Great days with an almost three year old

Today for the first time in nearly three years, we contributed just one diaper to the landfill--the one Edith slept in last night. Oh, and the Pull-up she wore all day, still dry when it hit the trash. Woo hoo!

This has happened suddenly without our doing anything in the way of training. What a thrill. Edith met me on the street coming home from daycare with Tom and shouted the news to me with such pride, showing me the sticker Ms. Bela had given her on her daily gram by way of a reward for staying dry all day. Ms. Bela told her that if she stays dry the rest of this week, she can start coming to school in regular underwear next week. And at that point we'll take a trip to Target to purchase her the Thomas the Tank Engine underwear she has been coveting and that we promised she could have once she was potty trained. Big doings.

There have been some other great moments recently. Like last night, when Tom and I both wanted to watch the returns from Pennsylvania and were more or less ignoring bedtime, hoping the other would eventually handle it. Instead it was Edith who finally announced, pleasantly, "I want to get in my crib now." I took her to her room, and sure enough, she went straight to her crib. No bargaining for stories, nursing, or any of the other usual parts of the bedtime routine. She knew she was ready to sleep. She went down with similar ease the two nights we were in Kansas City this past weekend for my grandmother's memorial service--agreed that it was time for bed, settled into her double bed in the motel room, and went to sleep.

Then there are the cool little moments that reveal how much she's learning about the world. Like on the walk home today when she started kicking her feet up behind her in elaborate sweeps. "I'm pretending my shoes are roller skates," she told me with a smile. I didn't realize she even knew what roller skates were.

Or on our way home from a walk to the grocery store a little while later, when she called out from the wagon for me to stop. I did, and she got out and picked up a plastic disposable cup lid and straw lying in the grass. "Someone dropped this here," she explained, "but we need to keep the earth clean. So I'm going to take it home and put it in the trash."

I think we're all going to enjoy age three around here.