Dear Lukey,
Happy birthday, my love! Can I offer you some Gris? Or some Yo Yo? No?
Oh God. I just used your least favorite word ever: no. Don’t freak out! Deep breaths! I’ll start over!
Happy birthday! You are three today (how?!) and I’m going to remind you of some of the things you love SO MUCH and….let’s say, some things you love a smidge less at this point in your life.
LOVE
Gris, a.k.a. Sprite. I let myself have one Sprite every day with my lunch. I drink it from a cup with a straw. Correction: I used to drink one Sprite every day with my lunch from a cup with a straw. From the first day you pointed at it, looked at me with those Kewpie doll eyes and said, “Sip?” I have not been able to drink Sprite at lunch. Or any time you’re conscious. It’s cute because you refuse to say the word “Sprite” and instead call it “Gris.” It’s less cute because, I mean...I want some Gris.
Bluey and Muppet Babies. I can’t say which one of your two favorite TV shows gets top billing because I never know. You’ll wake up from a nap, blurry-eyed with the imprint of your crocheted blankie blaring on your red cheeks. I’ll snuggle you close, take a deep breath, and hope to God I’m correctly suggesting the thing you want to watch based on the thing you asked me for 37 times in a row over the previous few hours. I’ll hold my breath, whisper “Muppet Babies?” then duck and cover as you screech “BLUEY!!!!!!!” and burst into uncontrollable tears for the next foreseeable future. (Sidenote: you call Bunsen and Beaker “BossyBeagle” and it makes me so so happy.)
Wrestling ( in real life, not on TV. Yet). Every day at 2:34 p.m., I hug you close, kiss your cheeks, and tell you goodbye. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say, sighing deeply and fighting tears. That’s because every day, at 2:35 p.m., your sister comes home from school and the sweet, lovey, calm boy I just spent the entire day snuggling morphs into The Hulk...if The Hulk was possessed by a demon...who had recently been set on fire...IN HELL. The only outlet for your newfound rage is to beat the ever-loving life out of Libby, who, God bless her, only wants to have a snack and chill on her damn iPad. This does not sit well with you -- being an aflame Hulk demon and all -- and you attempt to tackle, kick, punch, and Hurricanrana your poor, weary Sis until she cries and I scream and you cry and I cry on the inside (or sometimes in the pantry). You also do this thing to Dad and me from time to time, when you get right up in our grills, nose to nose, and menacingly whisper something we can only decipher as, “You No Say.” We have no idea what it means, but we suspect it’s something along the lines of, “Shit’s about to go DOWN.” It’s both terrifying and adorable. BTW, if you ever take your dad’s love of the WWE to the next level and decide you want to be in the ring, you can totally steal the whole demon-possessed Hulk character idea. The “on fire” thing might be tricky, but I’m envisioning flame-patterned spandex. You can even use one of your current nicknames: Lukey Smash!
Pizza/yo yo, or "yogurt"/ fruit cups: These are your favorite foods in the world and you eat them almost every day, multiple times a day. You down a side of yo yo with every breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sometimes, yo yo is breakfast, lunch and dinner. It makes a perfect bedtime snack. It’s nice after naps. Basically, if any nutritionist out there is doing a study to find out if a human can exist on a yogurt-only diet, you are living proof that that is indeed possible. Pretty much the same for fruit cups. I can work all day on a meal of tossed salad, fresh bread, roast chicken with all the sides, and homemade pie, and you will take one look at it, then with hope in your voice, ask, “fruit cup?” Your relationship with pizza is more love/hate. You love when it’s around and hate when it’s not, meaning we cannot even say the word “pizza” in our own home because if you hear the word and a slice is not immediately produced, you lose your damn mind. For now, we call it “P-word,” though I suspect you are close to cracking our code, sophisticated as it may be. I have nearly thrown my arm out of its socket lunging for the remote to switch the channel when Pizza Hut commercials come on. I have a feeling delivery drivers will know us by name by this time next year.
Haircuts: This is a new one because up until your last haircut, I had to physically restrain you as if I was The Rock and you were John Cena circa 2012-13 WWE. There was flailing; there were tears -- with us, not with The Rock and John Cena, though I never really watched their matches so maybe, IDK (your father is twitching right now). You would sit on my lap in the waiting area and sob, “Go home? Go home? Go home?” over and over again until my heart shattered into so many pieces, I was sure I would clutch you to my chest and rush to the door, shouting, “Not my son! NOT MY SON!” a la some Lifetime movie I have not seen yet but would gladly write on spec (potential title: Clipped from My Grip). But then, on our most recent visit, you sat calmly on my lap in the waiting room, just kinda looking around and taking it all in. Then, when Miss Leigh Ann said she was ready for you, you hopped off my lap, strode to the barber chair, climbed up onto the booster seat and sat still for the entire thing. I watched, mouth agape, waiting with a Dum-Dum in one hand and Disney+ on my phone in the other, ready to shove one or both in your face the second your inevitable meltdown ignited. It never happened. How? Or why? Or how? I have no idea, and neither did Miss Leigh Ann, who looked at me aghast after she was done cutting, cocked her head to one side, and said, “Can I….style him?” to which I took two steps back and held my hands up, stick-em-up style, and said, “That’s up to you.” She approached you much like a person would approach a monkey holding a loaded 9mm -- with extreme caution and apprehension, stopping every few movements to instinctively cover her head. You let her and when she was done, you looked just like the high school quarterback who’s looking for a nerdy girl to makeover in some terrible late ‘90s movie (probably one that I loved at the time but would cringe if my daughter saw now).
You would definitely be the popular kid who realized by the end of the movie that he never even really wanted to play college sports but instead wanted to pursue his passion of making furniture out of used lacrosse sticks or something.
THINGS YOU LOVE NOT SO MUCH
The word “no.”
That’s it. Just the one thing. You hate it with fervor beyond human comprehension, yet it’s something you find yourself contending with on an extremely frequent basis. The following is a typical scenario that occurs roughly every 17 minutes in our home:
You: *throws something across the room that barely misses our sleeping dog*
Me: “Lukey, N-”
You: EEEIIIIIIAAAAAAA! WAAAAHHHHH!!!!
Me (attempting to remain rational and reasonable): Luke, you almost hurt Wilson. You can’t just throw things
You: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *smacks the couch while maintaining direct eye contact with me*
Me (failing at being rational and reasonable and using a full banshee voice while shoving my face one inch from yours): STOP IT RIGHT NOW!
You:
Me: OK?
You: OK.
*Repeat forever
You are learning, however, that there are ways you can avoid the evil no word. Let’s say you want to watch your 589th episode of Bluey for the day. I say no because if I watch it for one more second, I’m going to toss the TV off the deck. You pout, but I ignore it. The next thing I know, you’ve climbed up on my lap, your head is on my shoulder, your hands are holding mine, and you look up at me with those dreamy blue eyes, and whisper so faintly that I have to lean in. When I do, you utter one word: “pwease?”
The next thing I know, Bluey is on the TV, you’re back to playing with your toys and I have no recollection of the previous 30 seconds.
Kudos, child. It only took you three years to figure me out. Because when it comes to my Woo-key (which is how you introduce yourself because you can’t say L’s and I die every time), you’ve got my number. You also have my heart. And I know everyone says three can be even worse then two and I’m sure that’s true (though...how?! **I have a feeling future me will read this and laugh and laugh**) but I’m still excited for what the next year brings as you continue to grow into the person you will become. If today is any indication, that person will be super funny, super lovey, and super sure of what he wants in this world.
I love you now and then and forever,
Mommy
