How are we parents of a 3 year old?

Where did 3 years go? Matthew and I celebrated his birthday with a little photo session. He wanted to play (read: throw things at me), and I wanted to capture my now-almost-in-college man on film. It went well (read: no black eyes from new hot wheels being thrown at me, and no temper tantrums because I would not stop taking pictures). Here are the results:

Matthew is almost 40 inches tall and probably weighs somewhere around 38 lbs. I cannot believe the space between his 2 1/2 yr. height marker and the one taken here!

He's finally lost his baby belly and actually has the arches forming in his feet. Another sign that his baby years are over: he's got actual kneecaps. Bruised kneecaps (he can't help his clumsy heredity), but actual kneecaps nonetheless.

We can have actual conversations with Matthew now. His vocabulary is so amazing, and his opinions, while sometimes frustrating, are so well vocalized now. A stage I'm not really that excited about is the "But why, Mommy?" coinciding nicely with the "But that's not fair, Mommy" with arms crossed and fully furrowed brow to show absolute defiance. What I am excited about is his spontineity. Without the slightest prompt, he will tell me he loves me. He will run with absolute abandon to the front door when Rob comes home, yelling "Daddy's home! Daddy's home!" and then tell Rob about his day at daycare or at home.

Without putting too much bias on this statement, we think Matthew is a pretty smart 3 year old. He can count to 50 almost totally by himself. He knows his address, including the house number and city (we're working on the phone #). He knows the sounds that all the letters make, and has even referred to the c in cat as a "hard c." He loves books and wants us to read to him all the time. Oh, and he also knows the secret to cold fusion (well, he will someday).

He's an amazing little boy who lights up our lives every day, even on the not so good days when he's telling us in the loudest, whiniest, inches-away-from-total-meltdown voice that he does NOT want a bath/to go to bed/to put on his shoes/to go to the bathroom/to brush his teeth/to be nice to Sebastian. Even on those days, the bright moments are so much stronger than the dark ones. We love you Matthew! Thank you for being such an incredible gift to us all!