Month forty-seven

Dear Henry,

We are one short month away from your fourth birthday. That's right. You are going to be four. Four. FOUR. I have to let that sink in for a minute.

I am going to be the mama of a four year old.

But for now, you're still three, and there is much to report. Gone are the days of your toddlerhood, we've now entered the realm of preschool. What a happy transition (for the most part) this has been. Every day after I pick you up from school, we drive away and you tell me how much you love school and you love Teacher Amy and you love the playground and you love the cars and you love chase and you love -- etc. You haven't had one single crying episode, one angry morning spent trying to get out of going or one bad word to say about anyone in your class. You have firmly established yourself as a member of the boy group, and together there are several of you who play dinosaurs, cars, and monster chase games on a regular basis. I will not hold my breath that you'll suddenly switch gears and become a prolific artist, you have little patience for art and may, in fact, not even be aware that there is an art station in your classroom.

We had a family camping trip to South Beach and, yes, we did order pizza for dinner. It isn't quite the authentic camping experience we usually go for but we'll have you backpacking it into the woods in no time. You always thrive when your pops and I focus our full attention on you so it comes as no surprise that the nearly seven hour roundtrip car drive didn't leave you melting into a pile of unpleasantness. You can handle pretty much anything when both your mama and papa are on hand to attend to all of your needs. You are still very much into sea creatures, most recently you have asked for a coral sea polyp for your birthday. (If you think toy sea polyps are in abundant supply, you'd be wrong, Bean.) Despite the fact that it was rather cold on the beach, you still ran around in your underwear and splashed in the water. Methinks you were able to convince yourself that we were actually standing in the warm waters of the Mexico.

You have learned that toy stores exist, that you can occasionally convince me to go to one, and that there are toys for sale there. I've been fairly successful at not buying you oodles of toys but sometimes to get out of the store without too much fuss, I have to assure you seventeen times that I am adding the excavator and the bucket truck and the dog whelk snail and the frogs and the lizards and the to your birthday or Christmas list. Quite honestly, if you get one one hundredth of the things you asked for, we're going to need a bigger house. 

You are stubborn and strong-willed. You cannot be easily manipulated into doing something you don't want to do. These are clear indicators that you are growing up and becoming your own little person. Nine times out of ten, if you get really super frustrated, I'm going to hear that frustration from across the condo. You have little patience for things that don't work the way you believe they should. I, um, don't know where you get that. Wasn't, ahem, me. In response to this, we're working on helping you navigate the disappointments in life with softer, inside voices and a lot of redirection. Look, Hen, FIRE TRUCK! 

Love, 

Mama