Happy Birthday Miles!

Three years old. 

You’re three years old today. 

You’ve made three orbits of the sun. That’s a long way. That’s over 1 billion miles (1 billion, 752 million miles, in fact!).

That’s a lot of miles, Miles.

Sometimes, it seems like you might have traveled that far on the surface of the earth too. You are so active. It’s hard for us to keep up. Every day is a new adventure to the park or the aquarium or the zoo. You’ve started pushing your own cart at the grocery store. You are an independent, sweet little guy. And over the last year it seems like you’re starting to become your own person, with your own personality.

This past year you’ve grown by leaps and bounds. You have started doing puzzles, you recognize all your letters and can even tell us some of the sounds they make. You can count! To ten, reliably! You have started to hold a pen correctly and can trace lines and letters. 

You’re sweet. You give great hugs and kisses. You wait for others when you’re racing so that Frankie or another kid doesn’t get left behind. 

You still don’t eat well. You don’t weigh much. But that means you still fold into my lap perfectly. After a long time of being unwilling to snuggle and sit still with me, you’ve fallen into a beautiful phase of long snuggling sessions. And when I walk in the door, it’s all, “It’s Mama! Mama, will you pretend with me? You be mama cat and I’m Miles cat. Will you be cats with me?” I can feel the joy emanate from your tiny being. And sometimes, just sometimes, you grab my face between your tiny hands and say “I love you, Mama.” And I return with, “I love you too. I’m the luckiest.” To which you insist, “NO, I’m the luckiest.”

I hope we stay lucky for a really long time.

Happy Third Birthday, little dude.

Love, Mama