Threenager.

I read a post on Facebook recently about the phases of toddler-hood: they talked about the terrible twos, the fiesty fours, and ... the threenager phase.

Honestly, I laughed out loud when I read it. But it was really an "oh my goodness: were you just in my house" kind of laughter. We certainly have a threenager around here. Her name is Brooke. The thing is, she is mostly so sweet. She's a constant stream of chatter and songs and stories, and talking to her (rapidly growing) collection of stuffed animal babies. She talks to everything about everything, and it's when you interrupt her that you are flung a wicked dose of threenager sass: "I know, Mom. Okay." (complete with sighs.)

And most of my family tosses their heads back in laughter when they hear all of this because apparently I was a pretty similar kid. Here's the thing about that: I remember being quite... outspoken as a kid, but not until I was like 11. And I've been actively prepping myself for that stage.

I was not prepared for the early-on-set expression of sass. Usually, I'd be delighted if my kids were a little ahead of the curve, but on this one: I'd be happy if she dialed back her... cheekiness.

She posed like this unprompted. Her sass was dialed in that day. It's hard to take her sassiness too personally when she's so darn cute.