48 months.
Forty-eight months. I can easily remember when you were 48 days. Or 48
weeks. I’m having a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that you
are no-longer-a-baby-or-even-a-toddler four year old.
Ever since I can
remember babysitting for kids, I remember hearing about the terrible
2’s. I braced myself for the second year of life and let out a sigh when
it passed without being much harder than your
first years. In hindsight, I should have been saving my energy for your
third year of life.
Not that you were
terrible or bad or shocking, it’s just that three brought on a new
all-consuming personality that never gives mommy or daddy a moment of
peace. Don’t get me wrong, your inquisitive brain
is one of my most very favorite features about you. But I have answered
the “why” question 1.278 million times over the last 365 days, and that
doesn’t even count how many more there would have been if I hadn’t
provided the end-all answer of “Because God made
it that way.” You are wonderfully curious and your keen ability to
remember nearly everything I’ve ever told you has led you to increase
your knowledge even more rapidly. It’s almost as if I can see the
synapses of your brain firing away as you think of the
next question to ask.
Of course with this
newfound sense of discovery comes more independence that you like to
exert, especially when you don’t want to do something that mommy or
daddy is asking you to do. We have long given you
“choices” in an effort to teach you are responsible for the
consequences of the choices you make in life. In your third year of life
you started telling us that you, “didn’t like our choices.” You also
didn’t like for us to see or hear you doing something
that you knew you weren’t supposed to do, so you would tell us “I don’t
want you to see me daddy” or “You’re not supposed to know that mommy.”
When I replied that mommies know everything, I clearly wasn’t prepared
for the question of “who is flying that (random)
airplane that I see in the sky?” When I replied that I didn’t know
because it wasn’t daddy, I was told that I “know everything.”
A few months into
your third year, we brought your sister Norah Claire home. While it
certainly rocked your status quo world, you did a great job adjusting to
sharing the limelight. You made an adorable song
for Norah that you would sing to her in the early weeks: “You’re my
sister, yes you are. You’re my sister, yes you are.” (Poetic? Maybe not.
Adorable? Times 1,000.) You LOVE touching her head, something that has
continued to this day. We joke that Norah’s
first word will be “gentle” because of how many times we’ve told you to
be gentle with her. You adore making her laugh and as she’s gotten a
bit bigger, you like to interact with her and her toys as well. Watching
you as a big brother is a part of parenthood
that I wasn’t prepared for when we expanded our family, and yet it
makes my heart swell every time I see you lean over to give her a kiss.
We started playing
more board games in your third year and apparently you don’t like to
lose. Like ever. You are uber-competitive, making up your own “rules” to
Candy Land and other games to ensure you win.
Your ultra-competitive spirit wasn’t helped by the fact that the
Florida State Seminoles’ football team went undefeated during your third
year, in what was really your first year of comprehending the game and
its winning-or-losing ways. You love to tease your
Uncle Troy, the family’s token Gator, by telling him “The Gators will
never win! Never!” and your new favorite, “The Gators smell like poop.”
(Oh, poop. Potty humor reared its ugly head in the third year and you
loved figuring out ways to interject the word
poop into whatever conversation was going on.)
Also during your
third year, the movie Frozen came out. While we didn’t see it in the
theaters, we have it at home and we have probably watched it 100 times.
You adore Frozen, you know all the words to all
the songs, and you even know Elsa’s moves to the song Let It Go, which
you like to replicate in our living room. Frozen has taken all kids your
age by storm and you have been no exception.
During the last year
you have been going to school all day on Tuesdays and Thursdays as your
mommy adjusted to working part-time from home. After never shedding
tears during your nearly three years of going
to day care in Texas, you had a rough start to transitioning to school
here. For the first eight weeks you would cry at drop offs, even though
at pickups the first thing you would say was, “I had a great day!” Once
you finally adjusted to the routine, you
have really enjoyed your teachers, classmates and the school.
Graham, the love
that you have brought into our lives over the last four years is
immeasurable. You are funny, witty, incredibly intelligent, protective,
tender-hearted, energetic and loveable. Your first
four years have taught us so much about life and love and family, I
can’t wait to see how you continue to grow and shine.
Love,
Mommy
