My favorite 3-year-old

Dear G,

Today you are 3 years old.

As the day passed, I watched you, thinking about how you have changed in the past year.  A year ago your brother was still cooking in my belly, and you temporarily had me all to yourself since N had begun kindergarten.  A year ago you still seemed a baby to me.
                                                                                              

Just born

6 months old

Happy 1st Birthday

18 months

But you are such a big boy now.  Able to clean up a mess when I ask you to (and when you are feeling particularly cooperative).  Able to use your imagination when playing with your cars and trains.  Able to point out every single solitary digger-type vehicle on the side of the road.  Able to run with N to the bus stop in the morning.  Able to jump.  Able to catch a football.  Able to aggravate your mother to the point that she feels like she might not make it until bedtime.

There are so many things I love about you.  I especially love the way you invert your expression of cause and effect.  For example, when you say things like, "I pooped because I cannot sit in the chair."  And I love it that you sing in the car to everything from the Wiggles to Hannah "Ontana" as you call her.  And that you sing nursery rhymes in your own unique way, like by meshing together "Margery Daw" and "Jack & Jill" by singing.....

See-saw, Margery Daw.
Jack fell down and broke his crown.  (Instead of Jack shall have a new master)
He shall earn but a penny a day
Because he cannot work any faster.  (I love it that you say cannot, not can't or won't)

I love it that in the past year your bedtime sleeping buddies have ranged from a McDonald's Happy Meal Susan toy from the movie Monsters V. Aliens to a lavender stuffed hippo to every Island of Sodor train you own.

I love it that every time we drive past the Blockbuster you say, "I doan wanna go der.  The man wit da hat.  He's funny" because of the life-size poster of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter.

And even though it is extremely tiring and exasperating at times, I love it that you are rough and tumble, whack'em, smack'em, no holds barred boy.  (Your brother, I'm sure, would not concur with this sentiment as he receives the brunt of your whack'em/smack'em behaviors.)

It saddens me that there is so much of your babyhood I don't remember.....it is impossible for a mother to hold those memories in her heart as real and alive as they were when they occurred.  What gives me joy, though, aside from looking back at your sweet baby face and how it has changed over time, is knowing that I get to share the next year with you and see you become more of the boy you were born to be.

I love and cherish you always, G.

Mommy

2 years old

2 and a half years old

Happy 3rd Birthday, my lovely boy