Willamina

My girl. She's three. She is something else.

One of my favorite things lately about Mina is when a stranger (to her) comes and talks to her. Often the person is paying her a compliment. In that case, she usually doesn't say anything. But if the person is asking her a question, there is this pause in which I (and probably the stranger) think, "oh she's not going to say much. she's too shy to answer" and then Mina answers in a confident voice with a complete sentence. Yes!

Her hair is about the same color as Edmund's and it is long. I have never cut it. At all. It goes most of the way down her back now. Her eyes are, most unequivocally, blue.

She loves fruit and dried fruit and treats and candy of every kind. She frequently asks for three types of fruit in one meal.

She has a baby doll named BabyDolly that she loves. Lately, she seems a little bit less attached to her than before, but she still wants BabyDolly whenever she feels a strong emotion. They are tight.

Mina sucks her thumb and rubs BabyDolly's hair up by her nose (Mina's nose, that is).

She spends time building with little Duplo blocks. Or filling cups with water and pouring them back and forth. Or playing with BabyDolly or her other doll, SoupShoop. Or getting into things and making messes.

She uses hand gestures expressively. She learns songs quickly and I hear her singing snippets of dozens of different songs every day. She loves books and that is the only reason I have been able to keep her daily nap time--I read her a few books each day before her nap. She still sleeps most weekdays. All her brothers had given up naps by this age (with the exception of maybe Edmund, but that's another story), but I have been relentless in insisting that she maintain this part of her routine.

She is a girl. She wants to wear skirts and dresses all the time. She did not learn this from me, as you probably know. She often wears more than one skirt at a time. She puts her own outfits together and will rarely accept input or guidance from me.

A very Mina kind of outfit

I spend most of my time with Mina, so I can sometimes get so accustomed to her that I take her for granted, but I try not to do this because she has a kind of sparkle (how else can I describe it?) that can spread over the whole house and fill it with joy. If I let it.