Happy Birthday Ethan

Thirty eight and a half inches tall. Thirty five pounds. Those are the vital stats of my baby boy on this, the day before his third birthday.

That’s the 75th percentile on both height and weight. And while the inches and pounds have grown, the percentile has remained the same from last year, which the doctor says is a sign of good, healthy eating.

Three years old. Three years. What an amazing thing. Three years ago I was sitting at Mercy Hospital, nervous, edgy. Lesa’s water had broken and she had gone into labor. She called me at work – I called my mother, who was in Spirit Lake where my little sister had given birth to my nephew Max two days earlier. (Max was a week late, Ethan almost four weeks early. I guess they wanted to show up around the same time.)

Because of the fates, she was never going to dilate enough to give birth vaginally. But we didn’t know that at the time. In fact, it wouldn’t be until many, many hours later – the next morning, as a matter of fact – that her obstetrician would decide a c-section was in order. Although we didn’t know it at the time, we were in for a very, very long night.

At least I got away from the hospital for a bit. Once my mom got there, I called Matt (insert plug for Dreamwell show Eve-olution here), and he and the truck met me at Target, where I frantically bought the baby items we needed, which, considering both Lesa and I are procrastinators, was just about everything. We loaded up the truck, took things to our place, and I went back to Mercy, where some fifteen hours later, Ethan was finally brought into this world.

Ethan. What a great name, huh? Lesa picked it. I got to choose the middle name. Wesley. Ethan Wesley.

He throws everything. His favorite thing to do with his toys, when he isn’t trying to play with them exactly like his brother plays with his toys, is to toss them in the air. The sound is unmistakable, and you can hear it everywhere in the house. Thomp. Thomp. Thomp. Poor Woody. He survived the Toy Story movies only to find himself constantly being thrown in the air by a toddler.

Ethan talks constantly too. Constantly. Lots and lots of words, more of them everyday. He’ll be chattering at you and say something and you think “When did he start to say quarter? When did he pick up story book?” It’s an amazing thing, a humbling thing, a life-changing thing.

It’s the best thing.

And now, almost, he’s three. He looks so much like a little man right now that I can’t wait to see what he looks like in another year’s time. And while it saddens me to think that these days of his life will never come again, it excites me to watch him grow and change and develop.

Happy Birthday Ethan. Daddy loves you more than you’ll ever know.