I have a big boy now

My baby turned 3 this week. Three. T-H-R-E-E!

Where did the time go? And will it keep going faster?

He's such a big boy now, talking almost as much as his big brother. Sometimes when I have them on the phone on my way home from work I can't even tell who is who.

He's going to preschool, happily waving goodbye in the morning. He makes up the most complicated stories and fantasy worlds to play in. He makes me pretend coffee.

He's the sweetest little person on earth. Except when he's hungry or tired, or worse, both. He's as stubborn as mommy and throws tantrums like there is no tomorrow.

He still doesn't eat much except for bread, pasta with butter and of course chocolate. But he's an expert baker and apparently now in charge of deciding what to bake at our house.

He loves his big brother. No, he adores him. When he was a baby, he used to crack up laughing every time he watched big brother walk down the stairs. We have never found out why he thought that was so funny. He still thinks big brother is so funny, even when mommy and daddy don't think it's funny at all.

So last week he turned 3. He'll proudly show you how many fingers that is.

And he stopped nursing.

Yes, you read that correctly. Little brother has been nursing forever, just because he liked it and he wouldn't really eat solids that well when he was little, and, well, I guess mommy just never told him to stop.

Think whatever you want to, and I'm sure most of you are going to think I'm crazy. I don't care. Even if you go eeeeeewwwwww and stop reading right here, that is fine with me. It's worked for us and for once I'm just not going to worry about what others think.

Over the past months it's been down to just needing it for two minutes at night to fall asleep. I asked him when he would stop, because, as we all know, big boys just don't do that anymore. "When I'm three, mommy. On my birthday. Because I'll be big then" was the answer.

It seemed a bit unfair to end such a fun day as his birthday with a big fat NO, but hey, we had a deal, right? So we cuddled in his bed and I sang all the lullabies I know. He didn't argue much and didn't cry at all, it just took him a little longer to fall asleep.

I think it' a much bigger deal for mommy than for the now "big" little brother. This week I gave away the baby stroller that both of my kids used from newborn to about two-and-a-half years old. Little brother turned 3. And big brother will start school in August.

Don't get me wrong. It's exciting. And it's great to be able to go throw in a load of laundry and just leave the boys happily playing upstairs for a few minutes. Or go places without taking along much more than a phone, keys and maybe a tissue. To sit there with a cup of coffee and watch them have breakfast, chatting about what they're going to do today.

But it's different. Three is still going enough for that sense of wonder and excitement. Even five is still young enough for fantasy worlds and cuddling with mommy. But I see it coming. They're getting independent.

I need to make the most of now.

So we had a wonderful birthday. Starting out with chocolate muffins for breakfast and the pretend mail set as a present.

Which was a big hit. They've been delivering mail ever since. I do need to make another one of those bags though, they keep fighting over the one. I'm not sure I remember how I made the first one.

Then we went to visit Sealife together with big brother and daddy. It was great. I'll show you the pictures some other time.

In the afternoon we had the grandparents over and more presents. Like his new coffee maker. Sorry for the bad pics, it still gets dark so early here and the light was awful (and I still haven't figured out how to manually white-balance my images).

And cake. Oh the cake.

A chocolate layer cake with a vanilla custard buttercream.

The now big boy insisted on that. He was very precise and after we had looked through quite a few books, he pointed at a layer cake with a white buttercream. I made a custard buttercream though, because he kept calling the buttercream "pudding", which means custard in German. And also because I simply don't like butter mixed with sugar, way too sweet if you ask me. So I did what my grandmother would have done and cream half a pound of butter and then by the spoonful mix in a vanilla custard (at room temperature!!) made from two cups of milk. It's the perfect consistency and the whole thing doesn't contain more than four tablespoons of sugar.

Soon enough, he won't be just picking out the cake and helping, he will bake it all by himself. Or maybe I'll be lucky if he still wants to bake cake at all. We'll see.

Until then, I'm enjoying every minute of snuggling with my now three-year-old.

Happy weekend,
Swenja