threeeeeee!

our princess t.t. bird turned three last month.





and what a princess she is - this phase hit hard and came quite seemingly out of nowhere about two or three months ago. now we are full-on in the thick of princess fever. thea went from a little tomboy to insisting on wearing dresses [more specifically 'twirly dresses'] every day. i'm thinking it came from school but who knows.

stage one meant she had to wear her purple dress [well, it was a dress last year but a shirt this year] at all times. purple dress to go with her purple room - does she know purple is the color of royalty? she must.



then she moved on to her yellow dress. now we're in stage three - orange dress - and this one is the twirliest dress yet.



she's also very much into dancing and spends hours spinning, high-stepping, kicking and curtsying about the house. [the dancing coupled with her accident-prone-ness results in her falling into walls or onto the floor in various dramatic ways so much so that i've started calling her mary katherine gallagher.]

our beloved nanny, lisa, gave her a book of princess bedtime stories which quickly edged out mercy watson as favorite book before bed. the most challenging part of this whole thing is she thinks she's a princess only when she has a dress and her purple shoes on so getting her dressed and undressed takes some maneuvering. my parents were here last week [we MISS YOU SO MUCH!] and my mom bought her a couple nightgowns just so that she wouldn't insist on sleeping in her frocks.

i looked back at a photo taken when she turned two last year - oddly similar to the one at the top of this post - and can't believe how much she's matured and grown in a year. she's loving, confident, hilarious, sensitive, intense, curious, full of life and smart as a whip. i love every moment we spend together and feel so lucky to call her my daughter.

i hope she loves me as much i love my mother. happy birthday mom!!