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3 Years Old

Joe feeling Nora kick for the first time
Today is Joe's 3rd birthday.  It seems like a lifetime ago that he was born and we met him for the first time, and in some ways I feel like it was the start of a whole new life for me.  I can't imagine a world where I come home and don't have a familiar 'Dada!' and a big hug waiting to greet me.

Things with Joe have been wonderful lately, despite frequent temper tantrums in the evening that I think we can attribute to his changing sleep schedule.  He frequently plays on his own and often has entire conversations with his toys or other objects in the house that just crack us up.  Last night, for example, he was asking his asparagus, "What's wrong?" and petting it before eventually just popping it in his mouth and continuing on with dinner.

Joe's vocabulary has expanded significantly in the last few months, and I feel like we're at the point where he pretty much understands everything we're saying.  Last night he even pointed out Jupiter in the sky, which definitely brought a tear to this astronomy-loving guy's eyes.  We took Joe to Disney last month when we visited Florida for Marissa's birthday and unfortunately didn't get the excited reaction from him we'd been hoping for.  Most of it is likely because he doesn't watch too much Disney programming and spends most of his time watching trains or Dora the Explorer, but he did wave and Mickey and Minnie Mouse when they went by in one of their parades.

We're coming up to the last 10 weeks of Nora's pregnancy and we're getting ready to do this all over again.  This pregnancy has been going a lot better for Rachael than Joe's did to this point, and we're cautiously optimistic that everything will go well with the delivery, too.  We're scheduled to deliver at a midwife practice in Alexandria this time, which has Rachael happy about how things might go this time around.

Joe loves talking to Nora through Rachael's stomach and always talks about how he's going to hug and play with her.  We both think he's going to be a fantastic older brother, and I can't wait to see him hold her for the first time.

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