Three IS a magic number

Our sweet baby Sophie -- our "Thing 1," our Snowpea -- turned three yesterday. She picked out her own birthday dinner; we had pepperoni and mushroom pizza and chocolate ice cream. Am I raising a brilliant child or what?

Here's what we've been noticing about Sophie these days:
She has thoughts. And she shares them. As in, "I thought I told you I wanted more corn."

She has an imagination. Lately she's been making up very animated stories about imaginary friends named Kyla and Sully and Soku and Carly. We asked her where she heard some of those names and she answered, "on a commercial." (Only that's part of the fiction since she's never really watched a commercial -- her "shows" are DVR'd episodes of Signing Time and Sesame Street, so no commericals.)

She's makes mental connections and negotiations. Brian and Prasad and I told her she needed to eat her sandwich because protein helps her body. "Why?" Because it makes your muscles grow. She wanted to eat pie instead. We told her that pie doesn't help her body grow. "But pie makes me soooo HAPPY."

She's got manners (in training). We're moving from "I want..." statements to "May I please?" So now she says something along the lines of, "May I please have some juice RIGHT NOW?!?"

She has a sense of humor. Frank kissed her goodnight and said, "Goodnight, Cow." Then he kissed Cowmoo and said, "Goodnight, Sophie." She got a little grin on her face and whispered, "Goodnight, Stacy" to her Dad.

And she has proud, proud parents, too.