Three Year Old Moments

We have had some pretty great three-year-old moments around here lately. I picked Ellie up from nursery last week and her leader pulled me aside to tell me that Ellie and a friend were not listening to their teachers and they had to be taken out of an activity. Lovely. This had better not be the beginning of bad reports from school. This does not surprise Nick and I as we've had a lot of 'doing what mom and dad ask' talks at home, and even implemented a sticker chart with prizes when she does what we ask her to. I know this is all part of growing up and learning some independence, but I tell you what, being a mom is hard! And it just gets harder! Anyway...I've been trying to spend some quality one-on-one time with Ellie while Maren naps. It has been really nice and I can already notice a big difference in our attitudes (that's right, mom has an attitude, too). The other day we colored and drew pictures together and I was impressed that Ellie wrote her name with minimal help from mom. Oh, and she draws very nice pictures of people with the following features: head, eyes, nose, nostrils (yep, nostrils!), and legs. Sometimes she'll add hair, arms, fingers, and toes. She is drawing pictures of Grandma and Grandpa in the above photo. After saying all of that, I must also say that Ellie really is a sweet girl. She plays well with her friends and is so polite (she always asks, "May I..." - Nick and I don't really know who taught her so well). She is usually happy and pleasant to be around and makes Maren laugh SO hard. She just has moments, you know, like we all do. Besides, it surely would be frustrating to be 3 feet tall...