(Sorry if this letter is a little disjointed or choppy. . .I wrote it while exhausted, and still don't have the energy to go back through and edit it at the moment, ha ha. I wanted to post it yesterday, but didn't finish it until late last night and so I put off posting it until today. . . .)
Dearest Munchkin,
Happy 3rd Birthday!!! It really doesn’t seem like that much time has passed since I first laid eyes on you and instantly fell in love.
This morning we celebrated your birthday with Daddy over Skype--which was lots of fun! You opened your presents and then we sang “Happy Birthday” or “The Cake Song” as you decided to call it (you asked us to sing it to you periodically while you ate your frosting--along with a little bit of the actual cake--after we’d finish singing you’d blow on your cake as though you were blowing out your candle again, ha ha!), then you blew out your candle like a pro, and it was time to eat cake! Your cake was a layered yellow cake with chocolate frosting and tons of sprinkles (you were so excited about the sprinkles!). Daddy had cake too and Uncle Tony even dropped by Daddy’s room for a few minutes to get some cake and to wish you a happy birthday. =) You had fun playing with your new train set and trying to figure out what the pieces of your doctor’s ‘kit’ were for while Daddy watched. It was definitely a fun morning and I think we all enjoyed ourselves quite a bit!
This past year has been an interesting one to say the least. The “Terrible Two’s” hit with full force not long after you turned two and it’s been a battle of wills ever since. You’ve also gone from a vocabulary consisting of about 5 words to speaking in broken sentences 90 miles an hour. You say some of the funniest things and make me wonder where you come up with this stuff.
Along those same lines, your imagination has really blossomed this year. You are always imagining that your ‘friends’ (Bob the Builder, Thomas the Engine, the bear, skunk, robot, shark, t-rex, etc.) are either playing with you, joining us for a meal,or chasing you while trying to bite you.
You finally started sleeping through the night. There are still occasions where you wake up and need some help going back to sleep, but those are a rarity now (for which Mommy has been very grateful, ha ha).
This was the first year that you really got a chance to play in the snow, and you had a BLAST...so did I--it was a lot of fun running around and playing in the winter wonderland with you.
This year has been different from your first two, because this year it’s mostly just been you and me. We said goodbye to Daddy on New Year’s Day this year and he headed back to Afghanistan for a year. I was worried about how you might react to Daddy’s absence, but as always you have been a little trooper and have been so brave while Daddy’s been away.
I wasn’t sure how you were going to react when Daddy came home for 15 days of R&R at the end of May, but God answered my prayers and the reunion was more beautiful than I could have imagined. I hadn’t told you that Daddy was coming home, but once we’d arrived at the airport you started saying, “Daddy? Daddy?” I think you may have recognized it as the place where we’d last seen him. . . . It came as quite a surprise to me all the same though. Once we’d made it into the airport and had gone up the escalators we could see Daddy’s camouflage uniform at the end of the long passageway and you immediately started saying, “Daddy! Daddy!” Daddy spotted us also and we met somewhere in the middle where you instantly went to him and wanted to hug him and hold his hand.
On the way home from the airport you kept opening your arms out wide and saying, “Hunk” (which translated as: “hug”)--you were so happy to have Daddy home you didn’t want to let him go! Also on the way home that day you put three words together for the first time--you’d been playing with Daddy’s sunglasses and kept taking the head strap thingy off and then saying, “I did it!”
Ever since that day your vocabulary and communication skills started to take off and improve by leaps and bounds--which has been incredible to look back on and see how far you’ve come. Now you are speaking in long sentences (they don’t always make sense, but usually they do....) and using big words like: “obstacles” and “telescope”.
Back in August you tripped while playing a game of tag/chase with Grandma and you hit your right cheek on the edge of your wooden rocking chair--which left a gash about a half inch long which required a trip to the hospital. . . . The doctor said you could get 1 or 2 stitches, or we could have it glued. We chose the glue to ease any further ‘trauma’ on you. Just like the first time you gashed your head open, once you’d gotten past the initial pain from it (about 5-10 of crying) you were back to your normal self and wanted to bounce around. You were so well behaved for the doctors and sat so still for them. I was proud of you for being so brave!
As I said before, this year has been interesting to say the least! I am looking forward to this coming year--especially knowing that Daddy will be coming home soon to share it with us! I just can’t wait to see the way you light up when you realize Daddy is home! Soon My Baby. . .soon.
Mommy loves you and can’t wait to see what this new year holds!
Love always,
Mommy
