Sunday, 27 February 2011 21:26
My third born son is three.
This seems so monumental, probably for several reasons. This is the first time in almost 7 years that we have not had a child under the age of three. We finally don't have any "babies" around the house. This feels both weightless and burdensome. Our lives are not filled with diapers and bottles anymore - but now we keep alive these little people who have personalities and opinions and ideas and attitudes and emotions. Oh my. I also can no longer call the 20+ pounds I've been trying to kick at the gym "baby weight." My youngest isn't even a todller anymore... and the girl next to me at boot camp is, at 6 months pregnant, thinner than I.
But oh these three years! And the joy this child brings us. We didn't plan on a third baby - but we are so blessed by his presence. He finishes our family - equal parts brother 1 and brother 2, equal parts Brandon and I, and a good 75% purely original. He is a delight. A smart, silly, imaginative, fantastic delight.
If you know him then you love him. His sweet dimpled smile and his big boy toughness - his dirty face and his vibrant stories. He sucks you in and you get lost in his world. I LOVE the hours I spend on my hands and knees, chasing him around, action figures in hand. I love the ways he commands attention and demands respect. I love that, at three, it is still difficult to understand his sentences - that he talks so fast and with so much emotion that it makes the words difficult to decipher.
He loves baths and Superman. He loves riding his bicycle and swimming. He can do a front roll and jumps REALLY HIGH on the trampoline. He surprised us one day by counting to 20. And he laughs SO MUCH that it fills my heart with joy.
"You are my buddy, Mom," he tells me, in the few moments of the day when he stops spinning like a tornado and hunkers down to cuddle. "You and I are always buddies."
I will be his buddy for years to come. And I am proud of my buddy - of his big generous heart, his sweeping emotions and his shaggy hair. I'm proud of his huge blue eyes and his beautiful dimple and of the red cape he wears daily while he plays, shops, learns, and runs around. He is a little superhero. And he is three!
