Ruby Dooby Doo, No Longer Two

Oh, my little Ruby Doo. Such a BIG personality in such a little girl. I love her bright blue eyes, white blonde hair, and tan skin. Seriously, her tan lines are ridiculous. She definitely inherited her daddy's skin, not mine! She is really the perfect kid...part girly girl that loves princesses, dress-ups, and dancing, part tomboy that loves dinosaurs, horses, and mud, and part off in her own little world! She is definitely our family comedian. She thinks it's hilarious if anyone can see her bum. A couple weeks ago, we were walking through the Exchange on Base and I turn around just in time to see her with her pants half way down saying, "Mommy, look! Everybody can see my bum!" How do I keep a straight face around this girl?!

Ruby turned 3 on the 22nd and we had a little family party for her. I think she was pretty confused about having a birthday. If you ask her how old she is today, she'll probably say 1 or 4. She got to choose her dinner, which was Mac & Cheese, fruit, and chocolate milk. Richard made homemade Mac & Cheese, and she wouldn't touch it! She wanted the Kraft box kind. But guess who did gobble up the homemade version. Ella, who never eats noodles, especially Mac & Cheese. Oh well!

Her only request for a cake (once we weeded out all the brainwashing Ella had done about pink sparkly princess cupcakes) was that it be a pony cake. She is into all things horse/pony/zebra/unicorn right now. Since a flavor of cake was not specified, I chose what I wanted (Martha Stewart's Chocolate Cake) and stuck a pony on top. She loved it and was so excited! We ate and then opened presents. She was very excited about the new toys she got and stayed up way too late playing with them. I'd have to say that the favorite toy was a purple Barbie-sized unicorn I found at the thrift store for 50 cents. Of course.

A few things that make Ruby who she is at age 3:

The way she talks is hilarious. If you've ever been around her, you know what I'm talking about. Maybe I'm just crazy, but I think the way she says things, just the sound of her voice is so funny and cute. A couple of my favorites right now are, "You neuse. I win." (translation: You lose. I win) and "neuneecorn" (translation: unicorn). Another funny one is "I put it on bymybymyself!" I don't know where she got the double "by my" from. And for almost the past year, she has been saying "dee" instead of "the". Example: "Are we going to dee store today to get dee milk?" It's so goofy, but I love it!

Her 'L's' still sound like 'W's' most of the time, but every now and then, I'll hear her trying hard to correct herself. She'll say "Ella" instead of "Ewwa".

A few months ago, she started this dialogue with me that goes like this:
Ruby: "Mommy, I wuv you."
Me: "I love you too Ruby."
Ruby: "Do you wuv me?"
Me: (thinking- didn't I just say that?!) "Absolutely!"

Sometimes, mid-sentence, she will interject the word 'yeah'. For example, "We have to go this way, yeah, this way." Even our babysitter noticed this one.

She requires acknowledgment for pretty much everything she says, or she will repeat it ENDLESSLY, becoming more upset as she goes on. She definitely still has a temper and has to get the last word in. She does not take to teasing well at all, which is rough for Richard because that's what he loves to do. If he teases her, she will get crazy mad and come from across the room just to hit him. It's kind of funny, but kind of crazy. She will not give up! The other day, she was moving along at a snail's pace, so I called her a Pokey Puppy. She was so mad and cried about it for at least a half an hour, yelling over and over again, "I'm NOT a pokey puppy Mom!" until I finally told her she wasn't. Hopefully, we can harness that stubborn streak for good in her life.

I feel really bad that she has no friends of her own. She's always tagging along with Ella and her friends (the epitome of a little sister), but she's never really had a friend her same age that she plays with. She's oblivious to this though, so I guess it doesn't really matter.

She will eat almost anything, including spicy food. She's not a big sweet eater, which is great. She's easy to find snacks for. She'll eat healthy choices like applesauce and string cheese, whereas Ella only wants cookies and crackers.

After our first week here, Ruby took herself on a little "adventure" down the street. I thought she was in the garage with Richard. He thought she was in the house with me. By the time we looked outside, she was about 8 houses down the street, crying hysterically, with a crowd of people around her. They were not very happy with us that our child was wandering around by herself in the blazing hot sun. Great first impression. No wonder we haven't met any of our neighbors yet. When we got back in the house, I asked Ruby what she had been doing and she said she was "running away on my bike". (They had just watched an episode of Rugrats where Angelica pretends to run away from home). So from that day on, Rugrats was banned in our house, and Ruby has now memorized her address.


Ruby loves to have someone to play with. If Ella's not around, I'm the chosen one. It's not very fun to play with her though because you have to talk exactly the way she wants you to and do what she wants. "Here, you can have the mean guy. He have to talk like this, 'Hey, I'm going to get you pony!' yeah like that". And sometimes her ponies are talking ponies, where they can talk to each other, and sometimes they are neigh ponies, where they can only make neigh sounds. Anytime I play with her, they never get to be just neigh ponies. They always have to talk!

She really wishes she could go to school like Ella does, but she has to wait one more year. In the meantime, I told her she gets to do Mommy School, to which she replied, "But I don't want to be a Mommy!". Smart cookie! For an hour while Ella's at school and Annie naps, we do school time. She focus on one letter a week and we practice the sound it makes, what words start with it, and how to write it. Then we do activities based on that letter throughout the week. So this week was the letter B. I was drawing different pictures of things that begin with B. I was saying, "Buh, buh boat. Buh, buh banana." I asked her what else started with B and her answer was, "Buh, buh seashell!" I guess teaching just isn't my calling in life! Although, that night when Richard was asking her about what she learned, she said lots of B words. So hopefully it sunk in somehow.

She can write her name (Ella taught her, not me) but the letters are never in the right order. It's so interesting to see some of the things she does the exact same way as Ella because that's who taught her. She writes her letters the same way and draws people the same way.

Over the past year, she has developed a little ritual at the end of her prayers. In our house in Buffalo, she and Ella would open the armoire drawers and pull out all of the baby blankets and stuff things in their closet. They would get in big trouble for this, so she started saying, "help us to not play in the drawers and closet" in her prayers. Well, since then, every prayer ends with, "help us not to play in dee drawers and closet. Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.". It's said super fast, all in one breath. Some call it strange, we prefer quirky.

And last, but certainly not least, my #1 favorite thing Ruby says right now is the word "leotard". But in Ruby-speak, its pronounced, "WEINERTARD" !

We love you Rubes and are so glad you are our daughter. You always keep us laughing and your hugs are the best!