Dear Lucas (45 months),

Each month seems to fly by faster and faster. You are so excited to be having an upcoming birthday and I still wish at times that I could slow time down for just a bit. You are always reminding us that you have a birthday coming up soon and telling us exactly what you want. This year you want to have a race car themed party. The other day you even drew a picture of how you want you cake to look like, a racetrack with a race car.

When you aren't busy planning your next birthday bash you are quite the little helper. This Sunday you had a blast helping your grandparents do a bit of gardening. At home you are always asking to help cook. If I am making something that you can't help with you will usually set the table. It is even becoming less of a fight to get you to put up your toys or pick up your room.

We found out a few weeks ago that you will not be going to Pre-K in the fall. Everywhere we applied you were wait listed. At first I was really bummed because I know how badly you want to go to school. At the same time I was also happy about getting to spend one more year at home with you. Besides, I don't think not going to Pre-K will slow you down. One of your new favorite shows is "Sid the Science Kid" and after one episode all about levers you were excitedly talking about fulcrums and saying "Hey mom, look at my 'vention, I made a lever." Then you used your lever to launch things across the room.

Since you won't be going to school and I won't be going to work, I've started to keep your friends David and Gabe a few hours a week while their parents are working. I'm able to make a little money while helping out a friend and you are able to spend more time with your buddies. So far it is going great. I have to referee here and there a little bit but mostly it is because you don't want to share your toys. I understand where you are coming from, sharing sucks! Really, who WANTS to let someone else play with their favorite toy car or sit in the cool red chair at lunch? My guess is nobody, but it doesn't stop me from trying to convince you that sharing is a good thing. Now if I could outlaw the word "MINE" life would be good.

Now that the weather is so nice your favorite place to be at home is in your sandbox. Your friends love it too. Now I just need to get 3 shovels and 3 buckets the exact same. The biggest battle seems to be over who gets the little orange bucket and who gets the pink shovel.

Your best buddy is still your lovey that you call your baby. We used to have 3 of them so we could switch them in and out whenever one was dirty or in case one comes up missing. For some reason lately we can only find one lovey. Since you chew and suck on your baby in your sleep it gets NASTY pretty quickly. It is banned to your bed because we don't want you cuddling up to us holding your dirty nasty baby. I ended up finding another one on eBay and bought it so we could have another spare. When it arrived in the mail it was BRAND NEW. You played with it for a few minutes and then said, "Mommy I want my dirty nasty baby." You don't want anything to do with the nice clean baby anymore.

Love you to the moon and back,

Mama