The threeness of three

Oh, my Jordan, you are three. Three three three!

I have to say, I love this age. You can be incredibly infuriating, but mostly you are charming. Seriously, oh so charming.

You regularly thank us for dinner, or for your socks, or for turning on the light. It's random, because you don't always say thanks when you should. But when you do, it is so sincere and emphatic.

And you commend us for all kinds of things. "Good job eating your oatmeal, Mommy!" "Oh, Nana! Good job pouring my milk!"

You constantly amaze me with your sentence construction. The other day you said, in reference to a proffered potty training reward, "And then I can get a new dump truck that works that doesn't have broken wheels."

I find this rather sophisticated.

You have an adorable lisp, in which you substitute S for TH - although not with all words. For example, when you're yelling, "Lisa! Liiiiiiiisa!" to get my attention, it's not present. But when you say "Yeth," well, there it is.

I don't encourage or discourage it, and I assume you'll grow out of it. For now, I think it's so cute.

There are words that have gone away, and I miss them.

For example, as a way to encourage you to drain the tub, Dad taught you that taking out the plug created a whirlpool. This put a stop to end-of-bath histrionics. And then you would say "whooya pooya" over and over - but that's gone the way of so many other words that you can now pronounce properly.

You still call the back room the background, and I think we will always refer to it that way.

You still love the vehicles, and you know one from another, and if I call a front loader a backhoe, you notice and correct.

I was going to be the parent who fed her kid vegetables, who had a child with a varied palate and I was so pleased that you would eat whatever we put in front of you. Right after you turned one, we took Nana to Cashions for her birthday, and you ate all of her foie gras.

Oh, so sophisticated!

And now, now my friend, your food repertoire consists of mac and cheese (preferably the boxed kind), grilled cheese, pasta with butter and salt and pepper (which reminds me - you used to call it satupapa!), the occasional hot dog or sausage, eggs, waffles, pancakes, toast, cereal, bananas, berries, and mangoes. You adore mangoes.

I think that covers it. Oh, and chocolate and goldfish and ice cream. Naturally.

Everything else is examined and deemed "yucky" - without a taste. This infuriates your father. I have to remind him that his parents made him sit at the table for hours on end trying to force him to eat his soggy, overcooked vegetables. He'd sit there till midnight, and they'd remain uneaten.

You come by your stubbornness honestly, I should mention.

You love inviting people over, and you're always saying, "Want to come to my house?" Once I heard you offer dinner to a little friend: "We can have macaroni and cheese! It's delicious!"

She was enticed. You have wonderful friends, you really do.

Now you love word play and it's so fun to make you giggle. You're into Thomas the Train, and sometimes I call you Sir Topham PANTS! instead of Sir Topham Hat, and you hasten to correct me, but you squeal with delight at things like this.

Dad taught you to say "okey dokey" and you find this hilarious. You also love referring to people as "jokers" -  as a compliment.

Once it was firmly established that India would not be going away, you got very sweet with her. You regularly tell her you're going to play together when she's bigger.

Your sharing usually has an ulterior motive (someone else's looks better than yours - so you offer to switch) but sometimes you share so kindly with another child that it squeezes my heart.

Recently you learned that you enjoy being naked, you love being in a pool, and you revel in peeing outside. The potty training is going slowly, and you've said no thanks to bribes of M&Ms and stickers - two things you adore! - in attempts to get you to sit on the potty.

It would be a completely skewed missive if I didn't mention that you do have the ability to enrage me so much that I contemplate chucking you bodily out the door. Sometimes I'm pretty sure my head is actually going to explode, you frustrate me so.

But I don't chuck you and my head remains intact, and the fact of the matter is that no matter what you do, I'm going to love you so crazy much forever and ever.

Which reminds me. You're so used to me saying, "I love you SO much!" that now when I ask you how much I love you, you get a little twinkle and say, "NO much!" and we go back and forth with the no and so.

You know I love you SO MUCH and every once in a while, you tell me you love me SO MUCH as well. I can see on your sweet little face that it's true.

And when you look at me like that, it's a wonder that rainbows and puppies and sunshine don't just fly out of my chest and rain down on you.

I believe in this world that you really have to work to get and keep treasures. And once in a while, you just get lucky.

I got so lucky with you.

Love love love,
Mama (AKA Mommy. And Lisa! Liiiiiisa!)