I’m continuously impressed by the retention abilities of my three-year-old. She’ll spout out new words, phrases, songs, and I’ll ask her where in the world she learned it, and she’ll confess the source.

Earlier this week I was tucking her into bed when she said, “Give me a big squeeze you mommy you!” And jumped into my arms and hugged me as tight as she could. I squeezed her back. It was totally cute, but I’d never heard her say that before so I asked her where she learned to do that.

She says: Your friend. Remember, she was in the car with you? What’s her name again?
She says: I’m not sure, what does she look like?
She says: Umm, she has two eyes, and hair… Do you remember her name now?

I tried to stifle my laugh.

She says: Not yet, what else does she look like?
She says: She had a yellow dress on, and a pretty bracelet that I really liked.

Funny enough, at this point I actually knew exactly who she was talking about. –One of my friends who came to visit almost a month ago. I was a little surprised she hadn’t thought to point out hair color, hair length or skin color, especially since she seemed to be full of brown-skin questions a couple months ago.

She says: Oh you mean Ms. Zandra?
She says: Yes! Ms. Zandra. She told me that! And that boy she was with… He had NO HAIR!

She giggled. “That boy” was Zandra’s husband.

She says: That’s right.
She says: How come he didn’t have hair?
She says: I don’t know, I guess because he shaved it off.
She says: No, he said it’s because he went to sleep like this *pretends to sleep and snore* And then he woke up and his hair was all gone!

We both laughed.

I love how excited she is to learn about the world. I love that she can’t wait to learn. I can say something like “that’s spectacular!” and she’ll ask me to explain what spectacular means. Next thing I know she’s using it in a sentence. Same thing goes for mannerisms.

Lately I’m hypersensitive to the way I’m acting and responding to situations, especially frustrating ones. She’s watching and learning from my every move. Now’s the time for me to teach her, and build a strong foundation for how she should act in the future. It’s my hope that she’ll be strong enough to withstand temptation to follow the crowd when they may be acting rude, or disrespectful. I don’t want the world to ruin her sweet compassionate spirit.

I know I can’t shield her from people who will hurt her feelings, or teach her things I disapprove of, but when it comes to new things she picks up, I hope to be one of the strongest influences in her life.

As for bear hugs for mommy… Those are always good in my book.

March 2014 – Lil’ J is currently 3 years and 8 months old.

Tags: daugter, lil j, she says/ she says