4 Years Old!

From the fall

At the Des Moines Buccaneers game.
Santa!
Opening gifts
With his cousin Easton... who might actually weigh more than him already.
Sledding

Well, it's less than 24 hours before Ethan turns another year older. I can't believe it.

It's amazing how the time flies. He has changed so much over the last year. He's no longer a little boy. He's a big boy now... doing big boy things and developing a personality all his own. The other night we were playing with the computer and I pulled up all of his videos on YouTube and we sat and watched them. It was a fun journey back. It blew my mind to see how much he's changed. I honestly cannot believe it has been 4 years since he came into the world... Should have known on that day that'd be he on the stubborn side when he wasn't going to come out without a fight.

In celebration of Ethan's big day, I'd like to take a few paragraphs to describe Ethan as he is now so when I look back I can remember the little person he is becoming...

He's at such a fun age. He's a sponge... just absorbing everything that is going on around him. Some things that happen that I don't give a second thought he'll bring up days and even weeks later. He's much more independent. In the past he has always had an independent streak... but, now he's getting to the point where he can actually function on a more independent basis. Going potty in the middle of the night no longer involves me getting out of bed. He can get his own snacks when he's hungry. He's even starting to tell me when he gets tired at night and wants to go to bed. One thing I have noticed is Ethan isn't all that good at playing independently. He got a boatload of new toys for Christmas and he's spent maybe 5 minutes playing with each one by himself. Instead, he'd rather have someone else play with him. Though, his all time favorite thing to do with me is wrestle. Every night we spend at least 30 minutes wrestling on the bed. He loves to play tackle as well. And, once he gets me down he likes to take a running jump and land on my stomach. Since he's still ridiculously skinny it doesn't really hurt. However, if he gains a few more pounds, which at his pace will take years, we may have to find another activity to pass the time. He also really enjoys movies and of course Spongebob. Once he gets to watching any of that he goes into a totally different world. The house could be falling down around him and he wouldn't notice. He's also taken up standing 6 inches from the TV while he watches. Hopefully the 'if you stand that close to the TV it will wreck your eyes' statement everyone hears from their parents isn't really true. Ethan LOVES to help with EVERYTHING. He's a really good helper for the most part. But, everything I'm doing he wants to do too. I can't blame him... I am pretty awesome. He also is really getting into doing puzzles. And, he really seems to enjoy doing them by himself. Usually I will help him the first time around but after that he does it by himself. I think some of it is him actually figuring out which pieces go where by looking at the surrounding pieces. But, more often than not the puzzles are small enough that he just memorizes where the pieces go during the first attempt and puts them back in the same spots during the subsequent times.

His vocabulary has increased exponentially and as I've mentioned in the past sometimes I have to remind myself I'm having a conversation with a soon to be 4 year old. Other times, there is absolutely no need for me to remind myself. His actions or words make it perfectly clear. It seems like he's in a transition stage right now. He's starting to grow out of the behaviors that made the ages of 2 and 3 sometimes unpleasant. However, those traits still make semi-regular appearances though they seem to get few and farther between. He continues to light up my days by making me laugh, giving me a hug or just sitting with me on the couch. I know the days of all the snuggling continue to dwindle so I'm trying to seize every opportunity... that doesn't involve him waking me up at 3:30 a.m. to snuggle. His smile and laugh make me smile no matter what. How can you not smile when he flashes his smile at you? And though his sense of humor is often too juvenile for even me, he still makes me laugh on a regular basis. Ethan is very, very affectionate. Like I mentioned, he loves to be close and snuggle. He gives hugs and kisses all the time. I think the thing I enjoy the most is when out of the blue he will say, 'daddy, i love you.' Every single time he does it I can't help but feel blessed by what an incredible boy he is.

In just a few short years he'll be starting school... because right now he doesn't go to school(daycare). He calls daycare work and all his friends there are his 'work friends'. I wish I could find a 'job' that involves playing, story time, coloring and most importantly napping. Speaking of napping it appears Ethan is starting to outgrow this... much to my dismay. No nap for Booger means no nap for daddy. Sad, sad times ahead. Though, he is pretty good about staying in his room for about an hour. Often times I will check on him after that hour and it will look like a toy bomb went off in his room, but that's a small price to pay for a hour of peace and quiet. He does sleep through the night pretty much every night. I only remember 2 nights in the last couple months that he's woken up for a reason other than having to go potty. However, waking him up in the morning is harder than dragging a hungover, college room mate out of bed. He does not budge. I turn on the lights. I turn on music. I take his covers off him. I say his name 15 times in a row. I use Talking Tom Cat to make hilarious jokes at his expense. Nothing. I've resorted to just sleeping in later myself and getting to work a little late. Yeah, that's right... I've folded to the will of a 4 year old. While he's doing this sleeping he must be growing... taller anyway. He's outgrowing his clothes at a rapid pace. His jeans are now longer... but the elastic waist band is still cinched about as tight as it can go. We still see a lot of butt (we don't say butt) crack cause he just has no waist to keep his pants up. Feel free to insert your own cliche future career in plumbing joke here. He also seems to talk in his sleep now. He's woken me up a couple times jibber-jabbering about one thing or another. Most of the time it's gibberish and I have no idea what he's talking about. Still makes me laugh.

As I type this he is using my iPad to watch a movie on Netflix which he can set up all by himself. It's amazing the things he can do with technology already. He can unlock it, scroll through the screens, launch the application and select a movie all by himself. In fact, I was just trying to help him with it when I moved to the next screen after he'd picked out a movie and he informed me that 'I found the one I wanted, but you messed it up.' It's not the first time I've been lectured today... I got stuck at a red light on the way home and said the No Turn on Red Light sign was stupid. From the back seat I hear, 'daddy, we don't say stupid'. In the last couple days I've also been told we don't say 'farting' when I asked why he was farting around instead of napping, that we don't say 'dumb' because 'that's not nice, daddy' and apparently 'going poop' is now called 'going stinky'. I have a lot to learn.

As I've mentioned Ethan still has tantrums from time to time. He's taken it to a new level though. The other weekend I called my mom and asked Ethan to say hi. He refused. I threatened to take his movie away. He refused. I took his movie away. He still refused. Now he added crying to his refusal. Within two minutes it turned into an ugly situation that ended up with me taking the iPad into the bedroom and closing the door so I could actually hear mom on the phone and Ethan pounding on the door begging for his movie back. The whole thing could have been avoided if he'd just said 'Hi, grandma'. Instead he chose the hard route. Sometimes I feel like he's sticking to me for no other reason than he can... Like the line in Good Will Hunting where the guys asks if he wants the belt, the stick or the wrench and Will chooses the wrench and his reason for choosing the most difficult route is 'f*** him, that's why.' One thing I have discovered is that if I can make him laugh while he's mad he gets over it in no time. When I try to reason with him things continue to go down hill so more often than not I just try to make him laugh.

Lately, I've been asking him what he had for lunch and he if had any timeouts that day while at 'work'. More often than not he's only had fruit or whatever side dish was for lunch so by the time we get home he's starving. And, he's averaging probably one timeout per day. Some days he has two others he has none. 99% of those are for not listening to his teachers.

Outside of every day life and Ethan becoming a 'big boy' there hasn't been much outside of the holidays. He spent Thanksgiving in Winterset and had a good time at Papa and Grandma's. Christmas was spent in MN where he had a party every night and was pretty bummed when it was time to come back to Iowa and the parties were over. He got to play with his cousin Easton for the first time really. He also went sledding for the second time and had an absolute blast. I sent him down the hill by himself at one point and inadvertently aimed him right an enormous jump that he hit at full speed. Thankfully he got up laughing. He gets his toughness from me. On Christmas day my Uncle Johnny dresses up as Santa Claus and delivers gifts. I'll never forget the look Ethan had on his face when 'Santa' walked in. He didn't ever build up the courage to say anything to him, but he was never more than a few feet from his side. It was really fun to watch.

Last month I took Ethan to his first monster truck show. It sucked. 45 minutes into it Ethan asked to leave. And, this is from the kid who on a weekly basis asks me to watch monster truck videos with him on the computer. I was really disappointed. The show was boring, the track sucked and there was WAY too much downtime to keep someone his age entertained. Needless to say the next monster truck show we go to will be at the Metrodome in Minneapolis... provided it ever gets repaired.

Fun stories:

- Ethan recently tried pomegranates for the first time. While trying to teach him how to say it there were quite a few amusing pronunciations. I really only remember the following two so it loses some of its luster but it was pretty entertaining.

gramma-poms

pomma-grammas.

This was a couple weeks ago and out of the blue tonight he asked with the perfect pronunciation if he could have some pomegranates.

- Ethan informed me the other morning that he now gets TWO kid vitamins because 'i'm almost 4!'

- Ethan rarely makes it to bed without having some sort of potty or drink emergency that requires him to get out of bed RIGHT as I am about to turn out the lights.

- Ethan still drags his favorite two blankets all over the place.

- Ethan loves to do something he thinks is hilarious, look at me and say 'I'm funny, right?' I can't wait until he starts saying that to his teachers.

- I think tonight Ethan had his first 'pee-pee' injury. He had just finished going potty and he closed the seat on himself... I had looked away at that point but when I turned back Ethan was kneeling on the floor saying 'owww... my pee-pee. I hit my pee-pee.' Eventually we got him out of the bathroom but he still walked around on his knees saying 'my pee-pee hurts' for the next 45 seconds. I found it hilarious.

I guess that's about it for now. I really enjoyed writing this and thinking back over the last year on how much he's changed.

I'd just like to say once again to Ethan on another year passing... thank you, bud. You amaze me day after day. You bring a smile to my face with just about everything you do. Even a passing thought, or a glance at one of your pictures and I forget about any and every thing that has gone wrong that day. You mean the world to me. You really are my perfect little boy... even if you're not so little anymore. I look forward to this next year and all that we will experience and all the growing you will continue to do. At the same time I want to hold onto these moments with you as long as I can. Happy Birthday, Ethan Robert. I love you.