Maeve is 3!

Happy Birthday to Maeve! Her third birthday was last week and it was a lot of celebrations. She was mostly over her fever on her birthday, but I kept her home to be safe and to get to have the day with her. Girl has a sweet tooth, so we tried to keep her sugared all day in her honor. 

Daddy made pancakes for breakfast and then we opened presents before the boys went to school. 

We played for a bit, but Maeve just wanted a lot of cuddles and screen time so I indulged her and she fell asleep at 11am on the sofa clutching her new favorite possession- talking phone from Nana and Pops.

It was a beautiful spring day, which called for popsicles in the garden. Thoroughly sticky, we did a fun daytime bath and then I took advantage of the time home with her and cut about 4 inches off of her luscious locks. It took nearly all of the blonde off, but was needed. (blonde hair is in a sealed envelope for posterity).

Later, she found her way to my baking shelf (sweet tooth girl as I mentioned) and pulled out the frosting tubes and was adamant that we get gingerbread cookies so that she could decorate them. This task proved difficult and many tears were shed, but we did make it eventually to the store and found a suitable substitute. Maeve goes from angry to goofy in 10 seconds flat!

Post grocery store meltdown, goofing in the checkout aisle. 

Heading home ready to decorate/eat cookies

The boys came home and joined us for dinner, mac and cheese, one of her favorites and then some cake.

She was back to school the next day, so we moved her school celebrations to that afternoon and brought in popsicles for her classmates. She blew out her candles and moved her little birdie to the 3 year old branch, very proud. Daddy has gotten more attention these last few days, to all of our joy! She picked out her present from school, a book called Anna Angrysaurus, very fitting indeed. 

Sunday was her birthday party (her very first birthday party) at the house. And while she was excited to have her school friends over to play, the party proved rather overwhelming for her and chunks were spent alone on my lap in her rocking chair with her paci (yep, still have that thing!).

The theme was Paw Patrol, still her favorite. And you may recognize these clothes (I am reluctant to call it an "outfit") as the ones she was wearing earlier in the week on her actual birthday. This shirt is one of the 6 or so that she will wear despite the heaps of lovely hand me downs we have. It belonged to "guh guh" (what she still calls Jude >50% of the time) as of 2 months ago and now is resoundingly hers. I am still hoping that we will skip over the princess phase, though it may still be too early to tell.

Adorable footage of her blowing out her candles and being fed frosting by her classmate Thomas. And also almost catching her hair on fire (thank goodness I had cut it!).

Pinata time! She had such concentration hitting that thing. She is rather sporty with a solid run and kick (when she is willing to participate in our soccer classes).

Jude in the shirt he picked out because it was "handsome"

A little more about Maeve at 3:

If I could sum Maeve up in 5 words they would be spunky, sweet, cuddly, determined and playful. She is really snuggly and climbs into our bed in the morning saying, "I need a cuddle." I still rock her in my lap before bed a bit and she likes to fall asleep holding me hand. She loves running after and chasing Jude's friends in the morning. When asked who she wanted at her birthday party, she named Jude's two buddies and no one else. Her little smile makes you forgive whatever cheeky thing proceeded it. And her "I love yous" are the best. She gets super goofy and loves repeating the often inappropriate thing her brother has said. A personal favorite "there's a trumpet in my pants" said while smacking her tushy! She really makes us laugh. Strong willed only begins to describe her and she has challenged and humbled us and our parenting skills. As a friend put it, "She's very good at voicing when she's unhappy." She is testing her vocal chords lately with the pitch of those unhappy screams. Her language has really exploded since Christmas and while articulation is still an issue, we are amazed by the things she now says. Her memory is also really sharp and she will correct us if we say the wrong thing in a book or in passing. She loves the atelier at school, painting and generally getting messy and having fun. 

She and Jude are each others #1s. Jude actually told me tonight that he likes Maeve more than he likes me. It wasn't that he was upset with me, he was just stating matter of factly where his loyalties lie. And I am 100% ok with that. Jude goes around telling her "You are the best girl, Maeve" and she now tells him that he is the best boy. And another gem yesterday from Jude, "I just want to see Maeve's cute face. It is so much cuter now that she is 3." At school, her garden borders Jude's and they like to meet out there. 

Sweet girl is also a tough cookie! Her final birthday present was ear tubes and an adenoidectomy performed this morning at the hospital where she was born. Coming out of anesthesia was really difficult with a lot of thrashing, screaming and trying rip out her IV. Pain meds work wonders though and by the evening she was back to her cheeky self. We hope the rest of the recovery is easy as well. And hopefully with her ears fully drained she'll be able to hear 100% and improve her articulation (and maybe frustration levels- is that too much to hope for?!). And with the adenoids gone, hopefully the snoring and night time mouth breathing will stop as well! A big thank you to everyone who shared that they or their child had gone through this, which normalized the experience for me and made it seem not so scary. And to everyone who reached out to me today! It was a long day! xo