Dear Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, my fellow Adult Americans, and, especially my two parents, sitting over there, shaking their heads:
Today marks the end of the third year I’ve been alive, and let me just tell you, this year is going to be hell. Sorry for the dirty word, Mama and Daddy, but I’m so not joking. Buckle up, because here I come.
I understand that because this is my third birthday, you’ll be going out of your minds over the course of the next year, but I’m just going to tell you, I got this. I know everything about everything, and so you can just stop trying to teach me the proper way to do things according to you. I know how to do EVERYTHING myself.
I know how to put on a jacket, even though you say I put it on inside out and upside down, Mom. You don’t know what you’re talking about. The hood is supposed to be on my booty. Just let me do it. I also know how to put on my shoes, even though you say I put them on the wrong foot. The toes are supposed to point out. That’s the way everybody wears them. You obviously don’t know anything.
I especially know how to plunge a toilet, so please stop trying to hide the plunger from me. Trust me. I know what I’m doing.
I hope we can work together this year on pretty much nothing, because I want to be the one who does everything. By myself. You want to help me into the car? Nope. I will walk back to the place you started helping me, and I will do it myself. Put my shoes on the right foot? Nope. I will take them back off and put them on the way I had them, because I will do it myself. Help me cross the street safely? Nope. I WILL DO IT MYSELF!
Don’t worry. I’ll go a little easy on you, at least when you’re sleeping. Wait. On second thought, that’s probably the time when I will attempt everything I shouldn’t do when eyes are watching, because everyone’s asleep, and what better time to sneak into the bathroom and drink a whole vial of Peace and Calming essential oil? What better time to sneak downstairs and drag a kitchen chair across the floor so I can reach the pan of brownies I saw you put in the microwave for safe keeping last night? What better time to pick a lock on the front door? You don’t even know what I’m capable of. But I’m about to show you. Oh, yes I am.
We are living in a time of extraordinary change—change that is reshaping you but is keeping me the same, because, you know, I’m perfect just the way I am. But you, you need to change. You especially need to stop telling me I need to get in the car 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. You need to stop telling me the orange plate is not clean when it’s the only plate I want to use today. And you need to remember that I like the green car grocery cart on Tuesdays and the red car grocery cart on Fridays. I don’t know why you can’t keep it all straight, because it’s the same two colors every week. Except when it’s yellow or blue. So you: change. Me: stay the same.
We’ve been through extraordinary change before. Remember when I first climbed out of my crib, and me and my twin brother would play with our poop and leave you a really nice painting on our walls and clothes and faces? You didn’t think you were going to make it out of that time alive, did you? And look at you now. You’re still alive, I’m still alive, we’re all still alive. And I will do greater things yet, and you will survive them, too.
You know, what was true then can be true now. All you have to do is let me do what I want, with no repercussions. This is really how kids want to live, you know, and it doesn’t matter what their parents say, this is actually the best way to live. Let us do whatever it is we want to do. If we want to take a black Sharpie marker and draw a lion’s mane on our face, let us. If we want to wear our 1-year-old brother’s pants in the dead of winter, let us. If we want to play with the cars instead of trains, but the trains are out and scattered everywhere, just let us play with the cars, too. Cleaning up is no fun, and we should never have to do it, ever again. That’s the first law I’d like passed.
Remember, it’s my spirit that has made the last three years so fun. You used to say that I had a lot of spirit. Well, it’s about to be a whole lot more, because I just figured out that I know how to take the toilet paper roll off the dispenser thingy, and now I will never tire of throwing the brand new toilet paper roll in the toilet and watching it curl at the edges. It always plugs up the toilet when I try to flush down the evidence, but that’s okay. I know how to plunge a toilet, remember?
You face some choices right now. Will you believe that I know what I’m doing, or will you constantly try to thwart me? I can tell you what I’ll do if you thwart me. I’ll cry at the top of my lungs for half an hour to the tune of “I dinnent have our lunch” so all the people in the park will stare at you. I’ll say I hate you and sometimes I’ll even hit or kick or bite to get my point across, because you’re unreasonable people, you parents. I’ll dump out a whole container of shape blocks, and I’ll throw a car across the room so it dents a wall and I’ll slam the door so the walls shake and your favorite picture falls down and breaks. That’s why you should never thwart me. Learn from your mistakes and move on, and we’ll all be that much happier. Me, especially. Which is all that really matters.
So let’s talk about some of the problems we have. First, there is you. And then there’s you. And then there is…you.
I know this isn’t easy. You always say that nothing worth doing is ever easy. You never know what you’re going to get when I get out of bed in the morning. Is it the clever one or the devilish one or the argumentative one or the loving one or the sad one or the angry one or the millions of other versions of myself? But I can promise you that in more than a year, when I am no longer 3, you will be so glad that time marches on, because it means I won’t stay 3 forever.
It will get better. I mean, no it won’t. Because I’m still here. But I’m clear-eyed and big-hearted and undaunted by challenge. You’ll still love me when this year is over.
Thank you. God bless me. God bless me, and God bless…me.
