Three

My big girl is three.

I remember when Henry's third birthday rolled around feeling suddenly the difference between baby and kid. I realized he would have been a little boy and what I was missing, would miss hit me in an entirely different way.

Today, Kathleen's third birthday is here. And I see that I am right, that three is so much bigger than two. She is a little girl, not a baby. Even since last year, her face and body have thinned out. She uses the potty, and without her big cloth diaper butt sometimes she wears jeans. She gets the silverware for dinner and loves this little job. She explains things to Elizabeth: You have to be buckled in, sister. I'm buckled. Mommy and Daddy are buckled. You have to be buckled too! She plays, sometimes by herself and narrates her play (often interrupted by me thinking she's talking to me).

And sometimes she is still my baby who sits in my lap and wants to be held. But not too often. She's busy that big girl of mine.

That three year old of mine.