as much at the moment, but LOVES Daniel Tiger on PBS and a show on Netflix of nursery rhyme songs called Mother Goose Club. I don’t mind that she watches them that much because Daniel Tiger is the Modern Mr. Rogers, and obviously you can’t go wrong with that. And MGC is just all singing, and well, she loves to sing.

She loves Merritt a lot, it is very sweet to see. She is extremely protective of her also and if some kid at the park or at day care when I drop Zoe off comes too close to her she will walk over and sit between Merritt and the kid. It is very adorable how much she wants to protect her and take care of her. She also gets annoyed that Merritt always wants her toys and has a hard time sharing, so I totally get that and can’t really fault her for it because Merritt does absolutely want anything that Zoe has. But for the most part she can play fairly well with her and seems to like her, so I count my blessings. She also calls her, “My puppy” which is rather hilarious. I guess it makes sense because Merritt crawls around and follows Zoe, so I can see where she got that from 🙂

She loves to play rough with her. That’s her favorite. Rolling around with her and rough housing. Chris tossing them both around, that is always certain to make Zoe (and Merritt) giggle and laugh and be so happy. I always love that 🙂

She is still a talker. Oh, so much. SO MANY questions a day. SO MUCH TALKING. I guess I can’t really say anything because I absolutely never shut up, and I have a kid who can talk forever. People frequently think she’s older than she is because she’s really good verbally and will engage in full on conversations with you. I always feel like, “SHAMELESS MOM BRAG!” when that happens 🙂 For the most part it’s a lot of fun – she says hilarious things now (which I write down in a notebook) and asks pretty thoughtful questions. She has a habit of asking the same question over and over and over again, even when she knows the answer, so I’m not sure what that’s about. I love the things she comes up with and her taking note of things – her observations or what she gathers from a certain situation. We always joke that Zoe is life’s narrator. And it really could not be more true. She likes to tell you about what has happened and share her experiences with you, or even something that happened to someone else. She gets playful and makes jokes sometimes or is a bit of a trickster, and that always makes me laugh.

She is our dreamer and performer. She is happy. She is smart as hell. She is just a fucking joy. I love you kid. You’re awesome.