Holding on to Life at 4

This week my baby turned 5.  He was so excited.  He literally started counting down the days about 5 days out.  “Then it became after this day after that day is my birthday.”  The day before his birthday he told me he wanted to fall asleep early so his birthday would come sooner.  We kissed him goodnight for the last time as a 4 year old and sent him up to bed.  When I came up a little while later to peek in on them, he was sobbing in his bed.  He decided maybe he didn’t want to turn 5 after all.  He said, “4 is the best age I ever was, I think I should stay 4.”  It was so precious and cute and heart breaking all at the same time.

And I could totally relate to his desire to grow up and yet at the same time  hold on to life right where it is.

I brought him in to bed with me where we snuggled and talked about all the wonderful things he did when he was four.  Then I got out his baby book and we looked at pictures of him in my belly and during his first year of life.  We laughed and giggled.  And I told him about what he was like as a baby. 

Believe it or not there were things I had forgotten about him at that stage.  Things like the fact that he used to say hi to everyone with one hand in the air, or the fact that his older sister used to talk to him in my belly through my belly button ( a fact that was quite awkward when she decided to talk to the baby when we were out in public).

And so once again, in my desire to hold on to life right where it is, I felt compelled to blog about life right now.  The things he did and said at 4 that I am sure 5 years from now I will have forgotten.

Even at 4, he could still fall asleep anywhere.  Sitting awkwardly in a seat at the gymnastics awards or on the side of his brothers jit jitsu tournament, or in the waiting room at the gym while I worked out.  If he was tired, he had the ability to curl up and go to sleep anywhere.  He even climbed up in my lap in the big pool area of Great Wolf Lodge and took a nap. 

He has an obsessive personality.  This spring he became obsessed with coloring pictures of animals.  I would literally print 20-30 pages a day of free coloring pages of animals and he would spend hours HOURS day after day coloring in those animals.  He took these hundreds of sheets of paper with him in his backpack for weeks on end.   When this obsession ended he became obsessed with words.  Even when he didn’t know what each letter was called, he taught himself to write letters just by copying them.  He would write out strings of letters and ask what they spelled. He would literally write a page of gibberish letters and then his sister would go through and circle whatever words she could find. “Look you wrote Go”  or “Here is tap.”  His face would light up with glee.  “I wrote a word, a real word.”  Then he started copying words out of books, off of food containers, anywhere he could find them.  Real words written all over pages.  At night we’d go up to bed and find letters he left us on our pillows filled with random words like, “rat, acts, timothy, cat, hi….” and then his precious “signature” in which he’d write his name in all caps and a backwards 4 after it.  Every single time he wrote his name he would write a backwards 4 after it b/c of course he was 4.

He loved to drink coffee.  His favorite errand to run was Trader Joes where we would always stop by the coffee sample and I’d give him a little cup with half coffee, half cream and sugar.

His love language is gifts.  If I would buy food at the grocery store that he liked or even household goods like a new toothbrush he would be so excited, “Thank you Mommy for buying watermelon.  You really love me.  Thank you so much for these pickles.”

He doesn’t know he is little.  In his head he is just as big as his older siblings and often takes on life like that.   He’s not afraid to go hard and aggressive at jiu jitsu or soccer b/c he is used to competing with the older kids and because in his head he is the same size as the older kids. 

He is my snuggle bug.  He still loves to be carried or held and even though he is 40+ pounds and almost 5 I would still carry him from time to time b/c he is my baby and I know one day he will be too big.  Sometimes when I would complain that he was too heavy for me to keep carrying, he’d say, “But mom you exercise and do fight fit to get strong so you can carry me.”

He loves to make silly faces.  Silly poses are his most favorite whenever we have to take pictures. He loves to make people laugh and often does things just for the joke.  He is a performer.

He loves animals.  All animals.  Farm animals, zoo animals, dogs, cats….  He loves to greet them and kiss them and hug them.

He also loves his stuffed animals.  And he takes them with him, sleeps with them, and truly thinks of them like real animals.  He will miss them when we are out and about.  “I hope my stuffed animals are ok.  I think they are crying for me.”

4 was pretty awesome.  And I truly enjoyed life with my youngest at age 4.  Here’s to a new year… to turning five and enjoying life on the top bunk, learning to read, and ride a bike with no training wheels.  I hope and pray that in this next year he grows closer to the Lord.  I look forward to seeing him grow more and more into the boy God has made him to be.