He's not the birthday boy! He's Logan!!

Dear Logan,

You turned three today and I can hardly believe it even though we’ve been talking about your birthday for months now, ever since you went to a friend’s birthday in Minnesota way back in February!

You have grown up so much in the last year! For one, you can actually hold your own in a conversation when, last year, even though you had a lot to say, no one really knew what it was except you. I love knowing what is going on in your little mind. I will never forget you dropping my phone at the store and saying “Oh no! I dropped Gramma!” You love to point out “what a mess” Emma and Chloe make in their room sometimes and when something is “so noisy Momma.” Whenever I beep my car horn, whether it’s on purpose or by accident, you yell “Sorry!” You definitely know that a green light means to go and a red light means to stop. And, for some reason, you tend to answer almost every question with “I don’t know” and then you actually answer the question proving that you do, in fact, know. Today, whenever anybody called you “The Birthday Boy,” you insisted that you were not the birthday boy: “I’m Logan!”

You still love Curious George and we almost had another Curious George birthday party this year before you finally settled on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. You also love Special Agent Oso and sometimes I make you Special Agent Oso peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. A few months ago we started having a movie night on Fridays and the first movie we watched was Madagascar. Now you think we have to watch Madagascar every time we have movie night and you are also very sure that we have to have popcorn too.

You love cars and trucks and trains or anything you can pretend is a car or truck or train. You are a sound effects wizard and can “bzzzzzzzz” for an hour at a time. One day you were sitting under our end table “bzzzzing” and I asked you what you were doing. “Going on a boat on vacation,” you told me. Sometimes you making a clicking sound and lock yourself into your bed, chair, or anywhere else you happen to be. You also love music and play the horn on straws and sometimes the tail of the Komodo dragon Daddy bought you at the zoo in Florida. If I skip a song you want to hear, either at home or in the car, you tell me that you wanted to “hear that song!”

You call anything heart-shaped “Valentine’s Day.”

You hear everything and sometimes you get scared when you can’t figure out what something is.

You spent most of your two-year-old year in Minnesota. We got to pick apples and pumpkins in the fall and build snowmen and go on sleigh rides in the winter. When spring finally came, we took a family vacation to the Black Hills. You climbed down three-hundred steps into Wind Cave all by yourself and the ranger even gave you your very own flashlight to hold. One day in Wyoming you walked nearly a mile on a hike, which I thought was a lot for your little legs! When we were on our way home from the Black Hills, we took a detour through the Badlands. Every once in a while you would tell Daddy: “Stop Daddy! I want to look at the clouds!!” If we could stop, we would pull over and you would roll down your window and just look at the sky.

You are starting to recognize letters and can count to ten. I can’t wait to start doing crafts with you, all the things I’ve held onto since I taught kindergarten. We read every night and I have to put books by your bed when I go to sleep at night so you can “read” them when you wake up in the morning or you are very disappointed.

I can’t believe when I look at you, that you were the little baby that made monster sounds and fell asleep in the chair with me every night around 3:30 in the morning. Time is going by so fast and every day I say that this is how I will remember you when you are eighteen, but then you just keep on growing! I don’t know why turning three seems like such a big deal to me, when last year’s birthday wasn’t so hard. I suppose it’s because you are getting that much closer to kindergarten and becoming even more of your own little person! I love to watch you grow up, but wish you would slow down a little.

I love you my little Logan! Happy 3rd Birthday!

Love,

Momma