Happy Birthday to my boy

 
Happy Birthday to my boy, who turns 3 today. Hard to believe how fast he’s growing. Just in the last month or two, he:

• Learned to peddle his tricycle
  
• Began riding a bicycle (with training wheels) just a week after he starting pedaling the trike.
  
• Began swinging a bat. For a few weeks, every swing would be in the same plane, so a pitch had to hit a 3 inch area at his eye level in order for him to hit it, but he’s since leveled out his swing and can now move the bat to hit the ball. He still misses it a bunch, and doesn’t have any plate discipline, but there is at least a 50/50 chance that he’ll hit the pitch if it’s a strike.
  
• Began hitting a golf club. He had some plastic clubs, but was using them more like an ax than like a club, chopping into the ground. But then he started taking more of an arc, and on Sunday some friends gave him a metal club and he’s been hitting balls with that now. Unfortunately, it’s a righty club and he decided to hit the ball lefty, so he’s hitting it with the back of the club. I need to go to the golf store to look for a lefty club before he develops bad habits.
  
• Got potty-trained. He still sleeps at night in a diaper, but manages without one all day with only an occasional accident.
  
• Began sleeping in a toddler bed. He now can climb in and out of the bed on his own. We were worried because we traveled a bit in July and thought about bringing a portable crib with us, but he did just fine sleeping on a mattress on the floor (although we had to put pillows next to the mattress for when he rolls off). At home, he has a low rail in his bed for this purpose.
  

And a bit of advice for new fathers: you will get hit in the crotch and face, many times.