What I Don't Want to Forget About You on Your Third Birthday or Ever

• The way you follow me into the bathroom, ask me if I am pooping, and then say, "Good job!" if I am.
• How Pingu and bagel sound the same when you say them and every time I think it is bagel, even though you don't even like bagels.
• You climb into bed every morning and shove your downy little head under my nose to make me sneeze and then you say "Oh, sorry! Wanna mursh?"
• Your incredible indelible word associations, which can take you from seeing a picture of a fish to asking for a gummy swedish fish in 2 seconds flat.
• How you will try to sing along with any song - even if it's the first time you have heard it.
• When you say, "I SKEERED!" and make that face to show me that you were REALLY SKEERED!
• When you have a treat you have to make sure everyone around you has one as well. If there are not enough, you will go without. It's no fun eating a lollipop alone.
• The other night, when you had that mysterious fever and hallucinated fire trucks and puppies in the air and threw up the juice I had coaxed you to drink, you kept saying, "I spilled my mouf. I sorry. I spilled. I sorry." And it made me cry, because really, you are too kind for a small boy.
• Your consistent obsession with: trains, helicopters, rockets, and fire trucks.
• When you saw the cake come out of the oven this morning and I told you it was your cake, you said, "YAY! EAT CAKE! ANKTHOU!"
• That all your friends at preschool love you because you are so happy and so freaking fun.
• The way that you would rather snuggle with me while we 'watch trains' than sit alone and fondle your trains.
• How you suddenly, just last week, stopped calling me 'Mama', and now have a very distinct, 'Mommmeeee', when you have something important to share.
• The way you make me laugh every single day. I am not kidding. Every. Single. Day.
• The sounds that you Buzz and Alien make when they are arguing (pure comedy).
• The way you recently reminded us all how smart you really are, how unstoppable you really are, and how lucky we really are.
• How hard you have worked for everyone, most of all yourself, over the past year.
  
• Your limitless capacity to show, give, and receive love.
• The expressions on your face as you received your VIP birthday tour of the local fire station. Thanks to Muncle Firetruck and his wife, Cha-Trains (yes, that is what he calls them).
  

Happy Birthday, my little man.

We love you so very much.