So I’ll admit I’ve been feeling nostalgic these days. My youngest is just over 3.5 years old, and since we’re not planning on having more kids, I find myself more and more often wishing I could freeze time.

There’s something about the three year old stage that just gets me. I’m not really a newborn/infant person. I loved parts of the cuddliness and newness, of course, but what I remember from that first year is mostly exhaustion, though Lila was all in all a very easy baby. (And since we adopted my older one at the age of 15 months, I pretty much completely missed out on that stage with her.)

Then Lila’s terrible two’s came in full-force seemingly overnight, and I often wondered who had swapped my sweet little baby girl with this full-blown tantrum-loving toddler. Really, it wasn’t that bad. One of our relatives often told us, “It’s not the terrible twos, they’re terrific!” while we looked at him with disbelief. Honestly, I do think the age of two is hard, with potty-training being one of the biggest contributing factors.

But then there was three. Preschool, three times a week. No more diapers. What a relief! She fed herself pretty well, albeit messily. She did her best to help get dressed, and put on her own shoes. And for this attachment parent, three also meant independence from the Ergo and c0-sleeping, for the most part.

And one of the best things of all, being able to converse with her and figure out what was going on in that little mind of hers.

From her perspective, I guess she’s not really sure about “moving on” from the baby stage quite yet. She often asks me if she is a toddler. I tell her that she’s technically a preschooler now, but she seems reluctant to take on that label.

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“You are a big girl now,” I tell her. “Big girls get to do lots of things!”

“Big girls get to pretend to be babies!” she replies cheerfully, making me laugh. Yes, I guess they do, though that’s not the point I was really going for.

She looks around at her room and seems confused. Lila is now sleeping in a twin-size bed, which she cannot climb up on by herself quite yet, and can actually still fit sideways on without her feet dangling off (she’s pretty small for her age). But her crib is still in the room, if for no reason other than our laziness to disassemble it and take it to the basement. Right now it is currently serving as storage for toys and blankets, although she sometimes like to climb into it, when she is in her baby pretending stage.

“Tell me about when I was a baby,” is one of her favorite requests in fact. Unfortunately this is late at night usually and I can only think of the same stories about her being born at the hospital, how her big sister welcomed her, how she liked to be swaddled, what kinds of mashed-up foods she liked, before I usually end up falling asleep before her.

But sometimes, just when I think she will always love being the baby of the family, she pops up with a little question that takes me off guard.

“Do I have to change my name when I get married?” she asks.

Or, “Where will I live when I get married? Will you still be living close to me?” and then starts tearing up to put another little dagger in my heart!

Or, “Who will my children be? What will HJ (big sis) name her kids? Will she name them HJ and Lila? I’m going to name my kids Raspberry and Blackberry.”

And then, tonight, after an entire week of being sick and just being done with it, she wanted to go to sleep in Mommy’s bed. I knew this was completely wrong. We only recently transitioned her to the twin bed and had a good amount of success, but I knew this is pushing our luck.

She started tearing up again. “How do my eyes know that I am sad?” she asks, laughing and crying at the same time.

Oh, boy. These are all the moments I’m going to miss not only when she’s a teenager, but probably next year when she decides that being four means she’s all grown up. Honestly, we all know parenting is tough. But these are the moments that make it all worthwhile in the end…

Lila