Dear Little Berry,

One of the most adorable, and frustrating, sounds Mommy and I hear from you these days is the tiny thud, shuffle shuffle, click of a door opening, and scrape scrape of tiny feet as you get out of your bed and make your way into our room. You do this at all hours of the night, but lately it has seemed to be around 3:30-4:00 am, when it is too early to wake up but too late to go back to sleep. You typically just want to crawl into bed with us, but you thrash and kick Mommy so much that she convinces you to go back to your bed to squeeze out a few more minutes of snoozing.

On the other hand, you have been known to thud, shuffle shuffle, then click open the door and yell at us from your doorway, questions like, “Dad….can we ride the bike tomorrow?’

But on the night based on the title of this post, Mommy had a girls night from 8-10, and just when she arrived home, you woke up and yelled for her. When she went upstairs to check on you in bed, you told her, “I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you came. Will you scratch my bum?”

In mid-August we camped in Cape Disappointment for the second year in a row. This year, however, we convinced Mark, Melissa, and your cousins Connor and Ashlan to join us. We enjoyed some quality beach and surf time, meals inside the canopy, a visit to the Northwest Kite Festival in Long Beach, and swinging in the hammock.

You are still into the music from Frozen, but you’ve added some pop music to your playlist. When we’re in the car, you often request “Shut Up and Dance,” and “Feeling in My Body.” I love them to and we often sing along to them.

These four shots below are from our trip back to Illinois in September. I was inducted into the Watseka High School Athletic Hall of Fame, so you and I flew back so I could be in the ceremony. It was a great honor. My track coach/Math teacher Joe Sutfin nominated me because the things I’ve done athletically, in high school and after, embody the qualities the award calls for in it’s description. It was a thrill to make a trip home so you could spend some bonus time with your grandparents, great grandparent, and cousins.

You are about to be three years old, so Mommy and I are trying to raise you to have the qualities and attitudes that a three year old should have – patience when working on puzzles, sitting and eating respectfully during meals, expressing your emotions verbally and not hitting or shrieking, and following instructions when Mommy and I give them to you.

What you’re doing these days:

You only wear dresses, you love squishy bunnies and squishy fruit, like put my vitamins in the weekly container and give them to me in the morning. You like to “roughhouse” after dinner and you never tire of going to the library, checking out books, and reading them over and over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a day when I was picking you up from daycare, I asked you how your day was, to which you replied, “Good….nobody hit me and nobody bit me.”

Love, Daddy