Tara, Three and a Half

Hey Sweetie!

It's time for a milestone overview (like the one I'd planned at age 3, 2 1/2 and 2)!

Favourite Foods: Cheese sticks, mango, pineapple on pizza, pasta, Fish Pie, shrimp sandwich, ketchup (still going strong) and mayo, beetroot.
Dislikes: Chocolate (except M&M's), most vegetables that aren't red, and things that are "pieksi", meaning spicy.
Best friends: Carter and Zach.

With Zach

Enjoys playing the most: Dolls, Mummy & Babies, Dollshouse with playmobile, singing, building things like double pushchairs, visiting her friends' houses,
but also: reading and storytelling, puzzles, lego, painting, glueing and sticking, dancing.
Dislikes: The wii (read: trouble with Zach!) - "I don't like de music!", swimming (being splashed at).
Favourite Colour: Pink, what else. And it is NOT my doing.
Wears, if left to choose: Anything pink with her fairy outfit on top, or dresses, preferably pink, with pink shoes. Hair open with one clip. (Aspires to wavy hair.)

Some like it PINK

Most likely accident: Drink spilleage (drives daddy mad).

Greates vice: Sweeties and all things sugary. We're trying to control it...
Plans for future: When asked closer to age 3, Tara wanted to be "a princess." She's already moved on. "When I grow up, I don't want to be a princess anymore. Princesses have trouble with the malutas (baddies, female). I want to be a worker. With the computer. With the internet." Needless to say, I am much impressed by such early wisdom.
Tara and Mummy: Best night-time buddies. Love chatting, baking, picnicks and all things messy.
Tara and Daddy: Best bath time buddy. Playmobile master players and maker of things.
Tara and Leo: Best summarised in two quotes. 1, "I love you my darling." 2. "Mummy, tell Leo what I'm eating (doing / anything) and that he can't eat (do / whatever) it."

Small and Big. Can't eat and CAN eat.

Routines that work: A snack or treat on the way home from nursery while surfing the buggy board. Reading the playmobile catalogues with daddy at bedtime. The 10pm transfer to mummy's bed (The only night we've spent apart remains the day Leo was born and I stayed at the hospital) - sadly that routine involves her waking up crying for mummy 9/10 times and I still have not worked out quite why.
Languages: English like a native, and possibly above average (say her carers). German, well, like a younger native. I get the occasional full medium length sentence and a fair number of German words thrown into English sentences. Happily repeats most words or sentences. Spanish. Well well... not so well. Offers basic words like si, no, gracias, por favor, and the occasional extra, with some two word phrases (que lalo = que raro or 'we/lo tenemos'). Tends to refuse to repeat words or phrases, but has dared a few in the last month and has voluntarily been speaking to her grandparents on the phone, which is new. In short, Tara speaks English. Or, one down, two to go.
Personality: Inquisitive, inventive, observant, loving, bright, shy with strangers, assertive with friends (tending towards bossy), cheeky, giggly.

Tara-Rara, at 3 1/2, really has turned a few corners, not only the obvious one of becoming a big (and loving) sister. A few things just snapped into place some time after 3. Bigh things like potty training, which has been completed, nights included. Littler things, like being able to sing in time with the music. More recently, she's started walking to nursery every other morning - after three years and 5 months in the pushchair or on the buggy board. The most important thing for me: Just after three, she suddenly started playing by herself without needing constant company - the one thing that I'd found the most difficult.

Ay, Tara-Rara, my baby girl! It's a privilege seeing you grow up, knowing you so closely, and loving you all the way.