10 things about D, age 3 years and 7 months

1. I have an overactive imagination, and your “I see dead people” moments aren’t helping things, like, AT ALL.

“Mom,” you’ll whisper, eyes wide with horror as you peer into the darkness of our room, “Did you hear that noise?”

It was a neighbor, I tell you. It was just a car driving by.

“No,” you’ll persist in hushed, ominous tones. “No, it wasn’t any of those things. It was…it was…the fan in the bathroom. You left it on before we went to bed.”

Seriously? Seriously. Stop it.

2. You used to purchase apps on our iPhones if we left them out where you could get them. Once we ran out of hiding places for the phones, Jon set things up so that we have to enter the password for each individual purchase we want make on the phone. That has held you at bay for the last few months, but yesterday I caught you trying to download something and you had correctly entered four of the seven letters to our password. Not. cool.

3. I don’t know why this would be, but there are actually quite a few water features sprinkled around Seattle. This place is a hydrophobic’s worst nightmare. You aren’t scared of water, though. In fact, lately, if I turn my back for a second you will dive right into the closest fountain and start drinking out of it, to the amusement of the surrounding tourists. It does not bring a smile to my face to know that, somewhere out there, someone has a picture of you in their “Trip to Seattle” Picasa album, slurping lurid green water out of public fountain and grinning ear to ear.

4. You love your daddy, and it sucks that he has to be away so much as he finishes up his final classes at the UW. Believe me, I fully appreciate how hard that is on you. When he is around, however, I am way less sympathetic because you devolve into the whiniest, most demanding little baby I’ve ever seen. You want to be carried. You want to be fed. You will ask to be put back in pull-ups, and when that doesn’t happen you try to insist that we all sit around you in the bathroom with you while you do your business in there. I’ll be honest, I think we handle this well. We let the crazy pass without comment or judgment, accommodate your requests when it is reasonable to do so and try to keep our focus on enjoying the time we have together. Pretty great, right? So the fact that I morph into an unremitting day drinker whenever you get the opportunity to lose yourself in these theatrics…well. At least we can afford a little extra wine now that we aren’t blowing our money on pull-ups.

5. Swing zone, dude, swing zone. I probably say it hundreds of times a day. Jump, wiggle, dance, flail, do as the spirit leads, but first glance around you. Is anyone sitting in your swing zone? Make some space. Really, there are not many rules to keep up with in this home, and the rules we have are pretty self-explanatory. Be as wild as you want, just don’t headbutt me in the c-section scar in the process. How hard is that to remember, really?

6. When you aren’t actively trying to make me cry like a baby at night, we have some great conversations. You have so many questions right now. “How does milk come out of nipples? What are volcanoes made out of?Have you ever been inside a rain shadow, like next to the mountains? Did it hurt when Auntie made the earring holes in her ears? Why does Auntie have so many earrings and you don’t wear any?” I can’t keep up with it all, and I’m always caught off guard by the sophistication with with you express yourself these days. All those hours at the book store are really paying off!

7. You pronounce “waddle” to rhyme with “paddle.” Adorable.

8. You’ve started doing this really cool think where you’ll ask before doing stuff, like, “Can I stir the batter with you?” or “Can I cut Melia’s hair with this knife I found in the dishwasher?” It’s super great as a parent to be presented with options like this!

9. You are truly, deeply adorable, you know that, right? “Mom,” you’ll whisper, as we hold hands as we drift off to sleep at night, “I love your moles. They make you look like a polka-dotty starry sky. And I love your jiggly belly. It’s great for growing babies, and for blowing raspberries on. And I love your armpit hair. It’s very poky and good for tickling. I love you, Mom.” You make me laugh all the time. I’ve received plenty of compliments in my time, but none that strike home and truly change my opinions about myself the way yours do. Your words matter to me.

10. The other night after I’d brushed your teeth and read you your favorite story (National Geographic’s “Zoo in the Sky”), you popped your little head off your “forest pillow” and said, “You know what, Mom? I can’t sleep. Get your shoes, we need to drive to Canada.”

I had to explain that we do not have passports, and then thoroughly explain the process we must go through to get passports, and show you on the calendar exactly how long it would take for us to get passports if we were to start that process immediately.

At last, irritated but clearly trying to be reasonable, you crawled back under the blanket and switched your nightlight on. Just as you drifted off to sleep, you curled up closer to me and whispered in my ear: “Make sure you get those passports ordered tonight, Mom. We leave on the 27th.”

Do you see what I mean, kid? We were made for one another.