I love this boy so much. My heart just aches with my love for him. When I told him I was going to put clean clothes on him and take him outside for birthday pictures, he fought me. He said, "This shirt is CLEAN!" (It wasn't) When I brought his clean jeans out, he exclaimed with happiness, "My plitty boy clothes!" (Which means "pretty boy")
I love his blue eyes, his goofy smiles, his sticky-outty hair and ears.
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| Climbing Hairy Scary Rock |
I love his sense of adventure and determination (I bet Mark was just like Daniel when he was little) and the way he thinks like a problem solver. Just now he was putting on a new pair of shorts. After he pulled them up, he gave a little jump and said, "There. These won't fall off. My other ones fall off and you laugh at me." Can I help it if I laughed again?
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| Three! |
I love the way he can count to five (really, even after all these kids, little accomplishments are always amazing and wonderful!) and that he calls every letter "H." I love the way he only draws spiders. And I love the way he cuts paper into tiny little confetti-sized pieces, picks up one, and gives it to me as my "plesent" (which means present).
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| "Wings of Justice! Ca-caw!" |
I love his sense of humor and the way he quotes movies (his favorite is Kung Fu Panda and A Bug's Life). Yesterday as we snuggled for a nap, he started saying, "Hubba, hubba, hubba" like the ant that fans the queen in Bug's Life.
I love the way he wants to work. No task is too difficult for him and he never whines about being tired or things being too heavy. He will say he doesn't want to do something until we offer the job to someone else...then his competitive streak kicks in and the job is HIS.
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| "Smile for the camera!" |
I love his grasp of opposites. His mastery is part of his defiance (which is something I don't love, but I do find hilarious at times). He will never need one of those cute lift-the-flap books about opposites. He knows wet/dry, good/bad, dirty/clean, pretty/ugly, boy/girl, you/me, etc... I think his favorite part is the big, loud NO that goes before his opposite. "NO! I'M buggin' me!" or "No, these pants are DRY!" or "No, I'm an ugly BOY!"
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| Looking for bugs and snails-way more interesting than smiling for me. |
I love how he is so in touch with his masculinity, he wears nail polish. Someone in our family worried about Daniel being surrounded by "so many sisters," but I say he is so manly that the sisters will tone that down. He hasn't done it yet, but I can totally see him running around shooting spiders with an imaginary machine gun while wearing a tutu (if Fiona shares). He will be one heck of a sympathetic husband by the time he grows up with all these girls around him.
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| "I love you, Mama!" Really, he said it and smiled, just when I took this picture! |
I love the way he looks for me every single morning as soon as he wakes up so he can have a snuggle while I drink my "poffee" (coffee). He isn't crawling into bed with me every night anymore, and when he does, he snuggles up to Mark because Lula is in his spot. I'm starting to miss that closeness and I cherish the morning and nap time snuggles.
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| Still wearing those purple boots. I love his purple boots. |
We are spending his third birthday quietly, some doing schoolwork, others curled up in blankets with tummy aches. I've made a chocolate cake and we have some ice cream in the freezer. His siblings have made cards and gifts out of paper. He hugged Evie's paper snake to his chest with a huge smile on his face!
Happiest of third birthdays to my little man!!!
