12/4/12

Beauty in Four

A little boy is jumping on the trampoline in the backyard, waving his new light saber, shouting in his deepest, growliest voice, telling imaginary adversaries, "Step away from the trampoline!  This is a light saber!"  All of a sudden, he starts calling, "Mommy!  Mommy!"

She loves that it's still "Mommy."  She jumps out from her seat inside, where she's watching all the action, because, actually, it's raining and it's December, but that's neither here nor there to the boy.  She slides the glass door open as he runs across the backyard yelling, "I have to go pee pee, Mommy!"

"Ok!"  She responds.

"I have to go pee pee right here in this pile of sand!" he declares.

"Ok!"  She answers, having acquiesced months ago to the pee pee-ing outside obsession, knowing that pee pee-ing anywhere but in his clothes should typically be viewed as a victory.

"Can you help me with my pants?"

That's what she gets for putting him in the "hipster" style corduroys.  Seconds later, he runs over, stuck in the neck of his rugby shirt.  He'd decided to take it off, but the buttons were keeping him in.

"It's still buttoned, Spencer.  Stop.  Stop pulling it off.  You have to pull down first so I can unbutton it. Then you can pull it up.  Now.  There."  She pulls the shirt off over his soaking wet, dark blonde curls.  He runs off shirtless and soaking wet.

He plays, drops his light saber over the side of the fence.  Asks for help to get it back.  Plays some more.  Eventually, he comes back inside, his mother insist he takes off his shoes.  He decides it's the perfect time to completely disrobe, and asks "Mommy, will you clap for me?  'No new suite!'" reenacting a scene from the "Max and Ruby" rendition of "The Emperor's New Clothes."

He's four today.  He has no idea what that really means.  He just knows he's mad and confused as to why it's not his birthday party day if it's his birthday.  He's just plagued by the party favor sacks in his parents' bedroom that he's been deprived of ransacking.  He's just learning how to flip his wrist as he pushes the button that allows his new light saber to telescope outwards, making a sword.

He's four today.  He has no idea that lessons like having to pull his shirt back down to take care of the details he skipped to begin with is his mom's shot at a life lesson for that hour.

He's four today.  He has no idea that there is a reason to be embarrassed about walking around naked, or his hipster mom-chosen cords, or loving to play with his "baby sister Evie."  He has no idea that he's outgrown his car seat by an inch and that he'll soon sit in a booster seat instead.

He's four today.  He sings on the potty and cries at the drop of a hat.  He doesn't know that his mom prays while he's at therapy each day, that the synapsing would be rapid, that new pathways would be created--quickly.  That friends and family and future teachers would understand him when he says the hilarious, insightful, precious words of four year old him.


He's four today.  And he doesn't know what that means.  And it's beautiful.

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