Is 3 the new 30?

I was worried that I was going to have a hard time dealing with the fact that I turned 30 this year. I thought that it was going to be some big life-changing event, the beginning of the end. I was afraid that my 30th birthday would bring tears and moments of depression when I woke up to realize that I was no longer 20-something and was entering the danger zone of REAL adulthood, the decade when teenagers start considering you to be old. But alas, I was wrong. My 30th birthday arrived just as any others have in the past. In fact, it was pretty much uneventful. No tears. No despair. No desperate feelings of old age creeping up on me. I realize now that what I really should have been preparing for this year wasn't how to deal with me turning 30, but how I was going to handle it when Owen turned three!

For whatever reason, three is turning out to be a difficult age for me to deal with. I wasn't really upset when Owen turned one; he was still my baby. And when he turned two, I was okay with that also. He was still a pudgy little toddler learning to speak. But three? Three just seems so OLD! It's that age when toddlers start transitioning into actual kids! They lose their baby fat. They develop full personalities. They become little people! It sounds crazy, I know, but it's true.

Every now and then I experience a moment of shock and heartbreak when I realize that Owen is growing up. It happens at random times as I trudge though my normal daily routine. I'll throw a quick glance at him and it suddenly hits me that he's getting older. And bigger. And more like a big boy than my little boy, my baby. And it leaves me with mixed emotions.

When did this adorable baby:

Turn into this handsome boy?

  

I am so proud of all of his little accomplishments. I smile when I hear him in the other room singing the alphabet song, and getting all of the letters correct. And he has finally figured out how to count to 20 without getting stuck in the "8, 9, 10, 11, 8, 9, 10, 11..." loop. He knows his colors and most of his shapes. But it makes me sad to know that he is growing up and will be going to school soon.

When we were potty training Owen, we kept telling him that he would never be able to go to school if he was still wearing diapers. One of the things that he really wants to do is to be able to ride the school bus. It was his extra incentive to get out of diapers (which he did). And now one of his favorite things to say to me is, "When I get bigger, me go to school, me go on school bus and make Mommy cry." Nice, huh?