My Boy At Four Point Five

I have looked at this picture for about three hours today. I love everything about it. This is my baby. He’s my boy, my pal, my constant companion.  He enamors me. He frustrates me. He makes me laugh my head off with his funny ways and then makes me cry because he is growing up.

I look at this picture and I see that for real, he is no longer a baby. He is a boy. Oh time, you are so cruel to me.

I felt it was about time to do a little Owlie update. Here’s what’s going on with my boy at four and a half years old:

• His new favorite thing to do is draw and color. He had absolutely ZERO desire to do either of these things for the first four years of his life. Now he wants to color every day. I only had to tell him once to try saying inside the lines and now he never colors outside them!
• His little smattering of freckles has turned into a big smattering. This summer he’ll get more. And I can’t wait.
• He is in his fifth month of swim lessons at the community center. He’s gone from being timid near the water to jumping in off the side and swimming to his teacher. He loves Miss Janene and is the last boy out of the pool every week.
• He loves to have breakfast very first thing in the morning. Once he’s in my bed for a snuggle, he usually asks me one question, “Momma, how was your sleep?” followed immediately by, “Momma, will you make me breakfast?”
• He loved the Lego Movie! Now all we here is about how everything is awesome and cool when you’re part of a team (if you’ve seen the movie, I’m sorry that you’ll be singing that all day long).
• He thinks the following things are funny: shaking one’s booty, launching stuffed animals over the staircase into the foyer, when humans pretend they are animals.
• He dislikes the following vegetables: peas, green beans, corn, zuchinni, pretty much everything. He will eat carrots with hummus and salad with dressing.
• He goes with me to the library each week to get a bag full of books which we read together in his tent. He loves Biscuit books, Star Wars books, Franklin books and anything about Indiana Jones.
• He sleeps with some form of stuffed puppy every single night. He needs to because he will never have a real puppy.
• He wants to brush his own teeth and hair. He never wants to wipe his own bum.
• Occasionally, when I am nice enough to let him in my bed in the middle of the night, he wiggles a lot and then puts his hand on my cheek and falls asleep. It is simultaneously the cutest and most annoying thing ever and usually results in me sleeping in his bed by myself.

I love my Owlie. God sent him to me at this time for a reason. I couldn’t be without this little fellow. He has wrapped himself around my heart, never to let go.