Today is Noah's birthday. He turns three. He is quite happy about it, but wishes he did not have to wait until tomorrow to play with his friends. We will have cake and candles tonight with just us, and then the party tomorrow. Noah's friend Nico has his party on Sunday; his birthday was a couple of days ago when he turned four. We sang to Noah this morning and snuggled in bed. Marcela had a small present for him, and of course for Maxim, too. But Maxim had announced yesterday that she was going to be jealous, and she knows herself well. For a good part of the early morning, she followed Noah around just to bug him. Little subtle things like a push here or taking a toy he was going for there. By mid-morning they were both in a bit of a tizzy, crying, complaining, yelling. "I wish it was my birthday!" Maxim kept saying. "Why can't it be my birthday?" "It's my birthday!" Noah would scream. I pick up Maxim and tell her a story. She likes it when I make up stories or recite memories. "Three years ago I drove home from the hospital and I found you upstairs eating breakfast with Nico and Coralie and Ken." Her eyes light up. "You and Daddy went downstairs and got dressed and got in the car. Do you remember?" "Yeah..." she says just to keep the story going. "We got in the car and we drove to Boston. You looked out the window when we went over the bridge and said, 'Hi Boston!'" She laughs at the story of herself. "And we went to the hospital and we went inside. Remember we bought that plant, the plants upstairs now that have grown so big?" "Yeah," she says remembering her own detail, "and the purple bear." "And the purple bear! Yes. And we went upstairs and there was Mommy and baby Noah. Do you remember?" "Yeah." She says with daydream eyes. "And do you know what happened on that day?" She looks at me, surprised, "What?" "You became a sister." She smiles. Gwen had asked her just yesterday what it was like to be a sister. For his part, Noah has decided to acquire a street-toddler look by getting himself scratched on the chin yesterday in a tussle at Carmela's and then landing on his cheek in a fall here at home today. He seems to be overflowing with energy to jump and run and push things over, but he has more weight and more strength than he has coordination at this point, so he's bumping up against it a little more often. And just in time for the birthday! I asked him how the scratch had come about. "The boy did it." "What's his name?" "I don't know," he says. "What happened?" "I cried." "You cried when he scratched you?" "Yes." "Why did he scratch you?" "Because I don't like him." "You don't like him?" "No." "Did you do something to him?" "Yes." "What did you do?" "I did very strong." "Very strong? You hit him very strong?" "No, I did very strong. Like this," and he clenches his fists and straightens his arms and flexes his shoulders and makes a mean grimace face like he's either squeezing someone as hard as he can or holding someone down as hard as he can. "And he didn't like it when you did that?" "No." "So he scratched you?" "Yes." "You have to be more gentle with people, Noah." "Ok." He's a very agreeable boy in the end. It got cold for his birthday, and we had some snow flurries this morning. But you can see in the pictures, there's no snow on the ground. The sun comes and goes today behind rapidly moving clouds. We slowly begin to gather our belongings, sorting out things we won't take with us to Florida, packing up things that we will but will not use before we leave. Massachusetts has been very good to us. We will not think to much about goodbyes until we have to. Spring is almost here!