Life with Kiya update

Life with Kiya is amazing, tiring, fun, exhausting and wonderful all at the same time. She is hands down the loudest, goofiest kid I have ever met. She loves to laugh, dance, sing and be bossy.

I just love watching her learn and grow and yet everyday I am reminded that she is not my little baby anymore. She is a big girl full of big opinions. I had some ideas of what she might dress up as for Halloween. We have tutu's and flowers so I was thinking princess or ballerina but oh no. The last few days we keep hearing, "I dress up like Foofa, mommy." So thanks to some savvy Internet shopping, Foofa will be the costume this year.

The week before Halloween, Kiya will head to Shriner's for cast #5. I can hardly believe it. We have been casting for a year. Whew....what a year it has been. I am so grateful for all the friends we have made a long the way. We sadly won't be at cast #5 with any of them but don't get me started on that one. Kiya will be in this horrible pink cast as I call it for the longest time yet, exactly 3 months. It is so gross and so tight and well I can't wait for it to be gone. Word at the dinner table is that purple will be the next color so we shall see.

Just around the corner is Miss Kiya's 3rd birthday. She is all 3 and going on 16. I have so far found 3 to a challenging age. She is strong willed and at times defiant. She has started to talk back. She is so very smart and while that is great at times it is not. She has an amazing memory. She can recite entire books to us. Her current favorite book to "read" to us is Barnyard Dance. She knows all the words and insists on doing it all by herself. When she is done she just gets this huge grin and is just beaming. I love it.

She is now over Dora. She loves her Dora toys but will not watch the show unless it happens to be on and it is bedtime then she will ask to watch it in order to stall. She has acquired a new favorite show, Olivia. Sigh. If you have never watched it Olivia is a very dramatic young pig who loves to exaggerate, be on the bossy side and is super creative. Kiya is by nature a very dramatic child anyway so I am not shocked she likes Olivia I just hope the drama factor doesn't increase. There is only so much drama this mama can handle.

She is still talking about her baby sister. So much so, we shared with her preschool teachers that Kiya does in fact have a baby sister on the way. We shared with them baby K's name so when Kiya talks about her they know what she is talking about. And we discussed with them the words we are using at home to describe our wait to bring baby K home so that we are all on the same page.

Lately, we have also been getting reports about her day at preschool. From the back seat of the car, she will tell me, "Bradley walked away from the table. He wanted to read books" or "Lilly was crying. She had tears. She no eat her crackers. She was sad." We got one report of "Henry hit  me." I asked her, did Henry hit you? She said, "yes." I asked her what did you do then, "I push Henry. Walk away Henry. Walk away." We then talked about how we don't hit or push.

Kiya has made some great little friends in preschool. She likes to hold hands with some of the other little girls and she gives them hugs before she leaves. Her best friend is a little girl named Lillian or Lilly. Kiya likes her so much that she named her pillow pet Lilly. Too cute. She also likes her baby sister so much that she named her elephant after baby K.

I could go on and on about sweet Miss Kiya. About her true love/obsession with all things flower related and baby related but that could take pages. Kiya at 3 is going to keep me on my toes, test my patience and make me smile. She is such an amazing kid. Just last night, she asked me to come lie in bed with her for a few minutes. I love it and it was just a few minutes and then she asked me to leave. Those few minutes are so precious to me. She has asked a few times before and I always oblige because I know all too soon that those requests will be no longer. I am one lucky mama that much I know for sure.