My Son John: Three Year Old Boy

Dear John,

This past Thursday was your third birthday. We celebrated by going to the playscape, like you wanted, and then to Chick Fil a to get a milkshake, one of your favorite treats.

The Fords joined us for dinner and gave you a set of swim floaties in the shape of fish. You liked them so much that you slept with them that night.

The big celebration, though, was Saturday. Your Gram and your Grandma gave up from Houston for your special day.

So many of your friends came out to Kiddie Acres to celebrate with us.

It was a wonderful celebration of YOU. And who are you?

You are John. Just John. Not Jack, not John Patrick. Just John.

You are funny and charming. In fact, I think you are learning to be funny and charming to get your way and I see you playing me and I still find myself taken in because you are so funny and so charming. You are blessed to have a daddy who is not taken in.

You are stubborn. You are willful. You will cut off your nose to spite your face every single time. You dig holes and then your dig them deeper.

You cave just often enough, though, for the people you love. Just often enough that the act of bending your will is an act of love. And you are loving, so loving, and sweet and kind and you melt my heart. You melt a lot of hearts.

You experience joy in an all out free-for-all of abandonment. You taste life. Maybe that's why you are so picky. Maybe it's why you always have your tongue out.

You crave sugar the way camels crave water. You eat it up, you store it up, and then for the next five meals in which things like meat and vegetables are served, you can make it through until the next carbolicious opportunity.

You are methodical and precise and have a memory like a steel trap. Out of sight is not out of mind and you can keep track of an impressive amount of small details, like which toys came with which accessories.

You are imaginative and creative. You tell stories and create adventures.

You are a superhero in your own mind, even if you find the idea of having a world staring at you to be unbearable and therefore could only save a world that was willing to look the other way.

You delight in the delightful, spending up to an hour on an activity that has captured your fancy, using far more fine motor skill and patience than I would ever have imagined in a three year old boy.