Dear Connor - 3 Years

Dear Connor,
It’s been three years since you came out to meet us and what a whirlwind it’s been. It’s been so amazing watching you grow so big and strong and I’m so fascinated by your little toddler mind. You are becoming more and more rational and I love it when I see your brain ticking away, a minute later followed by some random question. “Where do snakes live?”

Sometimes I’m completely dumbfounded when I hear my own words coming out of your mouth. Your eye squint and you point and say in your sternest voice, “Mommy, you STOP IT. RIGHT NOW. OR I WILL PUT YOU IN TIME-OUT!” I can tell by the look on your face, that it’s amusing to you, to be so brave. To talk to Mommy and Daddy like they talk to you. It’s exciting for a second to think that you might have such power and how it would thrill you if Mommy and Daddy actually did what you said. Because in your world, nothing would be better than being the boss.
Because you want to be in charge and Mommy and Daddy just don’t listen to you when you command them, you spend a lot of time, bossing your brother around. You take his toys or push him down… you take his sippy cup and try to drink it down, although it’s filled with milk which you dislike unless it’s spiked with Hershey’s Syrup. You tell him no. You threaten him with time out. We give you plenty of decisions that you can make on your own, things that you are able to control so you just don’t feel like you are bossed around all of the time, but since you can’t command Mommy to serve you ice cream for breakfast, having control over what color shirt you are going to wear that day isn’t very satisfying.

We had a birthday party for you today. Originally you wanted to Spiderman Birthday Party, but once we went to the store to pick our your cake, you fell in love with the Diego cake and had to have it. So, we had a Spiderman-Diego party instead. We hung a piñata, which all of the children took a whack at, finally pulling the strings on the bottom to release the candy. All of the children dove on the pile filling their bags with candy, but you choosing something that you thought might be a Starburst candy, took your single piece of candy away from the chaos, where you could enjoy the sweetness all by yourself. I went over and taking the candy from you, you looked up at me with such pleading that it nearly broke my heart. I explained that I wasn’t taking the candy, that you could have even more candy, if you just went and picked it up off of the ground. You happily trotted over, grabbed some more candy off of the ground and hurried over to show me your bag. I think you just might have learned the piñata concept today.
You got loads of toys, the first toys that you’ve had in a while, including new Playdoh, cars and lots of Spiderman goodies.

You still love the water and I think the best part of your day today, even better than the birthday party, may have been when you climbed into the empty drink cooler on the deck, after stripping naked and played in it, pretending you were in the bathtub. We were so worn out from the weekend that we didn’t have the energy to pull you out of it, since your Dad and I were having the first child free conversation we’d had in three days, he added a little more water from the hose for your enjoyment and you played away.

When your lips turned blue we brought you in and put you into a warm bath. I saw your little mind working and you said, “Mommy, can we go outside again?” I told you that we were done with outside for the day and you said, “But can’t we go outside and dig up worms? Dig them out of the ground?” This wouldn’t have shocked me at all if it wasn’t something that we did five months ago, and not since.
Tomorrow I’ll go back to work and you’ll get to play with all of your new toys, you’ll give Daddy hell and I’ll talk to you on the phone on my lunch break. I’ll come home, we’ll eat dinner, play and then off to bed with you. And so another year will start to pass us by. But this weekend, I promise to take you digging for worms.
Happy Birthday Baby!
I Love You,
Mommy