Happy (almost) birthday, Silas

Tomorrow my baby turns three.  

As I'm pregnant right now, I tend to relive many of the moments of my pregnancy with Silas these days.

With Silas, I saw two doctors and I had to get shots in my hip every week.  I also spent a lot of time being terrified that it would all collapse in on me in the delivery room.  I kept thinking, "I just want to hear him cry" because I never got to hear Anabel make a single sound. 

When I transport myself back to those hopeful, fearful days of praying, "please just let me hear him cry", I'm amused by just how much noise Mr. Silas has brought into my life.  He did cry.  Immediately.  And he was the loudest newborn I've ever heard.  He didn't have that muted infant cry that most babies have.  It was a loud wail.  And he had colic, so I heard more than my fair share of it.

These days, he hits the ground running and talks ninety to nothing all day long.  He likes to bang on things and sing songs and ask five hundred questions a minute and has even invented an imaginary friend to chat with when he thinks no one is paying any attention.

Saturday was his third birthday party.  

If you've ever been to Chuck E. Cheese, I don't even need to spell it out for you.  I was dreading it.  All the times I've been in my adult life, they were family outings with Michael and the kids.  Before we'd leave the place, I'd be nearly in tears in frustration with Silas.  He was not big enough to do anything yet, but he wanted so badly to play all the games, so it was just an exercise in me trying to keep him from killing anyone with a skeeball and Silas throwing his drink on the ground in anger that things weren't going his way.

That was what I imagined would happen Saturday.  He'd throw fits, and I'd be embarrassed but try to put on a happy face because it was his birthday and Chuck E. Cheese was what he had picked to do, and then I'd cry in the car on the way home.

And then the strangest thing happened. 

He blew my mind by having an amazing, fit-free time and being big enough to play almost every game he attempted and eating half a piece of pizza without coercion and not shrieking in terror when Chuck E. put his crown on his head and participating in the special birthday ticket blaster booth and making me feel like, "hey, maybe I'm not failing as a parent because my kid just behaved really well in this over-stimulating environment full of sugar and flashing lights for two entire hours and even said thank you for all of his presents."  

W.T.F.?

It is moments like those that lend credence to the saying, "it goes by so fast", you guys.  

We have spent the last five months figuring out our routine, and we have it down to a science.  He still asks about his dad almost every day, but I can tell how much he truly adores me now.  I even got a, "you're my best friend" the other night.  

I'll take that for as long as it's being offered.  Because I'm going to blink, and our special just the two of us time will turn into just the three of us and then I'll blink again, and he'll be in kindergarten, and then I'll blink again, and I'll be shopping for his college dorm, and then I'll blink again, and he'll be marrying his new best friend.

But for right now, I'm just going to cherish the waking me up at 4 am and insisting on sleeping with me and the silly songs and five hundred questions and the noise, noise, noise, noise.  

I don't want my life any other way.

Happy third birthday to the most amazing little person I've ever had the pleasure to know.  You hold my heart in the palm of your tiny, sticky hand.  I love you so much and forever.