4 Years, 4 Months

Dear Liam,

I thought I'd write you a quick note and tell you how much I love you. We have our regular battles with each other and I feel like I don't tell you I love you as often as I used to. Bedtime comes to mind when I say the word battle. You about fight to the death to avoid laying down and staying in your bed each night. Short of tying you into bed doesn't spell love to me so those sweet nothings we used to say every single night are slowly dying off. I need to find a way to make bedtime more meaningful and agreeable like it once was. I miss the reverent prayers and "good-night-don't-let-the-bed-bugs-bite" moments.

You are so grown up in so many ways. I think just being four and moving up to a higher pre-kindergarten class at school has boosted your confidence. I smile when you talk like an adult with your vocabulary full of correct pronunciation and regular use of the adverb "also." It also makes me smile when you start a story off with, "Hey Mom, remember when I was three..." As simple and as regularly said it is, it speaks volumes as to how you feel about your maturity.

Your teachers at school and at church love you so much. They tell me often how smart and creative you are. This spells trouble in a lot of cases, but the fact that they appreciate your level of energy and charisma makes me happy.

You are getting so clever and persistent lately. Saturday morning we were running errands and you kept on saying that we needed to go to the store and buy Bakugan. We repeated many times that you didn't have enough money saved to buy that toy, so when we got home you made it a point to do as many chores as you could to get some allowance saved up. You already had a 2 dollar bill that Grandma and Grandpa sent you, so you had to come up with 3 more dollars in a matter of hours. You vacuumed out the couch, folded your own clean laundry, made your bed, cleaned the toy room, and many other tasks that I came up with so you could get that money fast. You are still figuring out that tricky math about how many quarters equal a dollar. You are so funny when you count your quarters and give us the total. Being told that 12 quarters equals 3 dollars doesn't always sit well with you.


Your artistic side is still alive and well. You draw and color on a daily basis and love to show us your work as you go and when it's finally completed. You like to go online and find coloring pages to print out. It's neat to see how well you can occupy your time and focus on your projects.

You are growing so fast. This past week or so you have been eating like a teenage boy. You can't get enough food. You even happily eat healthy foods, which is a nice change. You've been waking up in the night to tell us you are starving and your belly hurts so bad. I will eventually comply to your requests and run downstairs to get you a cup of milk to tide you over until morning. This has been a reminder of your newborn days and how much I do not miss waking up in the night. I do have confidence that this is a short phase, though, and we just have to cluster feed you before bed to ensure you sleep through the night. (And along with your growth, we are trying to keep up with shoes and pants that fit you.)

You are loved, Liam. I am really glad that I am your mom. Thanks for continuing to forgive my shortcomings. I have many of them and still have lots to learn about parenthood. You are a light in my life and I am so proud of you.

Love you,
Mom