Yesterday he asked me if we could wear our space shuttle boots next time we go into space. It was a rainy day. He was pulling on his green and blue striped rubber boots to go outside and play. We live on a flood irrigated ranch property on south Reno so we all have rubber boots. His cousin has black rubber boots. My sister calls them puddle boots. My son heard ‘space shuttle boots.’ With all the space books we read, it stuck.
Today is his third birthday. This morning my wife gave him a cigar box full of marbles she found at a junk shop. He loved it, and it wasn’t until I saw him playing with it in the hall with the morning sun streaming in through the bars of the crib he no longer uses, that I remembered getting the same gift, at a similar age.
He runs fast. He falls down. He gets distracted and does something else. He talks, yells, he screams, he asks questions, he rolls on the ground. On tuesday, Dude Night, he wanted pancakes for dinner and stories after. We read Tournament of Knights and Many Moons, before bath time, and them more stories. He has boundless energy for rowdiness, bottomless appetite for cheerios, mac-n-cheese and peanut butter sandwiches, and endless patience for reading.
To celebrate his birthday proper, we are going camping this weekend over the hill at Folsom Lake, CA. In the plan are bikes, hikes, Kayaks and a trip to the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. Family and some friends are going. Should be fun.
In three years he’s gained 31 pounds, gotten half a dozen hair cuts, learned to talk, sing the alphabet (repeatedly), balance a bicycle and mostly swim. When he was a fetus and an infant the milestones were all but marked on the calendar, but today I feel like we’re just along for the ride. Which is the way I’ve always done things anyway…
Happy birthday to my Dude!
-Mike
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