Marcus, today is your 4th birthday! I can't believe that you are four. I'm taking this birthday of yours pretty hard this year. I just don't want you to grow up! You, on the other hand, are so excited about growing up. You were more excited about your birthday this year than you were about even Christmas.
You have learned so many new skills over the past year. You have gone from being potty trained to being completely independent in using the potty. You outgrew your toddler bed and now crawl into a "big boy bed" each night. You gave up naps for a while but you love your sleep so much that most days you still enjoy a quick nap in the afternoon. You talk non-stop to everyone and anyone (except at school where I have been told that you don't speak a word). Your favorite word is still "no" but it is mostly said in a teasing way to be silly when people ask you questions. You can count, but I am not sure how high because you aren't much into counting. You don't do a very good job at pronouncing the letter sounds for "F" and "Z". (Instead it comes out that you are "dour" years old and last week we went to the "you".) You can completely dress/undress yourself without help including socks and shoes. (Not tying shoes yet.) You can even zip up your coat!
You absolutely love soccer and you are really good at it too! You can dribble the ball, change directions with the ball on a dime, and even stop the ball, kick it behind you with the heel of your foot, and turn and pick it up again. Not sure how you learned that trick! You love to eat. Your favorite foods are mac 'n cheese and pizza but you will try just about anything. You love your fruits and always eat your vegetables, although I am not sure you really love vegetables. Maybe you just like them. You have a few bizarre food habits like rarely using ketchup (which is a good habit, just odd for a kid of your age) and eating your salad without any sort of salad dressing. You love to cook and I have been getting braver and more creative to find ways to let you help make dinner every night.
You still will choose playing with your trains to any other toy that you have. You like pedaling your "Big Wheel" as fast as you can around our porch or around the park. You love school and are so excited to go every day but tell everyone that you don't like it. You love learning new things and doing things all on your own. Your brother Will, who is not nearly as excited about learning to do things on his own, takes advantage of your enthusiastic spirit for doing new things and gets you to do things for him sometimes. You are currently working on your writing skills. You get very frustrated and try to give up easily (but we don't let you) if you don't get things right on the first try.
When you get mad you sulk, pout, and sometimes break things. You do what Grammy refers to as "cutting off your nose despite your face". (I try really hard not to use this expression because as a child I always cut off my nose despite my face and hated when Grammy told me this.) When you are done pouting, you always come to me smiling and acting goofy in hopes that I will forget whatever it was that you did to make me mad. Speaking of goofy, you never fail to remind me that you are my April Fools baby. Talk about a silly guy! You say some funny things that definitely get me chuckling but your physical humor is hilarious.
You are very logical and make all sorts of connections in life that seem rather advanced for a preschooler. Constantly you impress me with your ability to think outside the box and point out solutions to problems that I never even think of. You love puzzles and problems you have to solve.
Piece by piece you are learning little facts about your adoption story. I know in my heart that your birthmom thinks about you everyday, but even more so on this day that she gave birth to you four years ago and knew she was going to have to go forward with her plan to give you the best life that she could provide for you. Today I pray for you to keep growing strong and learning and loving. I also pray that your birthmom knows in her heart that you are loved more by your mom than this mom ever knew she could love someone. Everyday I know that your birthmom would be so proud of the little man you are becoming.
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