The Fourth Year

A celebration of this past year — enjoy!

Big Four Year Old Boy

To our Ryan, you sweet, lovable, thoughtful, athletic, fun-seeking boy -- you're days away from your four birthday! There's so much to capture about you at this age. I want to write it all down so I can always be reminded of this wonderful moment in time.

You are a boy in constant motion, kicking, running, jumping, throwing, skipping, and hopping through your days. One of your favorite activities is launching yourself from the couch, a chair, or the bed into an enormous pile of pillows and blankets. You have no fear as you fly through the air sporting a grin from ear to ear. Thankfully, you're still cautious enough not to make me totally lose my mind with anxiety, but your stunts do get my heart pounding.

You're constantly finding new ways to manipulate toys and objects around you. I'm amazed by the variety of tricks you come up with on your scooter, or how you can swing on the door to your room or the fridge. In the backyard or at the pool or park, I hear over and over again, "Watch me, Mommy! Isn't that a cool move?" It always is.

As a boy in constant motion, you share your Dad's love for roughhousing. You've created all sorts of games, favorites including "Daddy Rock" (climbing and somersaulting over Daddy), "Leg Lock" (trying to escape Daddy's grasp), "Lump" (hiding under the sheets for Daddy to find you) and, no explanation necessary here, "Tackle" . You could wrestle and tickle and roll on the floor with your Dad for hours.

Along with your physical, active side, you have a quiet, focused side that continues to enjoy creating, both in the kitchen and with art. You'll never pass down a chance to help prepare a meal, or make an art project, and you especially enjoy creating letters to send to family members. These letters often include cut-out photos of your favorite things, glued meticulously onto orange sheets of paper. You're learning what one would write in a letter, and can dictate sweet phrases for me to write like, "Dear Tate, I hope you are doing well. Here is a picture of a fire truck. Love, Ryan and Bunny".

Which brings me to another thing, your love for Bunny. You are devoted to that little guy. No matter how filthy or tattered he gets, you still adore him. Actually, the dirt and rips only seem to increase your love for him. You're fine with not toting him to preschool, but always remind me to bring him along when I pick you up. He's the first thing you grab as you climb into the stroller for the walk home. Bunny continues to bring you much comfort in the topsy-turvy, ever changing world of a preschooler.

Ryan, as your swim teacher put it, you're a pleasure to be around. I feel so lucky to watch you learn and grow each day. Happy Fourth Birthday Buddy! Promise me you won't grow too quickly this next year...

Big Four Year Old Girl

Dear Lucie, our sweet, intelligent, funny, precocious, goofy and delightful girl — can you really be turning four on Saturday?

Like you, I have a difficult time imagining life before you entered the scene. When we talk about things that happened before you were born, you wonder, "But where were me and Ryan?" It's hard for you to fathom the pre-Lucie and Ryan days, and even more difficult for you to grasp that there were years when your mom and dad did not know each other. In your mind, we've always been together, from childhood to adulthood, just as you imagine marrying Ryan some day.

You've developed this funny practice of calling me "Mother". I'm not sure where it came from, but it's almost become habit for you now. I feel like I'm living in the days of Little Women, a book I can see you enjoying when you're older. In a silly mood, you'll make it sound goofy like "Mudder" and then abbreviate it to "Mud" — just what I've always dreamed of being called.



On the subject of books, I can see you writing your own someday. You narrate your life, bringing in phrases from books or favorite TV programs. Sometimes your narration is in the first person, other times you refer to yourself in third person, depending on your mood. When we ask you to get in your car seat, you might say, "And so Lucie climbed into her car seat, she grabbed her favorite kitty and smiled with delight". And then when crawling into bed that night, you might say, "I jumped into bed and nestled all snug as a bug in a rug. I kissed my mother on the cheek. Good night!"

Your vocabulary astounds us. You'll come up with delightful phrases, out of nowhere. When asked if you'd like some more fruit for dessert, you recently replied, "Oh yes, cherries make my heart melt!" You're always interested in what words mean, stopping us in the middle of a sentence for clarification. A visit to Target taught you the meaning of the word "tempting", during our summer heat wave you wanted to know what "scorching" meant. If you don't understand a word, you'll ask what it means, soak it in, and be ready to use it yourself.

Your imaginary creation, Lucieland, has taken on a life of its own. We learn more about it every day, and apparently you're able to sneak in quite a few visits, as we often hear stories started by, "When Ella and I were at Lucieland..." The language of its people, named appropriately "Lucie language", is quite extensive. You're always introducing us to new words, sometimes to be silly, other times to get yourself out of a jam, like when you try to convince me that your loud declaration of "No!" is actually Lucie language for "Yes, Mom, whatever you say". Sure.


Though you enjoy playing with fire trucks or reading about garbage trucks, you're a girlie-girl through and through. You love purple, sparkles, rainbows, flowers, fairies, and unicorns perched on purple rainbows. Play ponies and kittens are adored, as well as anything having to do with ballet or ballerinas. You've decided you want to be a "ballerina teacher" when you grow up, which I think is so interesting, that you'd chose to be the teacher instead of the dancer. Whatever you do, we know you'll be great at it.

Happy Birthday to our amazing four year old girl. We love you through and through.

Noodle Countdown

Right about the time my birthday rolls around, Ryan and Lucie start asking, "When is it going to be OUR birthday?" They know that their celebration is next in our family, though it's hard for them to understand that it's not the following day, but seven whole weeks away. That's a lot of time in the life of an almost four year old.

Once September hit we began the official countdown with one of their favorite ways to understand the calendar -- stringing pasta noodles. They start by stringing a noodle for each day remaining until the 19th, and then take off one noodle each morning. They love removing a noodle after breakfast each day, and are visually reminded of how quickly their birthday is approaching.

We've used this before to count down days until trips or family visitors, though this time R & L had the idea of painting their noodles before stringing them. Lucie chose a heavy marinara sauce approach, rolling her penne in gobs of purple paint, while Ryan was more of a light olive oil kind of guy, gently coating each penne with a brush of orange. Yum.