the jellyball family blog

Dear Caleb,

You are a month shy of turning three years old. Lately I've been looking at a lot of baby pictures and I can hardly believe you were that mohawked, potbellied little baby who was so fat that you grew cheese between the folds under your chins. Seriously, how did this:

Turn into THIS:

Such is the magic of parenthood, I guess.

You are an independent, imaginative, witty, cheeky, and sweet little man. There is nothing left of that baby in the photo. You are fully toilet trained. You sleep through the night. You eat three square meals a day (OK, maybe more like 1 square meal and two where you graze.) You get in and out of the car on your own. You climb into your own high chair. You wash your hands with soap. You pour your own glass of milk. (Mostly into the glass, sometimes not.)

Gone are those terrible twos, and it feels like we're very much into what I've heard characterizes the age of three. Mostly angelic. Your not-so-angelic moments are really nothing in the grand scheme of things, but there is such a contrast between your loveliest and your not-so-lovely moments that make things more apparent. This morning, you went from giving your little brother a "magic kiss" (Mom's invention - to take away the pain that comes with a boo-boo) on the arm, to shoving him so hard that he fell because he was getting too close to your trains. I like to think that we all have our moments, and the way we are for 80% of the day should be what defines you. And if I were to look at your 80%, it would tell me that you are a trustworthy little fella, that you are happy, creative, logical, caring, and incredibly funny.

You are able to speak in these long, lovely sentences. Sometimes you get lazy and you start barking out sentence fragments ("want milk!"), which can be really frustrating considering it sounds rude and you're totally able to ask nicely. Your English has really come a long way in the past month. While French is still our primary language at home (and hopefully will always be), sometimes we speak in English just to give you some practice. You're doing really great and we are feeling so much better about sending you to an English school knowing that you will be able to get by just fine. Sometimes when you don't know the English word for something, you just put in the French word, which makes for some pretty funny sentences. ("Mommy, I want the caresse..." when you want a hug)

You've become a pretty good eater. Breakfast is always a little tricky, but you're usually happy to eat lunch and dinner. You're great in a restaurant, and you eat from all the food groups. Still working on those vegetables, but you're starting to be better with that. With your dad at home, I'm sure you will start eating all kinds of new things. You love to try eating with real chopsticks.

You love "your" computer (my old laptop). You play puzzles on-line, you surf the Disney Cars website, you play on the Starfall alphabet site, and when I left you with a colouring game on the Thomas The Tank Engine website, you somehow managed to find the Videos section of the website and started watching clips of Thomas episodes. Which reminds me, your father taught you how to turn on the TV and select a recorded episode of Caillou (a children's animated series), so now when Noah waddles into the TV room, points to the TV and says "Aillou", you say "OK, Noah!" and you go get the remote. Until Mom the party-killer catches you in the act and breaks up the fun, that is.

You have been in heaven for the past few weeks with your father now at home with you and Noah. Not only is your father your hero, he also takes you guys out for way more fun activities than I ever did. You go to the park almost every day, most of the time while riding your two wheeler bike. You guys have been doing the museum tour - the Museum of Agriculture, the Museum of Science and Technology, and the Museum of Cilivization, which is by far and away everyone's favourite. He even took you guys to the War Museum, thinking there might be something of interest for you boys, but it ended up being pretty gory and non-age-appropriate, so now you tell me, as we drive by the War Museum, that "This one not fun Mommy. Not the toys here, Mommy."

Speaking of your bike, I never took you out on your bike because when you originally got your bike, you needed a lot of supervision on it as you were just learning to ride, so I was never able to run after the bike while having Noah with us. Well, now you're older and much better with your bike, plus your Dad is much more fearless with this kind of thing and frankly, just a whole lot better at it, so you've since become really, really good with the bike. Going to the park is mostly about getting to ride your bike. Your dad tells me that sometimes you get to the park and barely stay there 5 minutes before you ask to get back on the bike to go home.

You love watching the movie Cars and it's amazing that you can watch the entire movie from start to finish. You love the characters, the story, and sometimes you like watching it in French and tell me that Lightning McQueen in French is "Flash McQueen". Even though you are really into Cars, you still continue to play with Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends. You showed a renewed interest in Thomas after having met the train in the flesh, so to speak. Strangely enough, a few days before the big date with Thomas, you started telling us that you didn't want to get on board for a train ride, so we ended up needing to bribe you with a new toy to get you to go for a ride. Weird. Who knows, being almost-three is complicated, I guess.

Every day, you send me to work with one of your cars. It started with the red Jeep, then it was the orange fire engine, and lately you've been giving me some real precious cars, like Fillmore and Luigi, character cars from your favourite movie. Some day if you give me the Blue Lightning McQueen (your favourite car), I'll know I am #1.

Next week, you start nursery school. I am anxious and nervous about it, but I'm sure it will go great. I hope you'll enjoy the new environment, the new people, the structure, and the change of scenery. I can't wait to hear all your stories from "school". You've always been imaginative, and you're so great at making believe.

You're really great with Noah. You help him down the stairs. You love to run around the house holding his hand and trying to rope him into playing with you. When you go to pour a glass of milk, you take out two cups - one for you, one for him. You love when it's his nap time, because you know that's when you get a little one-on-one time, or get to do something special like have a popsicle or watch a bit of TV.

You usually wake up around 7am - though lately you've been getting up around 6:30am, which is really tough because you start to get a little cranky in the afternoon. It's rare, but sometimes you'll fall asleep in the afternoon while watching TV, or if there's an afternoon car ride. You go to bed, reluctantly, at around 8:30pm and you fall asleep like a rock. I could play the drums in your bedroom and you probably wouldn't wake up. You're a good sleeper.

You are an awesome little guy. You're well adjusted, you have all kinds of love in your heart, and you are just hilarious. We love talking to you and laughing with you, and we still go to bed every night talking about all the amaizng stuff you do in a day. we love you lots.

Love,

Maman