Three years old...

Some snapshots of what you're like at three...

You in the morning.

Every morning you toddle downstairs sucking your thumb and without your blanket which you expect me or one of your brothers to fetch for you daily.  Your first words are practical and succinct.

Rand:  Eat food.  Drink milk.  You hold me couch.

When I have my priorities straight, I spend about ten minutes snuggling with you.

You on chores.

Me:  Rand, go help your brothers clean up the gameroom.
Rand:  I not clean, Mommy.  I baby.

You on fashion.

You can take off your pants and underwear to go to the bathroom, but getting them back on is beyond you, so you spend a lot of time running around naked.

Me:  Rand go get your pants.
Rand:  Me not need pants, Mommy.

You on frozen food.

I told you I needed you to check the food in the freezer to see if it was cold.  I lifted your shirt and put a bag of frozen peas on your belly.

Rand:  (thinks for a second) Yeah, it's cold.  (Takes another bag of frozen vegetables and puts them on his belly and thinks.)  It's cold, too.

Now this is one of your self assigned chores.  Periodically you tummy-check the frozen vegetables to make sure they're still cold.

You at the movies.

We watched Brave together the other day.  The big black bear caught you completely off guard.  You screamed, threw your pizza down, sprang into my lap, whimpered and put my hand over your face.

Rand:  That so scary.

You on kissin.

When I put you to bed at night, sometimes I can't help but kiss you all over your face because you're just so cute in your little footy pajamas, clinging to your blankie, with your thumb in your mouth.

Rand:  (in a deep voice and with disdain that's not really justified by the footy pajama, blankie, thumb in the mouth scene)  That's nuff, Mommy.

I wish I had a picture of my favorite scene with you this year.  We were in the middle of the Shenandoah River during our cabin week last summer.  The water was moving fast enough that you were clinging to me but not so fast that we couldn't wade across.  We sat in the rapids halfway across the river, about fifty yards from either shore.  I found a seat on a rock.  The water rushed over my legs.  You sat on my lap with your little arms and legs wrapped around me, your head on my chest and your thumb in your mouth.  There were dragonflies everywhere - they landed on my arms and on the branches caught in the rocks around us.  Hot pink, blue, purple, green and yellow.  It was a poem.  I wish I had the words for it.