Archive for July 13th, 2008

J is four today.

He is the gentlest soul, such a sweetheart. Loving, even as the others in the house rant and rave. He is quick with a hug and kiss. Quicker with a smile and a laugh.

In the last couple of weeks, he has made a huge leap in his speech. Suddenly he’s saying Gs and Ks and correcting himself. He’s a lot easier to understand all of a sudden. There are still some issues there, but the jump he has made is enormous.

J started violin lessons a few weeks ago. NO, we did not push him into this. Trust me, if I was going to push a kid into music (which I wouldn’t do), I sure wouldn’t push violin. I did a mental brain dump five minutes after my strings methods class…fifteen years ago. But J has been talking about playing violin and calling himself a violin player for over 6 months, so we started a few weeks ago. Yes, we. For I am taking lessons as well. In Suzuki teaching, the parent usually learns as well. It’s nothing if not comical. But J enjoys it. He still has a four year old’s attention span, but he loves getting out his violin and rosining up the bow and playing “Mississippi Hop Frog.” And the perfection of his bow hand scares me.

He loves to paint and color. We’ve been doing a lot of painting lately; he got paints and a huge collection of brushes from a friend for his birthday. Messy, but fun.

His very best friend in the whole wide world, bar none, is his brother, A. He adores his brother, loves on him, forgives him more than I would in his shoes, and generally loves his brother so much. The two of them are a force to behold. Beware, the brothers are out there! He is Mutt Williams to A’s Indiana Jones.

Everything is “farty fart fart,” which I suppose is hilarious when you’re four years old.

He knows how to cuss in context. This is not something I’m terribly proud of. No, wait, I take that back. I’m proud he knows the context, just not the words. For the longest time I was the only one who realized just what he was saying because of the speech delay. Now we gotta watch it. Not so sure his speech therapist would be thrilled to hear that as his improvement.

J has his strange foibles as well. The kid will not wear blue jeans, only sweatpants. Now that it’s summer, he’ll only wear sweatpant-like shorts. He turns practically blue when he goes swimming. He has no butt. I call him BWAC (back with a crack). He’ll laugh til he cries at the mere suggestion of being tickled…yet will beg for it. I must sing the “Love You” song before bedtime or quiet time, or he’ll come searching for me. He loves to crawl into bed with me and snuggle; he’s such a snuggle bunny, something I treasure more than words.

He.Can.Spell. He.Can.Read. He.Can.Add. God help me. No wonder the boys can stay ahead of me, they’re both smarter than their mama. He can also speak a little Spanish, which is almost entirely unintelligible, thanks to the speech delay.

Happy Birthday, J. You have enriched my life more than I can say. You never fail to bring a smile to my face, even as you’re pulling on my arm while I type. You only want me to play with you (but seriously kid, I’m so over playing trains). I love you so much and can’t wait to see what kind of man you’ll grow into being.