Four Years Old

Dear Etrain,

Four! You're such a big boy now. And as you can see from the photo above, you're a super silly boy as well. We just love you to pieces and are so proud of the little person you are growing up to be. Let's see how the last month of three years old went down...

It seems your last month of being three years old began with our usual shenanigans. I got a new phone and it has a really great camera including a fun portrait mode. Let's just say you've gotten really used to me taking photos, and therefore used to hamming it up for me. Apparently you and Dada stole my phone for some selfies at dinner time one night.

At first glance this looks like you giving your dad a nice hug. In actuality you were climbing all over the couch and your dad while he was trying to get some work done. This is just a normal day at our house. You love to jump on the couch...even though we tell you not to all the time.

We had a very mellow Thanksgiving. Nana and Papa always go to Santa Barbara for turkey day and this year Grandma and Grandpa were out of town, so we were on our own. We had bought our turkey and some of our sides from Whole Foods that morning. You loved getting to ride in the "car" shopping cart. We had a delicious dinner and enjoyed relaxing at home.

Later that weekend we went to Nana and Papa's house to celebrate Thanksgiving and Dada's upcoming birthday with them. I think the chocolate cake was your favorite.

We celebrated Dada's birthday on our own the next day and made sure we went to his favorite restaurant for breakfast.

You had your second ever dentist appointment and did great...again. You didn't love the teeth cleaning as much as you did the first time, but you got straight A's for healthy teeth and gums.

When I picked you up from school one day you were actually in another class. I think your teacher was out sick. Either way, you got combined with the other half day class that has kids a year older. This is also the class with a couple of your buddies so you liked being in there. Anyway, you guys were finishing up share time when I arrived to pick you up. It was fun to see you "present" in front of the class.

We have an annual tradition of taking family photos with my friend Ansley. We get to update our family pictures each year, and have photos to use for our Christmas card. This year you won the spot for the front of the card and I'd say it looked pretty awesome. To see how all the photos turned out, read this.

Your friend, Noah, invited you to his 4th birthday party. Noah is really into reptiles so that was the theme of his party. He even had a guy who came to his party with a bunch of creatures for you guys to pet, hold and see. Noah was REALLY into it, but you weren't so much. You were a good sport and watched...most of the time. At one point the reptile guy brought out a huge snake for all the kids to hold. Clearly, you weren't very excited. But you of course enjoyed eating the cake and being silly with your buddy.

Always so serious during the HBD song.

Not sure what's happening here, but you sure are a silly kid. Maybe it was the outfit I was trying to capture.

You still love riding your tractor everywhere. You stopped for a second, so I, of course, tried my portrait feature on my phone again. Worked pretty well except it changed your beautiful blue eyes to brown in one shot.

The month ended with your birthday! That day you went to school and that night went back because you had a holiday performance...hence the shirt and tie. You had a great birthday, and you can read more about how we celebrated here.

Have I mentioned how cool you are? I just love your personality (maybe minus the toddler/teenager attitude). Here's a few things about you these days....

- You are funny and LOVE to act silly. A couple examples include 1. the time you asked me if I wanted to play 52 pick up, then laughed at your own joke (we can thank your dad for that one). 2. The time we were playing Uno and right after you put down a wild card you said "Wild the color is Ethan." Then laughed at yourself and said "get me out of here, mom." (Like, when you say get outta here after something funny.)
- You are thoughtful (as much as a 4 year old can be) and very in tune to the people around you. We were watching a movie recently and there was a mean boss who apologized, to his employee who he was just rude too. But he boss said sorry pretty sarcastically. Your intimidate observation was "he doesn't look sorry." Wow, son. Nice job nailing that!
- You are an observer. I've known that for a while, but it's more obvious now. Even a year or two ago, I remember taking you to My Gym to go play and instead you'd climb to the top of the tallest thing in the room and just watch everyone else who were bouncing off the walls. You interact with people way more now, but you also still like to sit back and watch what's going on.
- You are very friendly and pretty outgoing. You say hi to and wave at most cars and people walking dogs that pass us when we are playing out front. You talk to kids on the playground or out at whatever store we're at, whether you know them or not. You'll randomly tell strangers information about you. We had an issue for a while after your dad got his new Porsche where you kept telling people that we had a Porsche. No one seemed to mind, but I did my best to explain bragging and how some people may not be able to afford a car like that (FYI, we got a used one and had a good amount of money to put down...but that's not something you can or want to have to explain to each stranger).
- You're pretty determined. When you fall you get back up and keep going. You might cry first, but you don't let a boo boo stop you. You can sometimes get frustrated when playing a game or something, but you usually keep playing anyway. Basketball for example. You'll get frustrated when you keep missing shots, but you don't stop playing. Recently, I can't remember the exact thing we were doing, but you got frustrated and started to act like you were going to quit. Whether it was nice/helpful or not, I called you a quitter. Or rather I said you'd be a quitter if you didn't keep going. After about a minute you told me, "I'm not a quitter" and went back to whatever it was. I was very impressed with your determination.
- You are sooooo loving. You love hugs, kisses and cuddles. Lately you have been extra affectionate telling me how much you love me and giving me random kisses just because. It's so amazing and I'm soaking it all up. Your dad usually gets you up from bed in the morning, but when he's surfing or out of town, I'm on duty. I used to have to get up and go get you, but now you wait for your "birds" (kind of alarm clock) to come on and you get yourself up. But what's magical is that you come into my room, usually with bunny in hand, and ask to crawl in bed with me and cuddle. It might be the most favorite thing we do...and it's the BEST way to wake up in the morning.
- You are still very sensitive and cautious. We still can't watch most movies because you don't like the "mean/bad guys". While you are a pretty active kid, you are cautious to not get hurt or take too many risks in safety...which, honestly, I love.
- You are sooo smart. Maybe that's the parent in me, but I don't completely think so. Everything we teach you, you seem to pick up and remember. Quickly, and for a long time. We've lagged on your Spanish lately, but you still know most of it. We had a parent teacher conference not too long ago, and your teacher had a bunch of wonderful things to say. Read up on that here.
- One last thing you've been doing lately is that you sing. Sometimes when you're rebelling on napping you'll be singing in bed. When we're in the car and a song you like comes on the radio, you'll sing along. You don't really know the words, but you sing anyway and it's so adorable. And if the songs have bad words, you'll just point out that one is coming.

I'm sure there is so much more about you I'm forgetting at thins moment, but the summary is, you're awesome and I just love you so much. Your dad loves you. You grandparents love you. Your friends think you're the coolest. Even strangers love you. People who drive by our house can look like they are in a bad mood, but then see you waving at them or hear you saying hi and their frowns turns into huge smiles. The world is so much brighter and happier with you in it, son.