Fantastic Four!

Luke turned four today and he is very proud of that fact. He has been telling everyone who will listen that he is four now--not three, not three-and-a-half, but FOUR! We've been counting on the calendar to this day and he was beside himself all day.

The past year has been challenging as he has experimented with becoming his own person with his own ideas and agenda, but we have also had such joy. Right now, he starts every sentence with, "Guess what," or "Do you know what?" A year ago, he'd accept my explanations for things, but now, he volunteers his own theories. This can be trying to my fact-oriented soul, but I remind myself that he's exercising his brain with every kooky hypothesis he puts forward. It exercises my brain to listen without criticizing--just today, I was informed that at various forms of development, ladybugs resemble cockroaches, caterpillars, and "chrysaliseses."

He is serious and pensive most of the time. At school and in public, he is usually very well-behaved. At home, he is far less accommodating. I sometimes think back to the easy toddler he used to be and wonder what happened, but I try to remember that growing into your very own person is tough stuff. He is growing slowly more empathetic and more able to navigate social situations. He is still easily frustrated when things don't go how he thinks they should, but is ever so gradually learning to try again. He likes to practice his skills of persistence by asking me the same question two-hundred-and-fifty-nine times, in the hope of getting the answer he wants.

He likes to read and go to the park and play with his friends. He is obsessed with dinosaurs and animals (particularly of the reptilian variety) and superheroes. He is oddly fascinated with worksheets (?!) and asks to do them frequently. He likes school and from what I hear from his teachers, he's polite and kind to his classmates. When I drop him off, however, he is very quiet, so I wonder how much of the "polite and kind" is actually just that he's timid in the school environment. He joins into group play with other children more often since starting school, but seems more reluctant to talk to unfamiliar adults. He and his brother have a very typical sibling relationship--playing happily one minute, fighting the next. He is slowly learning to use his words rather than his strength with Weston. Their relationship got more difficult once Weston started walking--and by extension, inserting himself into Luke's games, taking his toys, climbing over him, hitting him, etc. However, they also have long stretches of being able to play together without needing me right there to intervene.

I think he has lost a lot of baby-ness this past year and we're fully within the realm of childhood now. I find myself wondering quite frequently what he'll be like in twenty years and what he'll remember from this time of his life. I'm sure he'll remember that many times, his parents were not as kind or patient as they should have been. I'm sure he'll remember the times he felt slighted and misunderstood. Don't we all remember those moments the best? But I also hope he remembers the wonder of waking up on his fourth birthday and finding his room filled with fifty balloons:

 

I hope he remembers the unhurried feeling of wandering through the neighborhood, holding ladybugs and studying frogs, examining acorn shells and trying to determine whether they really were acorn shells or whether they might have belonged to very small turtles instead. I hope he remembers to keep asking questions, even if others think they aren't worth asking.

 

I hope he remembers the joy that came with opening a few small presents--a couple of little airplanes, a couple of books, a scooter--and finding that someone remembered all the things that he had wanted, but forgotten about. 

 

 

I hope he remembers that at one point, he had an entire day of doing exactly what he wanted. And on that day, what he wanted was to eat cereal with NO milk, look at his birthday cards and talk about the people who sent them, get a birthday cake pop at Starbucks and only share a little tiny bit with his brother, take a walk around the neighborhood, play games, read books, and see his best friend. I hope that he always finds the joy in such simple things.