4 years 4 months

KJ,

I realized that certain events in our life caused me to have less time to keep track of all the changes you've been making. And I think of little things you used to do and it makes me sad that I didn't write them down when I had a chance. So from now on, I plan to write to you and tell you what was going on in your life. You are 4 years old now. I'm sorry I think the last year or so has just passed me right by and you have changed so much. Before I knew it, you weren't a baby anymore. You pick out your own outfits and dress yourself, you put your own shoes on. You go potty all by yourself. You brush your own teeth and even write letters on paper that look like the alphabet. I wish it didn't all go by so fast. You are an amazing little girl in my eyes. You are so affectionate and loving, your teacher when you started school was your teacher for over a year and her name was Ms. Neelomie. You absolutely love her now and even though she isn't your teacher anymore, you pass her classroom each morning and open her door and run into her room and hug her. It just floods my heart with love for you. When you started school, you were 2 1/2. It was the scariest time of my life pretty much next to the time you were in the hospital when you were 18 months old. I had been a stay at home mom and knew your every move for the first two years of your life. Leaving you at school was not easy for me. I tried to do a transition, where I left you with friends and family first for several weeks before taking you to school, but that plan failed pretty much. For 3 days, you were fine with it and kinda just went with the flow. But the fourth day, you realized I was taking you there and leaving you every day and you screamed and cried hysterically and I cried and I could barely take it because it upset me more than you I think. You cried yourself to sleep at night and I cried myself to sleep because you were so upset. But one day, after about a week and half of horror, you decided maybe it wasn't so bad. It's so funny to think back on that now, because you love that school. You constantly tell me who hit you or who called you a bad word or said anything bad to you, like Jackson took my crayon. Lucy made me mad today. Sometimes I wonder if you are making it up, I hope you are telling the truth. Kids are fishy sometimes about telling the truth. One day you told me that your daddy cried because I said a bad word to him and you said that you loved him and he loved you. I don't think you were lying, but I do wonder if you made up the me saying a bad word part because I don't say bad words to your daddy. Even though me and your dad aren't together, we had you together and I want you to always know that we loved you from the day you were born and we will always be your mom and dad. You love to eat and Nana and Papa think it's really funny. We have to live with them right now so I can get on my feet and support us. Sometimes I think you miss living with just me, but I think we actually spend more time together now, so I'm glad we moved in here for now. You occasionally ask me when we are going to move. So back to food, you ask for something to eat almost every 20 minutes or so when you're at home. You will eat dinner and then 10 minutes later, say "can I have some Jello mommy?" or you really like "can I have some jello with cream on it?" (that means cool whip in a can, which you really like to do yourself). You also love fruit snacks and I try to buy ones you can't open by yourself because otherwise you would sneak them out of the box in the kitchen and just eat 4 packs at a time. Normally you are very polite and ask please for everything though. Somehow, someone taught you to ask if you could be excused from the table when you're done eating and you also ask that too. So you eat some jello and then 20 minutes later say, "can I have a cookie mommy?" No, please, what can I have? No food, you can have water. But I don't want water. Then you must not be very thirsty huh? You make me laugh a lot. You got very mad at me for not sending daddy a "happy" picture of your new haircut the other night. You were actually smiling, but your eyes were closed and you actually cried because I couldn't get one with your eyes open. I felt kinda bad, but I think you were just tired. You mostly only give me a hard time about anything if you're tired. You went to Disney for the first time recently and you liked it a lot, especially the princesses. You have a real princess fetish. You've been asking me almost every day to print out Disney princess pictures for you to color. You give lots of hugs and you like to just sit with people sometimes and let them rub your legs or your hair or your face. Aunt Kelly runs her fingers over your face very softly and you will sit so still when she does that. She's been doing it since you were a baby and every single time, you stop being your crazy self and be totally still. You are hardly ever still, you even sleep all over the bed. Your cousins will watch TV and lay down and be still, but not you. You will do 5 things at once, I think you get that from your daddy. You also call all the kids in the neighborhood "the girls" and you are very determined to play with them. And unfortunately I don't feel safe in this neighborhood letting you go off and play without me being next to you because you are only 4 years old. But you sure do want to be 10 years old. You love your grandma, next to me and your dad, I'm pretty sure she is your favorite person. Sometimes you say you miss her at random times. There is a poster board at school where the teacher writes what you pray for each week and this week you prayed for your dog. You don't have a dog, so I'm curious what dog you were praying for? You love singing and dancing right now and you break out into Leona Lewis' Bleeding Love quite often. You even stood up during circle time one day at school and just started singing that song. You sing with me every night before you go to sleep. Sometimes we read a book too, but we always sing before you go to sleep. I can't remember not singing with you. I think I've been singing with you since you were born. You learned this song Nana taught me when I was a kid called The Glendyburk and you call it the Lintyburk and you loved that song for a while, But I think you're over it now. I have lots of video to prove your love for it though. You love dancing with the stars and try to dance just like them and you tell me to pretend I'm the guy and swing you around and dance with you. You also learned "hip hop" dance supposedly at school and you are hilarious , I have video of that too. You are so smart and just wonderful and I love you.