Jude would like to invite you to come see his room. He now asks everybody who comes over to come upstairs.

“Hey guys! Come upstairs! Come upstairs with ME!”

“Hey Woody!  Woody, you ok? You ok, Woody? Okay.”  (Simon thinks we must apparently ask Jude if he’s ok a lot since this is the majority of his conversations between himself and his Woody and Jessie dolls from Toy Story.)

Normally I don’t have his mattress sitting on the floor. It was time to change the sheets and sometimes it’s just easier to wrangle that silly little mattress on the floor. Why do childcare items have to be so tricky? You’ll note also the blue tape on his walls. Yes, I keep considering doing some painting in there.

Jude: “HEY MOM! LOOK AT ME! WATCH MEEEEE!”
Me: “Jude, you need to get down RIGHT NOW. BE SO CAREFUL.”

“Mom, it’s ok. It’s okaaaaaaaay.” (Again with the okay-ness of everything). He winks as if to reassure me. Somehow he has not yet grasped that winking rarely is reassuring. Little imp.

“Mommy, I get in my bed. I take a nap.”

“Mr. Bear, you lie down with ME. And my BUGGIE (baby word for blankie).”

Snug as a bug in a rug.

“Mom, what’s my feets doin’?”

“WAIT! Here dey are!”

“ARRRRRGGGGH I BE A PIRATE, MOMMY!”  And then I, of course, had to be a pirate, too. Because that’s what we do. I’m Pirate Mommy.

Man oh man. I love my nearly-3-year-old boy so very much. He only gets funnier and more precious every single day. I love his sweet little language and turns-of-phrase. I melt when he tells me “I wuv you, mama.”  Or when I tried to take him home from his Aunt Amy’s house the other day and he sobbed, “Stay me here, Mama! STAY ME HERE WITH MY COUSINS. I LOVE MY COUSINS!”  I also love how he sings perfectly on pitch “Jesus Loves Me” and instead of singing “they are weak and He is strong,” it is now “They are precious and he is strong.”  Last night, Simon and I took him to the movies (a first for Simon, as he is usually working when Jude and I have gone to the movies before). We went to see the new Nanny McPhee movie which Jude refers to as simply “McPhee.”  “Where dat McPhee goin’, Mama? What she doin’?” Anyway, we of course have to settle into the movies with a bag of candy, miniature bag of popcorn, and miniature drink for Jude, and prepare to calm him down when he gets a little bit afraid at the scary bits in the movie. But the best part? Holding him all snuggly in my laugh, and hearing him belly laugh with all the other cute little kids. It was more fun to watch him than it was to watch the movie, as fun as it was.

But more than anything, I am grateful for being a parent with my darling husband and that we get to help this precious child grow. Every day I am reminded of what a gift that Jude really is to us. I love this boy – too much for words.