Three

Dearest Liam, darling of mine –

Yesterday, you turned three.

A couple of days before that, you were angry that we didn’t have any more fruit bars.  And so you snuck into the pantry and shredded up three rolls of toilet paper in your frustration.  I don’t know who coined the Terrible Twos, because I find three far worse.  At Two you were delicious.  You are more frequently Terrible at Three, existing uncomfortably in the tension between your limits and your desires.

(Even when you are Terrible, you are still delicious, and I love you.)

You are not always terrible.  This morning you marched happily right into the car to go to church, though your brother dragged his feet.  You carried  your new little baby doll with you.  Some folks have teased you a bit about that baby doll, that a little boy would have the audacity to carry around a baby instead of a monster truck.  Watching you navigate their reactions is priceless – they get is a quizzical sidelong glance and a shrug of the shoulders.  People be crazy, right?  You love Baby, she is your “friend” as you call her, what’s their deal?  You just don’t care what they think, and you carry that Baby everywhere anyhow, because you like her.

I love your backbone, little man.  You arguably have a stronger sense of self, of boundaries, of limits than I do.  I worry less, knowing how surefooted you are.

Though you are now a “dad” to a “baby,” there is still some baby in you yet.  When you wake in the morning, grumpy as anything because neither one of you boys is a Morning Person, you will gather up your various loveys and climb right into my arms and suck your thumb, head tucked under my chin.  You’ll stay there as long as I let you.  Most mornings it’s not long enough.  You march happily into daycare each day, waving bye to us and then turning to your teachers and cracking a joke.  You did this one morning – stuck out your neon-clad foot and growled in a low voice “It’s crrrrazy sock day” – and it made them all laugh.  So now, of course, you do it every day, coming up with something to mutter at them in a grown-up voice so that they will chuckle over you and usher you in with laughter.

You still have a few baby-isms, though.  You call Monster’s Inc. “Monster’s Tink,” run around and ask me to watch “your fastest,” and have not yet said an “L” or a “R.”  Both your names, Liam and William, sound like Weam coming out of your mouth.  A funny trick I like to play on you is to call you William, and you say “I not Weam!  I Weam!  L-I-A-M, Weam!  Not Weam!”  This cracks me up.  Your mom is lame, what can I say.

Life with you is constant wading through a sea of discarded toys, shredded toilet paper, tantrums from un-met demands that you cannot even articulate but are extremely upset to be denied.  Even so, as I sat down this morning to dress you, for approximately the thousandth day in a row of similar days, I ran my hands over your shoulders, your little boy arms, pulled the shorts up over your bum and the t-shirt over your head, and marveled at every perfect inch of you.  Your scabby knees and elbows, your slowly slimming face, your clever eyes and tiny pirate underpants, your Little Boy Haircut – you are a poem of boyhood, a Symphony of Three, and I am happy to know that you are mine, still, for a little while longer.  Even as I push your independence and praise your strength of self, I will cling to your morning cuddles as long as I can.  You are my sweetest, my littlest, my love.  Happy birthday, Weam.

Love,

Mama