at 2 and 3/4

Dear Parker,

You are getting drastically close to being 3 years old.  We still have 3 months left in which I will call you 2 and 1/2, but you are technically now 2 and 3/4, so I thought I would give a little update about the things you are doing now.
Here goes:

Imaginary play - you are WAY into this.  You take your babies (Allie, Crackers, Tiny Baby, Pig Baby, Squishy Baby, Koko, Glinda and the 3 or so other unnamed babies) to the store, to school and various other places.  You mother them constantly.  You make sure they always have their cloths.  (Yes, each baby now has her own specific cloth that comes with them.  I can't keep them all straight, but you can.)  You make sure they take naps and have the toys they need.  You cook them food.  We took lunch to Mom today and you had to pack a lunch for Allie as well.

Imaginary friends? - I don't know whether or not to call these friends, but we are frequently visited by the Pamas and the Hayfers.  The Pamas are animals, I think.  According to you, they are "Giant" and covered in fur.  They walk on 9 legs, but have no eyes.  They also have hair on their heads in addition to the fur.  Allie does not like the Pamas.  Then, there are the Hayfers.  They are very small and apparently many of them are babies.  We don't yet have much information about their appearance other than they are very small.

New things you are into: Lately you have been obsessed with puzzles.  You have completely mastered all the "pre-school" puzzles in our house (the ones with the picture underneath the puzzle) and you can do several 12 piece regular puzzles (ya know, the kind that come in a box and you have to look at the picture to put them together.)  You help me with the 25 piece puzzles.  You haven't quite figured out the whole "do-the-edges-first" concept.  Instead you like to find all of one thing and put it together.  (Like, let's put together the elephant.)
    
You have a tracing book that I was really hoping you would get into about 3 months ago, but you are very excited about it now.  You trace straight lines and curvy lines, but get a little confused when they combine straight and curvy.  Then you just draw a circle! :)
    
You have also recently become excited about learning your letters.  Thank goodness.  I am confident in saying that you know B, H, O, P, Q, S, W and Z.  There are many others that you get sometimes. You confuse letters that look the same or sound the same....like C with S or I, J, L and T.   I guess that is to be expected.  I would really like you to know them before you go to school in the "fall," but I'm trying to not stress about it or pressure you.
  
 You still like to "read" and make up stories for the books you don't know or recite from memory the books you do know.
    
You have many pretend phones and get many important calls.  Most of them go like this, "HelloHowAreYouGoodOkayBye."  It's all very quick.  At least two times in the past week you have exchanged "texts" with Grandpa Booga in which he has thanked you for the gift cards you bought him.  I'm not sure where you got the idea to buy gift cards, but apparently he enjoyed them. ;)

New Adventures: Yesterday, I was working on staining the fence.  You were trying to be such a good girl and play in the yard by yourself.  Then, the neighbor boy came out and you started "playing" with him through the fence, so I just went over and asked if he wanted to come play in our yard.  So, you had a playdate with a kid neither of us knew very well.  He was pretty well behaved and you seemed to enjoy his company.  Here's the thing though.  He will be 5 next month - so he is more than 2 years older than you are - and you played together just fine.  I guess I don't know if this is normal or not, but you do seem to enjoy hanging out and playing with older kids.  Whatever that means.

Okay, baby.  I guess this is long enough for now.  I can't believe how old you are getting.  You look old and act so grown-up sometimes.  I love you so much but am not quite ready for all this big kid stuff.  I love you so much.
Love,
Mommy