To Timmy, at 4 Years Old

Timmy ~ You are too much!  You keep us busy and entertained and worn out!  You are changing all the time again.  And you are so big!

You are so smart. Your memory is amazing. Aunt Becky sat down to watch Monster's Inc. with you yesterday and you asked her, "Have you ever seen this movie? It's about two nice monsters, Sulley and Mike Wazowski, and they have a child to keep away from the bad guy and get back to her door."  I was impressed.

You can deduce, reason, and negotiate too.  You are always giving me if/then statements. "If I eat this sandwich then I can have another rice krispie."  If I try to change your deal you tell me that only you make the deals!  Sometimes these conversations end with time out.  The other night you wanted a piggy back ride as I was taking Tyler upstairs for bed, you had been riling him up so I tried to get you to stay down stairs.  Instead you stood in the hallway, hitting a balloon against the wall just to make sure I knew you were still there.  When I finished tucking Tyler in and came out of his room you stated, "You owe me an apology because you hurt my feelings because you wouldn't let me in Tyler's room."  I argued that you owed me an apology for not listening instead and you smiled at that.  I think you are starting to understand more that your actions cause a reaction, not the other way around.

You want to sleep in our room every night.  You tell us how beautiful our room is, that you're afraid of the dark, that you don't like your room, that you love us so much and you just want to snuggle all night.  During the school year we had a rule that you could sleep in our room on the weekends but you had to sleep in your room during the week so you would have lots of energy for school.  You bought that without too much argument, but now that you don't have school you have no boundary to accept.  When you have been an extra sweet boy all day or we are extra exhausted we let you sleep with us but most nights we tuck you into your own bed, just to have you let yourself into our room whenever you wake up, somewhere between 2 and 5 am.  One night you were sneaking in right after Daddy had come to bed and he asked you, "How come you're sneaking into our bed?"  Your answer was, "Because I like it here and I just have to take a little nap in my room until you change your mind about me."  My heart broke a little and I hope that I explained to you, in my half awake state, that we don't have to "change our mind about you" we always love you and want to snuggle you too, it's just that we all get a better nights sleep when we are all in our own beds!  Daddy has pointed out to me that you won't always want to sleep in our room, I remind my back of that on the mornings after you have taken over 3/4 of our king size bed.

You are a jokester.  You tease all of us but especially Daddy.  Now you will start to do something that is on the borderline of misbehaving, just to stop yourself (sometimes after a warning look) and shout, "I'm just teasin'!" When Aunt Becky came home last weekend, you hadn't seen her in a while, and we've gotten to see a lot of Aunt Jenny recently, so you accidentally called her Aunt Jenny a few times. You realized that this was a good way of teasing Becky and you started to do it on purpose!  You had her getting scared you had forgotten who she was until you started laughing and telling her you were teasing after each time!

You are enamored with all the small things.  My favorite Timmy phrases right now are, "Can you believe it?" and, "That's so awesome!"  You point out shapes in the clouds during our commutes.  You play pretty well with Tyler, but as soon as he puts something in his mouth you take it back, rub it all over the carpet and say, "You made it all wet!  I don't want your germs!"

I think you are more of a handful now then when you were two!  You frequently skip taking a nap, sometimes for several days in a row which means that eventually you hit a wall.  Before passing out it seems that you give us everything you have, not listening, hitting, whining and crying, being too rough with Tyler... and then you're asleep.  It's like a little tornado runs around our living room for 10 minutes!  99% of the time though you are our sweet, helpful, good natured, big boy, and we love you 100% of the time!