Mama Loves You, Miz Liz

Looking back over the past weeks, I note that March 2011 was a rough month for me and my three-year-old Lizzy. I'm complaining about her in just about every third post.

But what you don't see when looking at all those together is the standard day-to-day stuff that we do/think/feel together. You only get the highlights. And in March 2011, the highlights were often low points. I was sick, she was asserting her independence, I was distracted in looking for a permanent job and she was... well... being three-and-a-half. As is often the case with our three girls, we forget that while their (spoken) vocabularies are ahead of the curve, emotionally and socially they are only 10, 8, and 3. Does this make her behavior over the past few weeks okay? No. Does it make my reactions to her behavior okay? Also no.

In these read-a-thons on a blog archive, you don't see the cuddle time every morning and every evening. Or the running (jumping) to me when I get home from work. Or the lying on my chest and suddenly looking up and saying, "Mommy! You have a heart!" Or the declarations of me being "The best Mama in the whole world". Or the Ralph Wiggum-ness of three-year-olds in phrases like "I don't like my hair to get cold because I don't like it when my hair is cold." Or just the thousand-and-one things that make her who she is - a lively, high-energy, sweet, intelligent, kind, cute kid. She has her off days. So do we all. And because she is so high-energy it may take her longer to learn things like "do as Mommy says" than it did the more laid-back Abby at her age.

And that's okay.