Definitely four

My child was kind enough to remind of the exact hour of his birth by waking me at 4am. However, it didn't snow today unlike that fated day four years ago, so I suppose we came out even.

He received a game, a book, some building tiles and a race car track for his birthday, as well as a transformer -- if that sounds like a lot, that was gifts from us, all his grandparents, and my sister and her family, so pretty much the whole extended family. I made two more dozen cupcakes and iced them and sprinkled them, and we are almost ready to go to daycare for a quick daycare party.

We stayed home with him, took him to lunch. Read his book, built with his tiles. I ate too much icing, and now the baby is going crazy. And I'm reminded that this is the last birthday that there will be just us, just the three of us, and I'm both pleased and sad -- pleased that we'll have a little someone new, pleased that we got to spend four whole years nurturing this one before we moved onto the next, and sad that our little triad, so lovely, will be disturbed.

At four he's losing the last of his baby chub. He is only getting skinnier and skinnier, his elbows have loose skin now instead of dimples. He has refused to get his hair cut since the fall, and it's growing over his ears and neck. He's got some sort of extra sensitivity thing going on -- I have it too, I hated having my head washed and people touching the back of my neck as a kid, so I'm letting it slide.

He's articulate as hell, he can do simple addition and simple multiplication in his head. (The other day he told me he blew me three double kisses, and I asked how many that was, and he paused, thought, and said ... six!) He can read anything he wants to, and frequently comes home from daycare with some new fact he got from the books he reads at rest time. ("Crabs foam at the mouth when they aren't in the ocean!" was the latest.) His imagination runs wild, and they tell me at daycare that he spends lots of time concocting very complex games that he leads the other in. His best friends are largely the boys older than he is; I worry about next year, when he'll be the oldest there.

At the same time, he can show surprisingly little common sense. He bit a chunk out of a book at daycare the other day. He still gets upset over tiny little things when he's tired and / or hungry. Some days you can tease him and he'll laugh; some days he'll sob inconsolably, and it's hard to know which will be which. Thankfully the temper tantrums have gotten fewer, but I'm not counting on that continuing, especially once there's another small person in the house -- goodness knows there'll be some regression, I just don't know what it will be.

Sleeping, never this kid's strong suit, is still one of his least favourite activities. He doesn't nap, and hasn't done so outside of being sick in well over a year. He hates going to bed at night, and wakes up in the night frequently. Still. The only difference now is that he knows he shouldn't, and that mommy and daddy are sleeping so he needs to lie quietly and try to go back to sleep. Which he tries to do. But he's small, and his idea of lying still and quiet is rather different than mine.

I have hope that one day, he'll sleep better. Or at least involve me less when he does wake up.

He can talk non-stop for hours on end. Sometimes it's interesting, sometimes I just tune it out as background noise. He loves playing video games with his dad, but cries and shrieks when they are stopped, so we've cut them out all together until he can regulate a little better. I have no idea when that will be.

He loves broccoli and avocado sushi and macaroni and cheese and pizza. He loves cheese on toast and apple juice. He won't drink fizzy drinks or eat anything excessively sweet, which I think bodes well for his future. He still reads with us every night, wants to fall asleep cuddled against a parent, and kisses me for fun. He talks to the baby and kisses my tummy. When my sister asked him who was in my belly, he said "Our baby."

We made it to four. It's hard to believe, both that we made it and that it's been four years. Four! It's been an impossible roller coaster of awesome and "Dear Lord what have we done??!" And now I can't believe we're going to do it ALL OVER AGAIN.