On Having a Three Year Old

This is an adaptation of my weekly newsletter, Adventures Big & Small. If you want to receive emails like these, click here to subscribe.

My first human contact today was a little voice trailing up the hill to my office. It felt like it came out of a dream, or from underwater. That may have been because mornings feel strange and oceanic when you wake up in the 4’s, but I think it’s more that Maggie is often mid-sentence by the time I realize she’s talking to me.

“…because I need it for my art project – there’s going to be a whale and three chickens in an airplane and it’s going to be pink.”

Rapid knocks on the glass door. “Dada dada dada I want to come in I need to buy something from your shop!”

Door open. She comes in and nabs some little clip from my shelf of framemaking tools. She’s kind enough to ask if they are for sale, and as any good small business owner, I’m open to a deal, so usually we swipe an imaginary credit card (“beep”) and off she goes.

Between home and office is not a small hill. It’s a steep dirt path, and it occurs to me, all of a sudden, what it means to have a three-year-old.

A few days ago, I was out with her picking blackberries and watched her walk quietly over to a garden bed, climb safely up on the edge to reach the peas, and casually munch a handful. 

Then she hopped off the garden bed, walked to the other side of the yard, pulled down her pants, and peed halfway out of view. Then walked back to her foraging like it was no big thing.

That vibrant, imaginative world inside her head has been given legs, words, and most importantly, trust. I now trust her to walk that hill and go back into the house and find her mom. To know that certain things in the garden are ok to eat.

In truth, I’m watching out of the corner of my eye. I always will be. And my wife and I usually send a quick text when she heads up or down the hill to my office. But still, this is a totally different realm we’ve entered. We do those things out of habit, but there’s really no need.

And maybe this is the most boring email I’ve ever written. If you are a parent, you have lived this transition countless times. If you aren’t, this probably sounds like any other story of kids growing up.

But when it’s your kid, what you feel is nothing short of awe. And you can’t help but tell people about it.

– David