This is Sophia.

Sophia is almost 3. I’m not quite sure how that happened. Well, yes, time passed and all. But still…how does a little bean smaller than a loaf of bread grow up to be someone like this? Walking, talking, ordering parents around, kissing baby brothers, and flinging paint onto paper to create art?

She’s going to be 3. Every day I think, “So this is what 3 is like,” and every day I have to revise. Because she still changing at a ridiculously fast rate. There are some afternoons I realize that she is speaking differently — better, more fluidly — than she was that morning. She laughs and smiles most of the time, and she can be very silly, which is good preparation for dealing with her parents. One running joke we’ve had for a while is: I make snacking noises, pretending I’m going to bite her, and she says, giggling, “Don’t eat me! I’m not very tasty! I’m not an apple!” Then we roll around on the floor some.

I don’t know how her development stacks up against that of other three-year-olds. I’m trying very hard not to compare her to others, even though most days that’s a losing battle. Some kids can do X, Y, or Z already! Why isn’t she? Of course, I’m not as good at picking out what Fia is doing that they’re not. And how none of it matters, because everyone is growing at his or her own pace. It’s tough not to measure.

She’s known her alphabet for about a year now. She likes to spell words. Once we were coming out of Storyopolis and Fia said, “Ess tee oh are why oh pee oh ell eye ess.” The letters rolled off her tongue a heck of a lot faster than I could have said them, believe me. Oftentimes from the backseat I’ll hear, “What’s this spell?” and she’ll rattle off the letters. She’s even getting good with lowercase letters, which are incredibly difficult (who thought up b, d, g, p, and q all having the same shape?).

Once we were driving down the street and she said, “Those letters say ‘dog.'” I was in the middle of asking, “Did you see a dog?” when I realized the banners on the streetlamps said, “Natural History Museum — Dogs.” She hasn’t done that again, so I don’t know if she actually read it or not. But it seems like she did.

I’m a little obsessed — too much so — about her reading development because both Darin and I could read by the time we were three and I’ve wondered, Is this sort of thing hereditary? Should I be encouraging it? As it is, I don’t think I’m pushing her beyond being receptive to her questions about letters and words. We read her books, we gave her foam letters and numbers to play with, we let her see us reading and writing all the time. She’s clearly interested in reading. But there are no flash cards, no enforced sessions of teaching her words or anything. When she wants to, she will. Believe me. When Sophia wants something, she’s extremely determined.

She knows her numbers. She can count to twenty and she can count objects, although she doesn’t always understand the concept of amount. She’ll say, “One, two, three, four Cheerios. That’s three Cheerios!”

She likes to sing to Simon. Often Fia singing will calm him down faster than anything. She sings the alphabet song a lot and often cajoles Mommy and Daddy to join in with her. Currently our playlist — or singlist, if you will — includes: the alphabet song; Ipsy Spider (her name for “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” because that’s the way she’s always said it); Ipsy Elmo, which has the same tune and almost the same words; Elmo’s Song; Sing A Song; and On Top of Spaghetti. She has begun asking for “new songs,” which means she wants to learn something new, and frankly, that’s a very exciting development, if you know what I mean.

I’m not entirely sure how Fia feels about Simon, and given that she’s 2 she probably doesn’t know either. She likes to laugh with him (the two of them can set one another off such that they’re just screaming laughter at one another), but she also likes to take toys away from him. She likes to console him, imitating Mommy: “It’s okay, Simon. It’s okay, little boy.” And then she’ll push him over so he cries, which makes Mommy very unhappy. The pediatrician said she should get her licks in now, because he’s going to be a big boy.

She likes dance class and has learned quite a few steps in it, but I think she mainly gets excited about going because her friends Lucy and Olivia are in the class. And because she gets to wear tap shoes. We used to go to gym class but two classes in a row Fia said she didn’t want to do it any more, so we’ve stopped. Swimming is on indefinite hiatus. So during weekday mornings her sole activity is dance. I’m learning how to keep us busy the other days.

She goes to preschool four afternoons a week. She was going three days a week but seemed to enjoy it so much I added a day. Four seems to be just the right amount. I don’t know if her preschool has a stated philosophy or not — I don’t think so — but it’s much more on the progressive end of the scale than the academic. They sing, they dance, they read books, they paint (a lot), they run around. At other preschools they have the letter of the day, not to mention actual structure in the learning. I’d much rather Fia have a good time and maybe learn a thing or two. She’s going to be in school at least for the next 15 years; I’ll cut her some slack on having a structured school day for now.

I learned exactly how well Darin and I had encouraged her independence the first day of preschool, when the parents are supposed to begin the week of separation, taking longer and longer periods away from the school. I showed Sophia the backyard of the school, which is filled with jungle gyms and play houses and all, and then I said, “Fia, I have to go do some errands, so I have to leave.”

She said, “Okay Mommy. I’m going to stay here.”

So much for separation anxiety.

She likes to use the computer, as you can see in the picture above. She likes using Mommy’s computer best of all (as you can see in the picture above). She can put the CD in, start her programs, play them, and then get out of the program. She couldn’t figure out how to eject the CD, because her Mac is older and doesn’t have the Eject button. So Darin wrote her a little program and now all she has to do is click on the “Eject” icon. One of her favorite games with the computer now is “writing.” We open Microsoft Word and she types. I figure a couple of sessions of this and she’ll have the Qwerty keyboard memorized.

Her favorite character right now is Clifford the Big Red Dog. She cracked me up recently by carrying her giant stuffed Clifford over to the couch and saying, “Clifford, we have to watch you now.” (Meaning, let’s watch an episode of Clifford.) Teletubbies are still good, as are any of the DVDs we have starring Thomas the Tank Engine. But Clifford currently rules the roost.

Her favorite toy seems to be anything Simon is currently playing with. But mostly it’s her kitchen set. The other day Darin went into her playarea and discovered she had set the table for four, complete with cutlery set up around the plates, forks on one side, knives and spoons on the other. She likes to cook food for me and to remind me that, “Simon is a baby. He can’t eat that.” I can’t wait until Simon can eat real food and he has Fia telling him he can’t have anything.

There are plenty of days when I am quite sure Fia isn’t going to make it to the weekend, let alone to her third birthday, let alone to adulthood. But most of the time I am very happy she’s my daughter. I think she’s absolutely wonderful. Well, except when she hogs my computer.