Happy 3rd Birthday, Jack!

Dear Jack,



We love your many faces. You are so cute that sometimes I can't even stand it! We get so many mixed comments about who you look like. Some say you look just like me, and others say you are your Papa Kenny. Truly, you favor both of us...brown eyes, strong eyebrows like Papa, high rounded cheeks like me, and you have the same exact teeth as your dad. You even make the same pouty expression I did when I was toddler. The power of genetics is amazing. Nonetheless, you are absolutely delectable, and I've already told you that you can't learn to play the guitar. The swarm of girls you'd have to fight off would be crazy. (No, Uncle B...don't encourage him.)

You eat, sleep and breath basketball, trains and garbage trucks...(and snowmobiles, and golf, and trailers, and workers, and tractors, and all other sorts of little boy things)! Not only are you obsessed with basketball, but you are darned talented. I'm sure dribbling will come later, but your shots are incredibly accurate. You are in the 75th percentile for your height, so hopefully you'll have that on your side, too. The perfectionist in you makes you NUTS when you don't shoot well. Then you have major frustration melt-downs (something else in the genes???) which makes me wonder if anger-management will be in your future, or if you are just so hard on yourself because you have high expectations. Speaking of perfect, you hate, hate, HATE to be messy. Any ounce of stickiness or crumb that inevitably gets on your hands one of the very many times a day you eat makes you (and your dad and I) crazy! You just can't stand how it feels, and go into frustration mode. I can't wait until your pre-school teachers make you finger paint next year :)

You wake early, play hard and eat with gusto that would make your great grandma Lowery proud. At the same time, you are a sweetheart. Sometimes you wander around the house saying "I want you" because you simply just want to be near me. Lately, you've been doing this pointing thing to tell me what you want. I'm guessing that's a daddy gene that prevents you from having to talk if you don't feel like it. On the other hand, you've been talking like crazy. You love to label and name things, especially when we are in the car. Driving on the highway is your favorite. And, we hear all about it from the back seat! Your observant eyes have done you well; you are fantastic at directions. Your super-heightened spatial intelligence (which, I, quite frankly, am jealous of) amazes me. You know the second I am taking a different route to popular places, and tell me so. "We're going the wrong way!" you shout, and, unfortunately, on two or so occasions, you've been right. Thank you for correcting me and my poor relationship to where we live. You are quite a little ham! When we play games you say, "where is me?" and "who turned out the lights?" when you pull your hat over your eyes. And, the funniest by far is that you call Papa Waco your "black papa"... which I'm hoping is because of his dark hair. You are so lucky to be surrounded by four grandparents who love you to pieces, make you Thomas the Train cakes, watch you every day, take you on go-kart rides and tractor rides, and who will one day take you snowmobiling.

For now, I want to keep you the little boy that you are...so much that I want to freeze you at times. You make us laugh, you make us crazy, you make our hearts runneth over, you make us the family of four that we are, and we love you so stinkin' much!

Love you,

Mama and Daddy