Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Dear Graham, 48 Months

Dear Graham,
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