Thursday, May 29, 2014

Jack at 4.5 Years

Dear Jack, 

You are such a gift to your Mommy (and everyone)! I love you so deeply. 

As summer approaches and warm weather is here to stay, you have delighted in being outdoors hours a day either in our yard playing in the dirt, sandbox, or pool; going on long walks to the train tracks or river; and afternoons at the park or zoo. 

You are our storyteller. You have a storyline running through your head constantly about everything and love it when we join in your wildly configured drama. When you don't have a story running through your head, there is usually a soundtrack of favorite songs "playing." You are a boy—you like to make noise. You love to make up witty new words to songs you know and sing about what we are doing. When I think of it, we ease doing hard things by singing about them.

You love to ask questions now and want to know how everything works, or why this or that, or how something is made. We often discover the answers together (thank you google and youtube for things like, "How does a dragonfly eat?" or "How does a walrus speak?" or "What is an amuesment park/roller coaster?"). We still need to find the answer to "How tall were the walls at Jericho?" You are also making lots of associations and connections, like: "He was a leader? Like Joshua was a leader, Mommy?" A common phrase we hear is, "That's like such and such, Mommy and Daddy..." Often, you make connections we haven't even thought of ourselves.

You still have lots of energy to burn and we continue to think of creative ways to channel that energy into (ahem) productive uses. :) For example, today you told us, "I have lots of extra energy. I think we should go to the pool." So we did.

Jack, you love to be silly. You love to make people laugh (especially your sister!), and you enjoy having company over and helping to prepare food for our guests. You always have an itinerary for them (first we'll play trains, then we can do this...). For a while, you loved to tease by calling women "Mr. So-and-so" and men, "Mrs. So-and-so." 

Some of your favorite joys of late have been the Jim Gill concert, building a ukulele with Daddy, running around the zoo as a "zookeeper leader," making dinner many nights with Mommy as her little "sous-chef," Sunday school, and building creatively with Duplos. 

I love our Mommy-Jack time we get most days during Chloe's nap. Sometimes we work on fine motor skills or building, but other times we read chapter books snuggled up on the couch. We play long games of trains or construction or cars with complicated story lines, or we play board games together. It's sacred time to both of us. 

Perhaps one of my favorite times of day with you right now is right before bed as we snuggle together while you drift off to sleep. I pray with you, sing to you and sometimes you sing with me. We snuggle and you open your eyes to tell me that you love me and kiss my cheeks and hug me tightly. It certainly makes up for the struggle of getting a very tired non-napping boy through his nighttime routine of shower, pjs, teeth, and bed. :)

Jack, you are our sensitive soul and care so deeply about people. You pray for healing when others are sick, you cry when they cry, you sense moods instantaneously, you feel deeply and sometimes cannot say goodbye to loved ones because you are so sad to see them go (even when you will see them the next day). You continue to amaze me with your courage, your tender heart, and your capacity to learn and grow. Every day is a bold, unpredictable adventure and I'm so very proud to be your mama.

Love,
Mommy






 

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