On the Day You Were Three

A Letter to My Son Approaching 1,100 Days of Life

My dearest Son,

Today is your birthday. It’s hard to believe you are nearly 1,100 days old.

This past year has brought with it such an explosion of expression and ability. From first words to full sentences and the unending questions about all manner of things that trail behind the mind of such a sweet, curious boy. From climbing your first ladder to running your first “race,” baking your first batch of brownies to eating your first popsicle, this year has been a true delight.

I love how much you love books, and the stories embedded inside your favorite movies. “Tell Tractor Tipping,” you say, referring to the scene in Cars 1 where Mater and Lightning McQueen go tractor (car “cow”) tipping in the middle of the night. I love how you’ve learned that a promise to do something for “just two minutes” is more likely to get me to agree. I love how you’ve learned how to ask with a double please (“Please may I have grapes please?”), the extra please a punctuation mark of both enthusiasm and sincerity.

This year, you’ve started to recognize physical landmarks, like the hill leading up to our house, the direction to daycare, and your grandmother’s car make and model. You love playing on the trampolines at “bounce house” (the gymnastics gym) and going to the park to swing and slide.

The one thing I have been absolutely awful at as a parent is keeping track of your life milestones in any consistent and coherent way (outside of my daily journal pages) which means there is no succinct record of your first word (maybe “chip”?), no date of first hair cut (600th day?), no lock of baby hair neatly clipped and preserved. I have cherished every single day I have had the good fortune to spend with you, but I’ve lost track of the tiny moments we’ve passed along the way. Suddenly, you are 1,100 days old, negotiating for “just two more minutes,” racing yourself around the house like a race car.

Almost every parent I’ve ever spoken to about parenting remarks on how fucking fast it all goes, how you blink and childhood is over. The details of each moment fade and blur together into a strange hyperspeed timelapse. Sometimes, when I need reminding of how precious every single minute of parenthood is, I return to the post I wrote on your 100th days of life, relishing the exquisite detail of every second of your birth. Those 36 hours are a blur now much like the story you see in the movies: my water broke, I labored for 24 hours, then they did an unplanned C-section, and you were here! But I’m grateful to have captured those details when they were still 100 days fresh.

I return to the letter I wrote you a week into my first Camino, when I was just 31 weeks pregnant. You had only just started kicking me in the gut then, and I wondered: “What kind of person will you become? What traits will you learn from me? Which will you take from your dad? And which parts of you will be uniquely yours?” I couldn’t have imagined that your personality would so perfectly match your name, that you would be one of the happiest babies I could ever imagine, that you would be so much more like your grandfathers than either of your parents.

Now, here you are, enthusiastically slathering peanut butter and jam on bread, driving remote control cars, giggling at fart sounds. I can’t wait to see what your fourth year of life—your next 365 days—will bring.

I can’t wait to keep learning and loving beside you.

All my love,

Your Mama