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Three was fun, oh so fun. Silly voices and songs, screaming tantrums and control issues. A stuffed elephant left on my pillow as a peace offering. A rolled-eye and a "whatever". A kiss and a pat on my back as we walk somewhere. A rap on the forehead at 6:30 in the morning and sometimes company when I shower. or pee. that part was weird, but I got used to it. I never expected that one little person could take me from extreme happiness to extreme pissiness. Sometimes in one day. Oh the love. Oh the pissiness. Thank god for beer.

When you were two I was getting my parental sealegs. Panicked with the notion of having to figure out how to make an enjoyable person out of you. My god. No wonder there are so many detestable children out there. It would be so much easier to acquiese, go ahead, run with those scissors. Eat that, whatever THAT is. This toy? Have it. Sure.

Three was mental in a different way. Three was like having a bratty sibling that tested me and then bounced me back a grade and took my lunch money periodically. Three has better vocabulary and a stronger will and several hundred tricks up her sleeve. But three has serious powers of persuasion and  charm.

You're so good at letters and drawing and helping and being sweet. You've given me more character. And you are a chracter and I love you. So very much.

I’m a chick. You probably guessed that. And despite my best efforts, I act like one sometimes. There are many glorious things about being chickish, for example, boys will carry heavy things for you, but the one thing I’ve never been fond of is the whole emotional thing. The fact that strong emotion, good bad happy sad can bring tears. Damn tears! I’m NOT SAD!!! Why am I teary talking to my boss about what an asshole a co-worker of mine is? Makes no freaking sense. Even to complain about this emotionalness is girly. Wah!!! Emotions! Wah! My inner dude tells me to shut the eff up. (not much of a dude if he can’t even say the f-bomb)

"Do fireflies have ears?"

In high school I was pretty conversant in "shit" and "damn" and I knew my way around "hell" as well. It wasn't until my mid-twenties that I really got the hang of "fuck". My first job out of college was for H@llmark Cards and I'm sure you'll believe me when I say that cursing wasn't common among the happy card elves. But my second job was full of arrogant, over-confident multimedia types that peppered their speech with the f-bomb not unlike a teenage girl and the word "like." I changed jobs a few times but kept ending up with a profane group of people and by the time that "Deadwood" came to Cable TV, I'd also mastered cock sucker. Nice, eh? My language skills? 

I can't tell you how much fun I had watching this little imp running through the sprinkler. And the happy serendipity of this photo couldn't have been planned. Memorial Day Weekend brought 2 different sprinklers, one Mount Tiki Soki water toy, one baby pool, one outdoor mall fountain and a backyard in-ground swimming pool. No wonder she's a little pruny.  

yeah yeah, I'm the worst blogger ever. It's not a writer's block, it's a whole freaking neighborhood! So in lieu of putting thoughts and words together, how about a lovely little video clip from our own auteur, Dickie. If this doesn't make you want to rush out and buy your very own 3 year old, I'm not sure what will.

Even at 3 years old, the opportunities she gives me to cuddle her up in my lap are fleet and sometimes squirmy moments. Saturday, after splashing in her pool and making it rain with the hose, her lips were nearly blue and I had to talk her out of the water so I could wrap her up and warm her. She’s so tall now that it was nigh impossible to warm her toes while also warming her torso in those small towels you feel compelled to buy when you have a new baby. She’s wrapped and tucked, her head under my chin and I don’t even remember what all we talked about those magical 10 minutes, possibly her new fwip-fwops, or school or bugs, but I was charmed.

The day was sunny and breezy and altogether perfect for a spring day in May. We have a robin family that has taken residence in the shrubs on the side of the house and we watched one or the other of the parents flying in, waiting for safety before swooping in to their nestful of babies with their mouthfuls of worm. Sometimes we peek at them from our sun porch, the little yellow maws that bob up and down. The cat’s interest is purely predatory, I’ve been trying to get a good photo and Ruby wants to jump up and down on the sofa there by the window so as to really freak the mommy robin out. Although that’s not her intention, it is the effect.

She was making up jokes recently, and it was like looking through a kaliedescope and trying to figure out what little shard of plastic made the image and colors appear. These jokes were little stories, just like other jokes, but the preschooler doesn’t know for irony or juxtaposition, she knows that what she is saying makes her laugh and so she does. It’s tricky when she asks ME to make up a joke, I’m unsure of her protocol.

I’m sure, in a matter of moments, she’ll be in high school and self-sufficient and hardly around and I wonder how much my heart will ache. Or how much my own mother’s ached when I moved away for college. And even though there are 15 years of skinned knees, homework projects and slammed doors between here and there, it makes me a little sad to be sitting in this office chair, tapping on a computer for a few dollars while my perfectly wonderful daughter is charming other people.

At this self-same birthday party, the birthday girl received what amounted to a pair of preschool hooker shoes. Silver platform shoes that clattered horrendously across the wood and tiled floor. Towards the end of the party, before the four little girls would all soon be rushed off to home and jammies, they herded together and began to run at break-neck speeds from one end of the house to the other whilst whooping mightily. Birthday girl in her hooker shoes flailing and clacking along in the rear. There's nothing quite like a wipeout by a newly birthdayed 3 year old in hooker shoes. All the grownups stop breathing for a second, waiting to see if a wail ensues. We've all learned, don't freak out until they do. If that had been ME wiping out, there woulda been tears, my friend. And booze. A lot of booze.

Ah spring. These are the days of false hopes. You feel the sun on your arms with that little undercurrent of cool that swirls up. Yellow forsythia haven't yet exploded yet but there are daffodils and a few hardy tulips that the 3 year old wants to rip from their earthly perches. No, I say, leave them there, they'll last longer. Looks of extreme sadness as she's still holding onto the dainty floral just in case it should accidentally become removed from the rest of its stem. Just in case.

She waits a few moments before asking about this other one, right there, can I pick it? No, baby, let's wait til they're lots of them. But we'll have another chilly snap that will make my leaving windows open over night seem fool-hardy. And I'll be glad that I didn't rush us all off to the garden center to buy impatiens and petunias.

It’s barely light outside and the chirping outside is just warming up with the sun. Richard and I are slumbering in a tangle of quilts and pillows. I wake, most mornings, to a quietly voiced “hi mama” or a touch to my elbow or back. Other times she crawls onto the foot of our bed but she is so active in her not-waking us up, that I’m not sleeping with all the thrashing and tossing of her two elephants.

There are many mornings when just the soft padding of a little girl into the bathroom and into our room wakes me from my dreams. I can hear the soft sounds as she lays on the rug to let us wake up a bit. I wonder what she’s thinking about. Cartoons? Breakfast? Going to daycare?

I stumble out of bed and we go downstairs to eggos, coffee and cartoons. And sometimes, if I’m lucky, she crawls into my lap with her bed head and pajamas, her knees and elbows pulled in and her head tucked under my chin. Sweetness until we dash off in flurry of jackets and bags to the day.

[I'm feeling vulnerable, hold me....]