Delaney at three-and-a-half

Oh Delaney, how we love you and how you drive us cra-a-a-zy.  We love you for the sweet, fun-loving, smart little person you are.  But you really, really, really need to stop all that whining.  It's not necessary.  We are happy to grant reasonable requests.  When you ask for juice, you get it.  When you ask us to help you turn on a movie, we will.  If it's a snack you want, you know we want you to have adequate nourishment.  Yes, I'll be glad to let you have a half a pear to yourself.  Or some raisins and goldfish.  But please, please, please don't ask for it in that whine like it's the end of the world, and don't repeat it a hundred times after I've already said yes.  It might take a minute, but I'm working on it.  We're ready to tear our hair out here!  OK, glad I got that off my chest.

Here are some things that make Delaney happy:
1) Going to school.  She LOVES school, and a two-week break was way too long.  She kept asking about it.  She finally started again the first Tuesday after the New Year, and she was thrilled.  I was relieved.  It makes me wonder, what am I going to do with her all summer long?  Summer camp?
2) "The bouncy place."  Where we live, we have no Gymboree or The Little Gym, or Kids-N-Motion.  We have New Bern Gymnastics, which has a few trampolines and a foam pit.  It has an open play time for ages 1 to 5 one Friday a month.  We go that once a month, and she asks about it all the rest of the month.  It was cancelled at the last minute on New Years Eve, and I thought I could get away with just not going and not saying anything about it.  But every day she asks when we're going to "the bouncy place."
3) Her dinosaurs, of course.

4) Making up stories and songs that don't make any sense to anyone but herself, but they sound so happy.

Here are some things that Delaney doesn't like:
1) Mealtimes.  Having to sit down and try to take a few bites of whatever horrible, nasty food we make her eat is no fun.
2) Quiet time.  But I insist on it on every afternoon because I don't know what I'd do without it.  Every now and again she sleeps.  For the most part, she just quietly makes a mess of her room.

Occasionally of late she wakes up at night, around midnight, crying.  Tim and I think it's funny that usually whatever's making her cry has to do with her dad.  But he never goes in there, only I hear her, and when I ask what's wrong, she usually says something about him.  "I don't want Daddy to go to work."  "I want Daddy to sleep in my room."  She really loves her daddy.  She's going to miss him when he leaves this summer.

Every now and again she melts my heart with a kind and loving gesture toward her little sister.  She'll offer her something from her plate that she sees Annie eying, or at bedtime she'll go in search of the perfect little stuffed animal to let Annie have in her room for the night.  Those moments more than make up for the stinginess she displays at other times.  Or the times she informs me that she doesn't "want Annie anymore."  I can't help but be amused that after almost two years of having a little sister, she still thinks it's an option to send her back.  Or that Annie continues to live under a roof with us because Delaney tolerates her.  Ha!  I can't wait to see what she thinks of a newborn.