Three years old

So Ian turned three in October, and for the past few months I've been thinking, Who are you and what have you done with my child?

Even though I've studied quite a bit about child development, this still threw me. All of a sudden he is more moody than a teenage girl with her first crush. And he is not as easily distracted as before, so once he starts to throw a tantrum - he really goes. And this is the kid who does not throw tantrums. There were no "terrible twos," but I guess we're making up for it. The other morning he screamed for 10 minutes because we made him change out of his (wet) clothes. I try to be patient, but most of the time, he doesn't even know what he wants, so there is no way to pacify him. (Sometimes I wish we hadn't gotten rid of the pacifier.)

Then the other day in church, we were sitting in the chapel waiting for the meeting to start. Ian leaned over to me and whispered, "Mommy, can I sit by you?" "Of course." was my response. "I love to sit by you." He scooted as close to me on the bench as he could and then casually reached his arm up and put it around my neck. He held me like that all through the opening hymn: until his daddy decided that he wanted to put his arm around me. Then there was a good-natured, muted fight over Mommy. Then he sat quietly with a book through the rest of the hour. And my heart melted and I immediately forgot what my problem with three-year-olds was to begin with.