Three

Jack is officially 3! I recycled the construction theme from his party the week before because, again, lazy parent right here. Jack had a wonderful day. We opened a present or two in the morning to have some fun new things to do during the day. Then Jared grabbed a pizza on his way home from work and I made Jack a cake. I love cooking, but baking just hasn't ever been my favorite. I've been listening to the "Home Cooking" podcast with Samin Nosrat (of "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat") and Hrishikesh Hirway. It's the best. Samin mentioned a recipe for the "best yellow cake in the world" by a famous baker. I gave it a shot, and while it was good, it was still just a yellow cake to me. It had a great texture, but wasn't worth the triple sifting/all-room-temperature ingredients. Oh well. Glad I gave it a shot. Next time we're doing chocolate. 

For some reason this birthday wasn't emotional for me. I seem to remember crying the night before Jack's first two birthdays, but not this one. I think it was due to a combo of already having celebrated his birthday a week in advance at the family party, and also feeling like Jack's already been 3 for a while since he's been wearing 3t clothes for over a year and is scary close to reading already. It was fun to have him understand the birthday thing more this year though. 

Jack at 3:

-Loves soccer and running. (We were going for a walk near a track in Utah, and he all of a sudden just started sprinting laps. He told us not to follow him, so we just stood there in awe and watched/timed as he ran 6 times around the track (1.5 miles), going 3.5 minutes per lap. As a TWO year old. I'm still shook.)

-Wearing 4t clothes

-Knows all his letters and letter sounds. He can spell and sometimes even write his name.

-Very social dude. I'm excited to (hopefully) move closer to his cousins later on and get him in preschool in the fall. He's going to eat it up.

-Very polite! Giving myself pats on the back for this because if I don't want mothering to be a thankless job then I'm going to thank myself here and there. Thanks, me! Jack tends to be a pretty demanding kid by nature and I could see him being a bully of a toddler if left to his own devices. So I feel good about taking some credit for practicing a shocking amount of teeth-gritting patience/politeness in response to his frequent meltdowns. In return he usually exhibits a lot of patience/politeness when he's playing with others. You're welcome, others. 

-Loves the outdoors. 

-Separation anxiety and bedtime fomo (fear of missing out) still going strong. 

-Favorite activities are cars, marble works, magnetiles, and he's starting to get more into pretending with his stuffed toys and pretend kitchen. 

^^Homeboy got a GREAT haul of birthday presents. Grandma Haines got him his first set of Magnetiles, which he can't stop making enormous houses out of (he just stacks every square tile horizontally on top of each other and calls it a house haha). Grandma Lambert got him the coolest marble run to probably ever exist. It's the Hape Quadrilla marble run, and I think I play with it by myself as much as Jack does. It's definitely more complex to build than the plastic sets, but that's part of why I love it so much. I'm excited to watch him master it over the next few months/years. Jack does great with a new building challenge

We got Jack quite a few presents too, all of which were from the thrift store. We only ended up having him open maybe half of them, since he was having so much fun with the gifts from his grandparents. The ones he didn't open were mostly reading puzzles/learning games, so not as fun anyway. I'll save them for rainy days when Jared has his next away rotation and I get to solo parent for a month (: