My Three-Year-Old Baby

Should I still call him "Baby?" Yes.

And you know why? Because even though he is as tall as a tree and as heavy has a bus, he seems as desperate to stay a baby as I am to keep him one. Every night, when I come to haul him out of my bed, he mumbles, "Mama, I wanna holdjou lack a baby." Every morning when I give him his plastic dish of oatmeal and his big boy spoon, he says, "I want Mama to hold my spoon." Every afternoon when he wakes up from his nap and I offer him a trip to the toilet, he says, "No toilet; I wanna do poopies in the Mickey Mouse dapper."

His birthday was terrific: no expectations, no disappointments, a lot of presents, and a long day with his most favoritest people in the world. By his fourth birthday, he'll surely have a clearer understanding of what a birthday should entail. And hopefully he'll be sleeping alone, feeding himself, and ditching the Mickey Mouse diapers.