Dear Kyle:
I’m still trying to process the fact that my house no longer has any trace of a baby. You and your brother are two active, loud, rough and tumble boys. You’re no longer small, cuddly, totally dependent babies.
As if your little soul knows when it is the anniversary of your birth, you started your forth birthday the exact same way as your third birthday.
You quietly opened our bedroom door, slipped inside and crawled up into bed with me. We bundled up under the duvet, I pulled you close to me and we spent the next half hour or so in an embrace – you were content to be in my arms while I ran my fingers through your brown hair and rubbed your cheek with my finger tips and kissed your sweet little mouth.
I wished you a happy birthday. I told you I love you. You soaked it all in in a state of semi-slumber – not quite asleep, yet not quite awake.
I treasured that quiet, shared moment and stored it away in my heart.
You see, Kyle, you’re fiercely independent. You don’t have time for nor need of much affection.
For you, the request to give me a kiss is more times than not, met with a teenage-like roll of the eyes. When you does comply you usually only agrees with conditions…”just ONE smooch…only ONE.” You’re not a fan of hugs and as I said, kisses are of the quick, almost more of a peck variety.
There are times I have to conjure memories of holding you and rocking you as an infant – before you had a choice in how closely I held you and for how long. It makes any affection I receive from you that much more special.
I like to think you know how deeply you are loved and don’t need reminding. You feel it in your heart and know it in your mind. You doesn’t have time for hugs and kisses because you’re too busy having fun.
Your best friend is your brother.
One of your favourite quiet activities is to sit together, side by side on the couch and watch YouTube videos on the iPad. You always let Luke hold the iPad, leaning over his shoulder to get a good view, never competing with him for control.
You love playing together imaginatively with your toys and I adore hearing you speak in different voices as you plays with figures and make them interact.
You’re definitely not Luke’s shadow but his sidekick.
There is no better sound than the two of you wrestling with each other, giggling your heads off.
I hope that you are as close in adulthood as you are now.
You love music.
It only takes a few notes of any song to reach your ears before your entire body reacts to it in movement. It might start as a full-body vibration and by the end of a song you look like you’re ready to enter a mosh pit. Your whole body is consumed with the beat and the melody. Sometimes you sing along and when you do, it is with reckless abandon and at the top of your lungs. It is a one-man performance.
Your favourite song is LMFAO’s Sorry for Party Rockin’ but you also really love David Myles’ Simple Pleasures. We’ve lost count on the number of times we’ve played both videos through our AppleTV.
You also love art.
Your passion for creating things with art supplies seems never ending. You’re currently in a mind set of “all art, all the time”. You’re requesting to do art at daycare nonstop and the first thing you ask us to do when we get home in the afternoon is to “do art”. You love to draw, colour, cut, put stickers on everything you possibly can and loves to glue.
Most days at daycare pickup you rushes to your cubby to show me the stack of artwork you’ve completed that day.
On your birthday, you made a crown and put stickers all over it and wore it all day and requested that all of your friends also make crowns to wear. Just last weekend you decorated the entire bottom fridge door with your art work and declared that we were now decorated for Christmas.:-)
I hope you always have this love of and desire for being creative. I’m soon going to have to start scanning all of your pages and pages of art to save for posterity as we only have one fridge 🙂
You tend to be much more open to exploring new foods than Luke but your favourite foods are breakfast ones – pancakes, bacon and eggs. In fact, this is what you requested for your meal at your birthday party. Want to make you happy? Tell you we’re having pancakes 🙂 You also enjoy helping Daddy in the kitchen cooking things.
You love Daddy fiercely. You are like two peas in a pod.
Nine times out of ten if you get hurt, it is Daddy that you ask for. You just want a reassuring pat on the back and an “It’s okay buddy” from him and you’re off again. In fact, you will even refuse a Band-Aid for an injury preferring to tough it out. Luke on the other hand believes Band-Aids fix everything 🙂
You have a very quick wit and silly sense of humour which you come by naturally. You has been described by many as “a character”. You have the ability to make the entire family laugh with just an action or a few perfectly timed words. We routinely comment on how boring our lives were before you came along to make us laugh. No matter how stressful the day has been you have the ability to send us all into stitches.
You’re four but you’re still small in stature. You just recently moved into a size 3T. You get very frustrated with the fact you still can’t reach light switches like your big brother. You still need a step stool to wash your hands or brush your teeth.
I love seeing you grow, a part of me also wants to stop the clock and keep you this little forever.
Happy 4th Birthday Kyle!
Love Mama
xoxo
