For the last three years — on his birthday and on approximately every half-year mark — we’ve taken Everett down to the photobooth at Portland’s Ace Hotel for a portrait. Results are above, with the chronology moving from left to right. Some highlights:  the very first picture of the first strip taken before we were ready, an apt metaphor for the experience of parenthood; every picture in the first strip and the last three pictures of the second strip, where Everett was entranced by the money slot that sucked the dollar bills in (now replaced by a less exciting card swipe); note also the hands holding him up second strip; the most recent strip where Everett’s lower in the frame because he’s finally big enough to sit on the raised stool instead of standing on the lowered stool.

Be sure to click the picture to zoom in on this one.  There’s some fun stuff in there.

Sara and Everett were in the middle of a project writing thank you notes for his birthday presents when Everett needed a diaper change.  Lying on the floor for his changing, Everett spotted the HiHo CherryO game he got for his birthday.

“Everett wants to play that game!”

“We need to finish our thank-you notes first,” Sara said.

“But it says ‘games after poop.’”

Everett has started using this rhetorical technique recently, as if this unnamed “it” carries some authority.  ”It says Everett is done eating,” or “It says we’ll go now.” It says, so we’d better do it.

Sara called his bluff: ”What says ‘games after poop’?  What says that?”

His diaper now changed, Everett got up, went over to the table, grabbed a thank-you note, and started writing. A minute later, he presented the note for inspection.  And he was right, it did say “games after poop.”  Or at least “games after pop.”

Relevant text highlighted.

Look out world, I don’t think the boy is using his powers for good!

For a long while, Everett has been adamant that he’s not a boy, not a kid, not a big guy.  Call him any of those and you’d be immediately corrected: “No, Everett’s a baby!”  It didn’t matter if it was Mama, Dada, Grandma, or some stranger at the park commenting on what a good boy he was, the reaction was always the same.  Even if you exclaimed “oh boy” without even referring to him, “No, Everett’s a baby!”

So naturally the question arose, “when will Everett not be a baby?”

To which he always answered “when he’s three.”

And wouldn’t you know it. He was right.  Yawning and stretching in bed as we all rose from our morning snuggle, I told Everett “I love you, birthday boy.”  He opened his mouth halfway to correct me, then he caught himself. Everett is a big boy now!

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Under cloudy skies, the airport fire crew stands ever vigilant, ready to jump into action at a moment’s notice.