where wildly different is perfectly normal
Time flies
Time flies

Time flies

J is four today.

J is 4

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.

17 Comments

  1. We just started violin (younger one) and cello (older one). It’s fun! And they’ll never get in trouble in HS because they’ll only hang out with orch geeks.

    Just kidding! I turned out fairly normal…:)

    Happy Bday!

  2. Happy, happy birthday, J!! Wow, there are some eerie similarities between J and my son (when he was J’s age) I’ll expand on them another time, but it was kinda nice to go back and remember when Lex was that age. Thanks!!

  3. RC

    Happy birthday to him!

    You are brave for allowing the violin practice to occur in your house. I remember my cousin learning how to play, and how glad we all (sisters, parents and I) were that we started with flute and piano – less scary noises during that learning process.

  4. Don’t wish too hard for them to grow up. They do it all too fast anyway. It is great that you are capturing these moments in print besides in your memory. Great tribute to your love of your children.

    Farty, Fart Fart. Must be a guy thing. I’m not 4 and I find it hilarious.

  5. anymommy

    Happy birthday to your beautiful boy. I’m here from AM and I loved the link post (it’s something in the water), but I had to check out what’s going on today!

  6. What a magnificent post for a pair of very fine boys. They are both handsome beyond words and your descriptions were elegant. Happy birthday to J and my best wishes to you all.

    Sorry about Macrum. I think he followed me here.

  7. Poetikat

    One day, when you and I are long gone and the blog-archives are in some cyber-cabinet. Your son will read this and weep.

    I can feel the love all the way up here in the Great White North!

    Kat

    P.S. I’ll probably be long gone before you, of course.

  8. Susie

    Happy belated bday! He sounds so sweet. Liam will be 4 in September and also finds anything to do with farts and poop HILARIOUS.

    Makes for exhilerating car rides.

    Thanks for stopping by my site! soooooo… where’s my gin and tonic? 😉

Whaddya think?

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d