Three

I owe my best little boy a birthday post - on Wednesday he turned the big THREE.

We had a very nice day here - the three of us - poor Daddy missed out.  But it was a good day all the same.  I took a ton of pictures and planned a lot of things to write about, but then...

The picture of strawberry picking was going to get captioned with my thoughts on farming and waste and food supply management.

The picture of our petting zoo friends at Magnolia Plantation was going to make me wax on about flowers, gardens, and my desire for my own chickens and goats.

The picture of the cake would have started a discussion about box cake mix, and buttercream frosting.

Pictures of gifts would have me patting myself on the back for not spending too much money.

And none of that was going to be about William.

So instead I'll save the pictures for another (wordless) post, and to honor my three year old boy I'll just write about the 20 minutes or so I spent with him yesterday afternoon, one-on-one.  While the kids were riding bikes in the driveway, I took the opportunity to spread around some fresh mulch in the garden.  William stopped riding, asked to help, ran to get his Mickey Mouse gardening gloves, miraculously got each of his fingers in the proper place, and proceeded to Help Me Garden.  He grabbed handful after handful of mulch and carefully patted it around the plants, just the way I wanted it.  And all he said the whole time, over and over and over was, "Mommy, I weally wuv helping you gah-den." So earnest, so sweet, so much of a boy in his sneakers and shorts and cement mixer shirt, so focused and diligent.

Just the moment I always want to think of when I think of him at three years old.