4 Years

My sweet boy,

Where have the last 4 years gone?  Sometimes I look at you and I am startled to see you looking like a kid instead of that chubby little laughing baby.  I feel like you are still brand new – and every day I’m thankful that we have you.  I don’t think a single day has gone by where I haven’t been amazed to realize you are really here, after all those years of praying and waiting for you.  You are such a blessing, and your name, which means “Gift from God” is a perfect fit for how we feel.

(18 mos. old – the sun was shining through your window and captured your profile perfectly on the wall – look at all that curly hair!)

Well, you really are here, and you really are going to be 4 years old this week.  You are such an interesting little guy, and there are so many things I never want to forget about you at this age…

You make noise from morning till night.  If you aren’t asking (hard!) questions about how things work or what something means, you are either singing, saying nonsense words and cracking yourself up, humming, or simply making various noises with your mouth.  You blow raspberries on just about anyone and laugh because it sounds like a “toot”.  What a boy.  You give your silence-loving mama a real patience workout.

You are a clown and love to make people laugh.  You tell off-the-wall jokes in your “stage voice” (about an octave lower than your normal voice) and no one really gets them, but you get the laughs and that’s all that really matters.  You still like to pretend you are a robot and have to “recharge your head” in the mornings.  You call your hands your “Crazy Little Things” and they do crazy little things for sure… recently I found a couple of cuts in a pair of your shorts and I asked you if you had cut them with your scissors.  You said, “My crazy little things did it.  I kept telling them to stop, but they just kept on cutting until I finally took the scissors away.”  Whew – what a windjammer, as your daddy would say!

You are baby-obsessed (is it something in the water we drink?  I think we are all baby-obsessed) and have started taking care of a little stuffed bear – putting him to bed, being so gentle with him, talking to him in a sweet little voice, and even feeding him his “baby ba-ba”. :) 

You love to fly like a bird or a superhero, depending on your mood.  And we’ve had more than one trip to the emergency room because of this.  You must stop climbing on the furniture and jumping (sorry, flying) across the room.  I really mean it this time.

Your favorite word is “hanky”.  Why, oh why, is this the word you say all day long?  Daddy comes home and you say, “Hi Daddy Hanky-head!” (or Hanky-legs, or whatever else you come up with).  You yell “hanky” over and over at the top of your lungs in Target and your poor mama starts looking for a hole in the ground to crawl into.  The cashier says, “hi” to you and you say, “hanky!”  Sometimes while you are playing alone I hear you singing, “Hanky Doodle went to town, riding on a hanky…”.  Good grief. 

You are also a thinker.  You got a double dose of this trait from Daddy and me.  But I think you could out-think both of us anytime.  You think about how the car works, and you are obsessed with the gas gauge.  You tell us if we have “half a tank”, a “quarter of a tank”, or need to fill up soon.  Once, when the clock in the living room was pointing straight up at noon, you said “Look, it’s half a tank full!”   You are also obsessed with batteries.  You think about why metal conducts electricity but plastic won’t (Seriously?  Can’t just knowing it’s that way be enough?).  You wonder if there’s a lion in our woods just waiting to come out and poke a hole in your inflatable pool.  You think just maybe the deer that really do come will think your pool is a real shark (it’s shaped like a shark) and will be afraid to come near Daddy’s tomatoes and he won’t have to spray them with the smelly stuff anymore.  Think, think, think.

You make me tired.  But even more, you make me happy. :)(4 month old baby feet – so sweet!)

You are loving and affectionate when the mood strikes you, and thankfully it does fairly often.  You love to give kisses and hugs and you say, “Mommy, I love you” in a serious little voice that makes my heart fill with joy.  Sometimes you blow kisses and then tell us to open our mouths so it can go all the way down to our hearts. 

My favorite time of day is bedtime, and not only because then it will be quiet, but because you turn into my baby again and still want me to rock you in the rocking chair for a few minutes.  I love the feel of your head on my shoulder and your hair on my cheek, and all 40 pounds of you strung out over me with legs and arms seemingly everywhere.  That poor wooden rocking chair creaks and groans. :)  But still I won’t stop as long as you want to cuddle with me because I know soon it won’t be this way any more, and I’ll miss it so much.  I love you, baby boy.  And I’m so very, very proud of you.

Love,

Mama 

The Little Red Mailbox

 

Have you seen the adorable little mailboxes at Target’s Dollar Spot??  Well, our Target had them (out with Valentine’s Day items, the Monday before Christmas) and M insisted that he needed one very badly.  Now, I normally don’t just give in to him on every little thing, but they were awfully cute, and I thought he could play mailman with it. 

So, it’s turned into this very endearing routine between M and Daddy.  It’s sooooo adorable.  M asks for “mail” every evening and Daddy says, “Well… we’ll see…”, then later writes him a little note, which we slip into the mailbox when we check on the darling-sleeping-sweetness later on.  Sometimes there’s even a Curious George ring or some such trinket included. 

Now,  I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but Daddy is up at 5am every morning and M doesn’t see him before he leaves for work. 

So, lately, every morning I hear a little thud, pitter patter over to the dresser, then a sweet voice (well, sweet, depending on what the clock says) exclaiming  “The mail came!”  (He knows if the flag is up, there’s mail!)  Then a clink, clank, clunk as he opens the mailbox… then more pitter-pattering out the door and into my room for me to read him his note.  It’s so much fun and such a nice way to keep the two of them connected first thing in the morning. 

Sometimes M will stick a painting or a note of his own in the mailbox and put it on Daddy’s side of our bed for Daddy to discover when he comes home.  This is always very exciting as you can imagine. ;) 

The notes M writes always go something like this… “Dear Daddy, love Matthew.  Mommy and Daddy and Matthew.”  Goodness, I sure do love my boys!!  :)

Have a beautiful day! :)

36 Months

Dear Matthew,

You turned 3 years old last week.  You are such a big boy now, and you are quick to remind us of that fact.  We are so very proud of you. 

There is hardly anything of the baby about you now. 

I’m so thankful for the rocking chair that you aren’t yet ready to give up.  Even when it’s the middle of the night and you want me to rock you, I do.  Because, although you would never admit it, you are still my baby and I know those precious moments are numbered. 

You had a wonderful birthday!  Balloons, noise-makers, pizza, presents… all the good stuff that a little boy wants.  And a cake from your mama that was built according to your specifications: dirt, a road, a fence, some trucks, some m&m’s, and lots of “shiny” parts (frosting). :)

You received your “dream machine” from Grandma – a push lawnmower that you’ve had your eye on all summer:

You’ve been a handful lately, but you’ve had a lot going on.  3 looks like a lot of fun, but we know it can be difficult too, don’t we?  There’s a lot expected of you, so many new things to learn about, endless questions that Mommy doesn’t always know the answers to, and rules, rules, rules! You are not a big fan of all the rules! :)

But, you know what?  You are doing a great job, and we will always love you and help you when you need us.

Your spontaneous hugs and kisses are so sweet.  Your silly faces and absurd jokes are so funny. 

You bring so much more joy to our lives than we ever expected.  Thank you, Sweetheart, for being you.  We love you very much.

Love,

Mama.

35 Months

Dear Matthew,

Your last month as a 2 year old is upon us. I don't know why people call it the terrible twos - you have been nothing but a joy. Well, ok, you've had your moments, but they are so easily forgotten and really, thankfully there haven't been *that* many.

Your little tractor (your favorite toy) finally broke down. It literally fell apart. I couldn't bring myself to throw it away, so I guess we are keeping its remains. I hope someday when we come across it we can remember you at 2 a little more vividly than we would without it. You have a new tractor now. Ok, here's a secret... it's not really a tractor. It's a John Deere 4-wheeler. But you don't know that... yet. It's your tractor and you mow the living room daily with it. But it's just not the same as the beloved old tractor.

You've been playing with your blocks a lot lately which Mommy loves to see. You build houses and garages mostly. Tunnels and bridges are high on your list too. And you've been quite the little artist lately:

You do this thing that you came up with on your own as far as I can tell - you pretend to be a robot that isn't working right, and only goes backwards, and we have to pull your levers, change your batteries and do all kinds of things, making the appropriate noises, until you are "fixed". You make the CUTEST noise as a robot. Kind of a zuz zuz zuz sound and you bounce around going backwards everywhere until you are fixed. It is just so darn cute. :)

You and Daddy went to the zoo and right after this picture was taken you threw one of your last sippy cups in with the orangutans. You still talk about this every once in a while. You wonder if the baby orangutan is drinking out of your sippy cup. :)

You have started saying "I love you" quite often and it brings tears to my eyes just to think about it. I can't believe how quickly time has gone by.

You are becoming your own person now... not just my baby. I don't know everything about you. I know most of it, and more than anyone else, but not all. You surprise me sometimes with just how much you know, how sweet your heart really is, how much you understand of what goes on around you. And how deeply you feel. Especially this.

You are a lesson in love for me... and sometimes I am not a very good student. I know I say things that hurt you, I'm impatient with you, I'm often very selfish. You want so little, just love and attention and gentleness. I'm trying, and I do love you (so very, very much), but I guess you are learning that even Mommy isn't perfect and needs to be forgiven sometimes.

It's much harder work than I imagined it would be, this parenting thing... but the rewards are huge. I would not change a thing about you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

Love,

Mama

34 Months... how time flies

Dear Matthew,

I can not believe how big you are getting. Where, oh where, has my baby gone? Daddy and I are so proud of you! We keep trying to slow time down and relish all the wonderful, sweet, astounding things you are doing, but even as we attempt to catch our breath you are off again with something new to learn and master.

These days your favorite toy is your little green tractor (which I bought for ONE DOLLAR a year ago at Target). You mow the "lawn" inside the house and outside many, many times a day with that little tractor, and you know just the right sound effects to make while you do it. We are getting pretty worried about that little tractor. I'm not sure how much longer a dollar's worth of plastic can hold out, but I'm afraid it won't be long, and I am desperately searching for a replacement.

You also love your tools - your saw especially. It is technically a hand saw, but that doesn't stop you - in your world it is a noisy chainsaw that cuts down forests of trees in one day. You worked for days (really) on a little cardboard box, sawing and sawing away until you had sawed it in two. Well, we are glad to see you have dedication and aren't afraid of hard work!

Here you finally finished it and showed me how you could sit in it by going in the little door you made. You were very proud! I have to admit I was pretty proud too!

In our breezeway you have your work - "fixwork" - that you go to just like Daddy goes to work every day. You have car crashes in the breezeway, fantastic roll overs and pile ups, then you get on your bike and drive to work at the other end of the breezeway and get them all back in working order. Your absolute favorite "job" is fixing the flat tires.

You must've been the easiest kid ever to potty train. You figured it out and never looked back. You woke up one day singing "Big boy underwear, big boy underwear, oooooooh Babe!" Your first musical composition. And sometimes you want me to sing it to you at bedtime. :)

You are starting to have conversations on your toy phone with imaginary people, one in particular who is named "Betsy".

You are beginning to be more deliberate in your drawings, telling me what or who you are drawing, and you know what? I can really see it!

You ask a lot of questions. You are already much smarter than me, I'm sure of it.

You love your bike.

You love the bales of hay at Grandpa's farm.

You love your rainboots with the silly lizards on them.

You love acting like a kitty or a puppy, or a bird (especially a bird!).

You climb, hang, and jump from anything and everything. You have made my heart stop more than once with your daredevil feats. But I love you and I would not change a thing about you even if I could.

You are showing me just how amazing the world is when seen through the eyes of a little boy. I'm so thankful to be your Mommy.

I love you, sweetheart!