You are three years old! In many ways you are exactly the same kid that you have always been. You are sweet and funny. You always want to help us, even when we're just turning on the computer to watch a video. You are curious and determined. You like to learn things, and then you like to tell us all about them.
And in other ways you are changing every day. You've started to ask me, "What do those letters mean?" when you see text, even if we're not reading a book. You have picked up new habits from school, like arranging all of our shoes neatly when we come home from somewhere. You used to hate showers, but you've enjoyed taking a couple of showers at night with Dad, instead of a bath, which I think mainly stems from the fact that you can splash a lot more when the shower curtain is closed.
Your vocabulary grows and grows, but now you like to use it to tell us what to do. "You drive that train." "You stay downstairs." "I'm going to do it." You've started trying to give the dogs commands, too, but they just end up looking confused. You have a couple of new interests: asteroids (especially crashing into the earth) and the Hindenberg. The other night we were putting on your pjs, and I started singing Old McDonald Had a Farm. It turns out that we've been wrong for years. Old McDonald doesn't have any animals: he has asteroids.
This will be the first birthday that you'll have at school. It's also the first time we've been invited to a party for one of your classmates. We declined because we were going to have cake and presents for you at home on the same day. That got postponed, though, because you've had one of your rare bouts of sickness. You woke up very early in the morning on Sunday with a high fever, and spent almost the whole day curled up on the couch watching episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba, Thomas the Train, and playing video games with Dad. Monday you didn't have school anyway, and we kept you home Tuesday and today. So we did your birthday stuff on your actual birthday today. Luckily, nobody told you between then and now that your cake was already in the fridge.
Cake! In the fridge!
I'll tell you that joke later.
Other than that, it's been a fairly quiet month for us. Dad brought home some delicious dessert treats on Valentine's Day, to go with your giant heart balloon. You got some Valentines cards from some classmates, which meant I had to answer a lot of questions about, "What does Scooby Doo do? What do Smurfs do?" Ah, pop culture. I started pre-natal yoga class again. You got a hair cut. Two friends gave us hand-me-downs for you, which should set up your wardrobe for the next 12-18 months. I got a massage, during which the therapist ran her hands over my left shoulder and said, "This is the side you carry your son on, isn't it?" so I guess I was tense in that shoulder.
This is your last birthday as an only child, which is kind of a strange thought. I imagine in the future that we'll need to get better at doing something actually special for your birthdays, especially if Baby Sister's birthday ends up just a few weeks away. I had to share birthday parties with a couple of my cousins, and while I like my cousins very much, it was kind of a drag. I'm not really a celebratory person, but someday you'll probably want more than just a cake. I think what holds me back sometimes is the fact that I celebrate every day that you're in my life. So while the 22nd of February is undeniably meaningful, it just doesn't outweigh the other 364 days of the year that I get to be your mom.
Love,
Mom
Presents before breakfast!
Cake before dinner!
After dinner drawing. I would like to point out the zeppelin in flames, drawn next to the box of crayons. You requested a drawing of the Hindenberg, and then you were so disappointed in what Dad drew that you went upstairs and got the book which had the actual photo of the Hindenberg, so that Dad could draw it the right way. Oh, the humanity!
