Three Years Old

Perron,

My sweet, wild, precious first born.  How could it be that you are three years old.  i feel like just yesterday, I was laying on a table waiting for you to be born.  How far you have come from that little 3 lb 13 oz boy. 

You are one of the smartest little boys I know.  You have such a passion for music.  You love classical music and you spend almost all of your days with a plastic straw, your ba-ton (spelled like you used to pronounce it), in your hand.  You stand on a little plastic bathroom step stool that you call your compodium and you conduct like crazy.  Your three favorite conductors are Franz-Wesler Most, Allen Gilbert and Gustavo Dudamel.  You will tell that information to anyone who will listen.  Gammaw and Gampaw record classical music concerts and you love to go to their house and conduct to them.  You love Rhapsody in Blue, Radezsky's March, Songs from the Nutcracker, Rodeo, Mafiesto Waltz, just to name a few.  You can't understand why other three year olds aren't interested in conducting or who your favorite conductor's are.  You can  name every instrument in the orchestra and if you aren't conducting you can usually be found playing some kind of instrument around the house.  It is cute, but it is mind-blowing how incredibly intelligent you are that you can comprehend all of this at such a young age. 

You love puzzles and are VERY good at them.  You can easily blow through 24 piece puzzles without any help.  You have a Chuggington Puzzle that you were given for your birthday that has over fifty puzzles and you can easily do that without any help.  You love to read and there are several books that you can "read" back to us.  You can read Where the Wild Things Are and The Very Hungry Captepillar to name a couple.  It is always so cute to hear you read the stories because you read them back exactly the way you hear them read to you, same intonation and inflection.  Some of your favorites are The Bernstein Bears, Little Critter, Dora books, and Curious George.

I hate to admit that you are a bit of a technology junkie.  You LOVE LOVE LOVE to play on the iPad and would play all day long if I let you.  One of your favorite things to do is to get on YouTube and look up videos of your favorite conductors.  In fact, as you sit here next to me on the couch you are watching a video of Franz Wesler Most.  You also love looking at pictures on Facebook.  I love that you are already a little Facebook stalker at the age of three.  You know exactly how to get into the app, go to my profile, and find the pictures.  You also have several little games that you like to play.  Not surprisingly your favorite game is a musical instrument game.  You also love your Curious George Application, your matching game, and a game about shapes.  To go with your iPad addiction you also have a love affair with cable television.  Nick JR is your favorite channel and some of your favorite shows are The Fresh Beat Band, Dora, Diego, Wow Wow Wubbzy, and Team Umi-zoomi.  I must admit that since your little brother was born you probably watch a little more TV than you should.

Speaking of brothers.  You are such a good big brother.  You love Grayson so much and I can already see the bond forming between you too.   It is so sweet to see it develop.  You love to tickle him and grab at him.  I occasionally have to remind you to be gentle, but for the most part you are very good with him.  You constantly ask to hold him and will sit with your legs spread apart with him sitting in between.  It is getting harder for you to hold him though because his is already over half your size.

That is right.  You are still littler than a minute.  At your three year old check up you weighed 29 lbs 12 ozs and were 37.5inches tall.  You wear anything from 12-18 month shorts all the way up to 24 month shorts depending on the brand.  You are in 2T shirts and are about to move up to 3T shirts.  You are potty trained and have been since about May.  You still sleep in pull-ups for nap time and night time.

You unfortunately not a great sleeper, which is hard on mommy and daddy.  You still take one nap a day that last anywhere from an hour and a half to 3 hours depending.  Most days you are up well before the sun rises (before 6am).  We moved you to a big boy bed in January and you certainly have taken advantage of the freedom that affords.  In the past four to six weeks you have stopped sleeping through the night.  I will frequently find you standing nose to nose with me at my bedside at 4am.  Hopefully this is just a phase and you will grow out of it quickly because mommy and daddy are TIRED!

But the  most important thing of all of this is how much we love you.  You are the sweetest, funniest, most loving child.  You light up this household and our lives more than you could every imagine.  Your energy and zeal for life are contagious and we are so blessed to be your parents.  You have taught me so much about what true, unconditional love is, so much about myself and the kind of person I want to be.  You have tested me in ways I could have never imagined, but you have also shown me a kind of love I could never have imagined before you are born.  You are one of the best things I have ever done!

We love you!

Mommy and Daddy