Dear Little Ring,
How is my baby already three?
How are you already walking, talking, loving, listening, joking, imagining, creating, mischieving, tuning your mama out, running, playing, learning, laughing, being your own you? How is that possible? Just yesterday you were my baby.
How do you already have a heart full of compassion? While you don’t readily hand out I love yous (it’s the German thing) when you do, you make them count. Like that time a few weeks ago, when I was in the mud of finals, and was telling Papa Big Ring about my meltdown earlier that day. Your little ears perked up:
Did you cry? you asked, a look of concern painted all over your face. Yes, a little, I admitted. Two tears? you asked, a question that seemed completely sound from your mouth. Yep, just two tears, I said, a smile taking over the curves of my lips. And with that, my dear boy, you wrapped your arms around me, nuzzled your neck into my chest and half whispered, half shouted “I love you.”
That is my everyday love.
How do you already know so completely the things you love. Like that space dude, that’s apparently not a toy, Buzz Lightyear. You have loved him for more than a year, and so fierce is that love, you can recite nearly every line of “Toque” Movie (which you did for the first 30 minutes, at least, of the outdoor screening we took you to!) some of the lines albeit a little Oscarcized: “STINK IN MY BUTT!!!” (Hehehe.) The evil Zurg laugh has become your all-the-time laugh. And with every lift off, even if it’s only for a short trip, there is always the proclamation: “Toooooo infinity… andbeyond!!!”
That is my everyday love.
How is your brain already so incredibly full of the smarts? Everyday you blow me away with your new knowledge. I’m not gonna lie, there have been times over the last year where I would have traded my lifetime of memories in for your sponge of a brain. In. A. Heartbeat. Every page of your favourite books, memorized. Even ones you haven’t seen in months, we pull them out, and you’re reading them to us. Puzzles, they’ve got nothing on you, not even the advanced five-year-old ones. Sometimes though, I wonder if maybe you’re a little too smart. Like when you decide you’ve had enough of learning at daycare and gather a bunch of toys around you and then start playing in your magical world, a world that no adults can enter, a world where your ears do not register the sound of adults. Turkey.
That is my everyday love.
How is it that you are already so filled with a humour that has me laughing every day. Your pretend snores. Your belief that breasts are elbows. Your knock-knock jokes that don’t really have an ending. Your “writing” directions on your hands (just like mama does before a run) and then your sprints up and down the condo before flopping onto the hardwood in exhaustion. Your never-ending negotiations, and the eyes that almost always win me over.
That is my everyday love.
Dear boy, three years ago I was freaking out with your unexpected earlier than already planned early arrival; two years ago I was marveling at the warmth filling my everyday heart; one year ago, I was reluctantly learning to let you go a tiny smidge each day. Today, you do not let me go a day without smiling, without laughing, sometimes without pulling the hairs out of my head. You do not let me go a day without telling me you’re a big boy, not a baby, without instilling your will, whether it be wearing rain boots every day during the hottest summer on record, or playing “just a few more minutes” on the ropes at the park, and without your night-time cuddles where you tell me every piece of your day well past the eyes drooping down point.
You are my love. You are my warmth. You are, and always will be, my baby.
“When the road looks rough ahead and you’re miles and miles from your nice warm bed, you just remember what your old pal said, boy, you’ve got a friend in me.” ~Randy Newman, Toy Story