What Three Looks Like

Some day, baby, you are going to ask me what you were like when you were little.  And while I swear to all that is holy that time can never dull my memories of your childhood, some day you will see that it can and it will.  So let me tell you now, love, what three looks like.

You are at once fierce and timid.  You charge forward with such force and conviction at times it can startle me to see it in your sweet three year old eyes and yet, in a second they soften with a yearning to be cuddled and loved on, by your mama and everyone else.  You are funny, so funny, baby.  Your imagination runs wild like a river, overflowing with stories and tales and passion, such passion.  For your birthday you want a car, a REAL car, and a unicorn.  One that is breathing and preferably one that can fly.  You are obsessed with cake, rainbow sprinkles, your sister and wearing only dresses.

A few nights ago you actually asked me to borrow my car.  You calmly looked me in the eye and told me you needed it because you were taking Harper to Australia.  The story unfolds so easily as you tell me all about how the two of you are moving in with your friend 'Jolene', she lives in Australia and you are driving there.  You told me how you would miss me but you had to go.  I didn't have the heart to tell you cars can't drive over oceans to reach Australia and I had too much heart bursting forth at the unrelenting knowledge that someday you will both want to drive open roads, to explore, to break free from us and carve your own paths.  Be gentle to yourself on the journey baby, and be good to the people that love you.

You are at once my source of such anxiety and such peace.  You start preschool this year.  The morning of your orientation you woke in the very early morning hours as you often do and rushed in a thunder of footsteps down the hall, reaching up to be swept into our bed before real awakening begins.  As the familiar weight of your little body softened against me, toes wrapping around my mine, little fingertips reaching for an earlobe to stroke for comfort, my heart broke a little.  Because when you woke, you would take another step towards independence from me.  You would put on school shoes, a backpack much too big for your little frame, filled with dreams much too big for your three years and take a step away from me and into the unknown future of preschool.  Preschool seems little to some.  But remember my love.  It's not the big steps, it's the culmination of all the little ones that are going to shape the path of your life, choose wisely.

So tomorrow you will wake up and you will be three.  You will still love pink, believe you are a princess and dream of being a ballerina.  You will throw everything you have into your day because you have not yet had your dreams dampened or suffered real disappointment.  It will be a magical, magical day for us baby, because you make them magical for us.  You were perfect from the start.