Little Bean

The time has come for Baby Bean to graduate from being called Baby Bean to Little Bean. For my sweet little girl is becoming just that. She often tells me that she isn't a baby, and that she is a big girl. She can do so much by herself these days, and she wants to do so much more.

Here is a rundown of what my little girl has been up to lately, followed by a slideshow with pictures of all of these events. (Enjoy, mom and dad!)

My Little Bean absolutely loves going to the local theme park and riding all of the rides... well, most of them. She usually thinks she wants to ride them until we get to the front of the line, and then she wants to back out. Sometimes we take her on the ride anyway, just to show her there is nothing to be afraid of, but sometimes we let her back down because it just isn't worth the fight. She definitely has some favorite rides. Each night as I am leaving her room after putting her to bed, she gives me a run-down of all the rides she wants to go on, which includes the swinging ship, the tea cups, the bouncing boot, the cars, the rocket ships, and others. She also tells me that she wants to buy cotton candy and eat it on the train that goes around the park, because that is what we did the last time we went.

My husband plans to build a playground for Little Bean this year. We're not talking the kind where you pick up the playground kit and then the lumber, but one that he has custom-designed and has to special order the parts for. It will be a 3-level playground with tubes, a slide, climbing net, and more. But until he actually gets around to building it, I have been trying to give Little Bean things to play with outside. So a couple of months ago, I bought her a small playhouse. It would have been bigger, but Hubs got mad at me for getting one at all, since he intends to build the playground.

Another thing we did was enroll Little Bean in swim lessons at our gym. Every Saturday Hubs and I go work out and check Little Bean into the daycare until it is time for her swim lessons, then one or both of us take and watch her learn to enjoy swimming. We enrolled her about a month before we went to Cancun just so she could enjoy the pool at the resort, as well as being in the water with the dolphins. She has made some great strides over the past month+, and I can't wait until she wants to jump into the water with no help.

The day before we flew to Cancun, I took Little Bean to my nail salon where she and I got pedicures, and she got a manicure. I didn't used to be this high maintenance, but one of my best friends loves to get her nails done, and I finally relented to going with her last year. That is when I discovered the joy of mani/pedis, and there is no going back.

For Little Bean's birthday, both of her grandma's gave her princess dresses. One dress was given specifically for when we went to the annual renaissance festival in our area. Sadly, the dress didn't even make it to the front gate. She looked absolutely adorable in it, but said that, "the sparklies hurt" and she wanted to talk it off. We walked maybe 250 feet from the car before turning back to take it off and put her back in her regular clothes. It was such a bummer.

I have been wanting to get a large fish tank for some time now. We have a little 2-gallon tank that I bought for Little Bean's first birthday, along with a white and gold goldfish we named Gill. We still have Gill, and we still love him, but I wanted a bigger tank with lots of fish. The week before my surgery, I finally found a deal on a 10-gallon tank that I couldn't pass up. We got it set up a few days later and let it cycle until the day before my surgery when we bought three neon danios. Last Saturday I took her and we bought four tetras to add to the collection. We plan on adding some shrimp and an algae eater soon. Little Bean just LOVES the tank. She also loves to put things in it, like rocks, water from the bathroom sink, and anything she thinks she can sneak past me.

A few months after Little Bean was born, I painted her a big ceramic piggy bank, and have been putting all of my spare change in it since. Just shy of 3 years later, I decided it was full enough to empty out and open Little Bean a bank account. Last weekend, she and I sat on the family room floor and sorted out hundreds of coins. At just 3 years old, my baby girl has her own bank account.

Little Bean loves to be Mama's Big Helper more than anything. She is always trying to help me clean, cook, shop, anything that she thinks helps me so she can proudly say, "I'm your big helper, huh mama?" Yes baby, you are.

I hope you all enjoy the pictures below that go with the post above. My Little Bean really is growing up fast.