Edie turned 3 without much fanfare last week. Oh okay that’s a lie, there was fanfare up the wazoo. For her birthday on the 13th, she went to school as normal. On the 17th, however, she and neighbor Dani, who turned 3 on the 15th, had a joint birthday party at the park with a special appearance by her beloved Groovy Gym Bus and a face painter. This hollowed-out bus comes to school every Wednesday and kids do acrobatic type stuff inside, with zip line and ball pit and such.

Thanks to the pandemic we barely know Edie’s school friends, let alone their families. So her party was a big game of me asking myself “who the heck is that?” There were like 50 total guests between the two girls, and I perhaps could have named 13 of them. But this party seemed to have sparked some sort of “it’s okay to do parties again” line of thinking because after that we were bombareded with birthday invites. This weekend there have been 4 alone!

For her birthday, Edie got plenty of gifts. We got her a gigantic 10×10 foot blanket for playing “blanket hole”, one of her favorite games where I put a blanket over my legs and sit on the couch with my feet on the ottoman and she dives into a little cavern. The Glanzers got her a swing-set that tethers between two trees and a little helper apron and chef hat. The Poulters sent a cool new scooter. Aunt Alice sent her her first Barbie doll which Edie has named “Burbie”. She redeemed a $20 gift card from Uncle Alex and family and got a Magnadoodle. And there were like a dozen more gifts from partygoers.

At her 3-year checkup, she was said to be in the 99th percentile in height and 90th in weight, no surprises there. Believe it or not she’s actually shorter than neighbor Dani! She’s got quite a vocabulary and has us all laughing with silly phrases and saying. She’s much more of a daredevil than John, and quite a little athlete, climbing playground equipment intended for much older kids with ease, sailing across monkeybars, and leaping from high places.

She loves watching YouTube—favorite shows include Peppa Pig, Caitie’s Classroom, and random homemade crap of people acting out stories with toys. She’s quite a bit better about playing independently than John was at that age, able to play alone and act out things with little cars or her kitchen or blocks. Favorite foods include noodles, yogurt, most fruit, and toast. She loves going to playgrounds, swinging, and riding her tricycle and scooter.

Her biggest hurdles to overcome this year are being better about not peeing her pants (she’s fully potty trained but seems to have reverted a bit lately) and staying in bed at night. She’s almost always up between 12 and 4am climbing into our bed, her arms wrapped around my neck, pushing me to the edge.

Edie has been to 13 states (TX, LA, MS, AL, FL, OK, KS, NE, SD, MN, IA, IL, WI) so far. She’s been to two MLB games (Twins @ Rangers, White Sox @ Twins). She has had one haircut. She has yet to go to a movie theater. She’s been to the AUS, DFW, MSP, and FSD airports. She has 14 first cousins ranging in age from 1 to 18.

And of course she is still in quite a daddy phase. I could say just about anything and she’s leap to volunteer and break her neck to go get her shoes on. “Hey anyone wanna go outside with me and shovel Baxter crap?” “Me! Me! Me!”

We think she’s a pretty cool little gal!