Bob Helper Rubble

Dear Noah,

You have officially broken my heart by turning 3 last week. How could you?!

Oh my sweet chunk'o' 12 week old lovin'. I miss you.

You try your best to comfort me by pretending you’re a baby. Asking me to hold you because “I can’t walk mommy” and asking me to spoon feed you because “I’m a baby mommy”. You started doing this so much I worried that you were truly regressing. But then I asked you why you keep acting like a baby and you said “Because you love babies, Mommy. You sad that I’m growing up.”

Oops, my bad.

Didn’t mean to hijack your natural growth and development with my own emotional hang-ups. But aren’t you such a sweet, compassionate, insightful little bear?

For the last few months, you’ve been really into construction stuff. Your favorite show is Bob the Builder or Animal Mechanical and naturally your favorite Paw Patrol character is the construction pup, Rubble. You recently told us: My name not Noah. I Bob Helper Rubble.

Well, nice to meet you, Bob Helper Rubble.

You’ve always been really interested in mechanical movements, even as a baby, which totally explains why you are a puzzle fiend. You frequently take out puzzles on your own and spend long periods piecing them together, taking them apart, and piecing them together again.

And although you worship your older brother, these things are completely unique to you. Judah has never cared for construction related things or doing puzzles, being more of a ninja-superhero kind of guy.

I’m so glad you have your own identity. Your brother is an easy-going rule follower. But you. You are my stubborn one. My jokester. The king of the side-glance. The one who does the exact opposite in order to get a rise out of us. You make my blood boil in frustration like no one else, but you also make me melt into a puddle of I-love-you-goop multiple times a day.

You are a gift I get to open every day. Looking at you thrills me. Tickling and kissing your tummy fills me with joy abandoned. And your knock-knock jokes are truly the best, the logic just attenuated enough that I get it. I get it! And I love it.

Classic Noah Knock-Knock Joke:
Noah: Knock-knock
Me: Who's there?
Noah: Elephant
Me: Elephant who?
Noah: Elephant, I have a long nose!

This Saturday, we broke a tradition that we’ve been doing every Saturday morning for the last 2 years. Usually your brother goes to Chinese class Saturday mornings and you and me go grocery shopping at our favorite place – Trader Joe’s.

You sit in the little red cart and point at the seasonal plants on display. We start going through the produce aisles and you babble about fruit and veggies. You ask me where Cookie Monster is and get distracted looking for him. You want to hold the little plastic bags while I drop items into them. We talk about cheese and turkey and how daddy loves his salsa.

We grab samples and milk and butter and yogurt. You help me check for bad eggs. You get hungry and break into our snacks before we get to the checkout stand. All the old ladies smile at you.

You hand items to the checkout person one by one. You stick TJ stickers all over your face and all over me. We sometimes get help out because one cart just won’t fit all the food we bought.

But this Saturday, I did it all alone. And I’ll probably never do this with you again. Just like that, you turned 3 and were old enough to join your brother at Chinese school.

I missed you my little friend.

And it was hard to read the food labels through my tear-blurred eyes.