Happy 4th birthday

Doodle is now four years old. How did that happen? Four years. The sheer amount of change that he has undergone in these four years is breathtaking. The cognitive development, social maturity and physical growth of my baby boy have been amazing to experience. Being a mother continues to be challenging and rewarding and nerve-racking and fun all at the same time. Doodle asks questions like, "Do you know what lying is, Mom?"
"Yes. Do you?"
"Yea, it's when your mom tells you she'll take you to the playground and then doesn't."
"Huh. That's not a lie if the mom meant to take the kid but then didn't because the kid was misbehaving and had to be punished."

Doodle has made his own definitions for gender-typing. Boys can like pink and purple, but girls shouldn't like blue because "that's a boy color." He often tells me, even when I haven't said the offending phrases, "It's not good to say Jesus Christ or God Dammit."

Mr. D took Friday and today off for an extra long weekend. Today was opening day for the Phillies and Mr. D and Doodle watched the game together. After what seemed like a long off-season Doodle is back into the baseball lingo after just one game. The Phillies won 11 to 1 against the Nationals. After the game Doodle ran around the yard "making the calls" of the imaginary game he was playing by himself. I could hear him saying, "and he's rounding second . . . the manager came out and said, 'no, that WAS a double play' . . . Ryan makes a hit, it's outta here, two-run home run for Ryan Howard . . ." He's hilarious.

He's very sweet to his sister most of the time. With sincerity he told her at dinner tonight, "sorry honey, there isn't any more bananas." He asks where she is when she's not around, he was genuinely concerned for her when she was having to go to the doctor's office a lot for her VUR.

He's come into his own when socializing with his friends and even some kids he doesn't know that well. He will now speak up if he's being pushed around or if someone suggests doing something he doesn't want to do, or takes a toy from him. He still seems to be more of a follower than a leader, but he's still so young that might change in the future. He certainly acts like the leader when he's with Mr. D and me. He has spent many hours in time out or his room for showing his independence and pushing the limits. He seems to enjoy school. He talks about his school friends on days when he doesn't go to school and he's quite proud of all of the artwork he brings home -- and it's a lot of artwork.

He goes to bed easily for us and rarely wakes during the night. When he wakes up in the morning he comes up to our bedroom to lay with us and cuddle. Then he watches a show on PBS, lately he's been on a Curious George kick. He's a pretty good eater still, but he has a sweet tooth. Over the past two months he has often asked, "did I eat enough to have dessert?"

He still plays with his trains, but they aren't as central to his being as they once were. We took out two Thomas DVDs from the library and he didn't watch either one, not even once. I returned them and we haven't taken out anything else since.
He loves to read (look through books on his own) and be read to. He points to words and asks what they say, sometimes he'll sound them out himself -- sometimes successfully, sometimes not. If it's a three letter word he'll get it right pretty reliably, four letters most of the time -- cat, ball, hop, bat, dog, west, etc . . . He surprised Mr. D and I the other day when I said that I had changed three diapers that day and Mr. D chimed in that he had changed two. Doodle said, "that means Pancake pooped five times today." I didn't know he was working on simple math in his head.

I know some day I will miss these days when my sweet boy still wants to cuddle with me, often tells me he loves me, actually wants to carry the garbage bag out to the can on the side of the house, is made happy by simply trying to execute three consecutive skips down the sidewalk. He's a good, sweet, intelligent boy and he brings me a lot of joy.