Joey is 4!!

Behold, everyone, for I give you something rarely caught on camera: Joey's real smile, not the "Chandler Bing face" he gives anyone who aims a phone at him and says, "Say cheese!" Unfortunately he had some jelly next to his mouth when I took it, that I tried only somewhat successfully to fix with the Snapseed healing tool before deciding to give it to you in its unretouched glory. 

Joey has me several times, "I can't believe I'm four!" That makes two of us, Joe. I've told him time and time again that he's not allowed to get any bigger; he has to stay little forever. He just grins at me and of course does not listen.

His mouth has been growing faster than the rest of him. He is the king of witty retorts these days. Examples include:

Delaney: Can you pass the ketchup?

Joey: Yes, Your Highness.

Me: Did you toot?

Joey: That's what you paid for!

And this is the one that could get him in trouble: "That's not my problem." I think we all know who he gets that from -- his father. That is Tim's favorite comeback, and his response to pretty much anything he disagrees with.

I am so crazy about this little boy who just the other day, hugged me and said  "Woo-hoo!" when I picked him up from preschool, and who tells me I am his "best ultimate friend", that I can forgive him for almost entirely giving up his nap within the last couple months. I did not give up trying easily, but after a couple weeks of going through the song and dance of trying to get him to go down and stay down, I threw my hands up and said (no, just thought), "You win." But he has been such a bear without naps, the longer the day wears on. Sometimes if I lie down, he will get in bed with me and go to sleep. Other times he just jabbers in my ear incessantly or climbs all over me until I finally tell him naptime is over. On the days that he does nap, he sleeps quite heavily and then has a hard time settling at night. So we're kind of in an awkward phase of not-needing-but-still-needing the afternoon nap. I expect that will pass after another few months.

Most nights after initially going to sleep, he wakes up two to three hours later to go sleep with someone else, usually Annie. Then he started coming to our bed, and since he is so little and cute, we are loath to turn him away. He brings his own pillow, and tucks it right in the middle. For one of his birthday presents I gave him a Twilight Turtle like Delaney's, in hopes that it would help him like his own room better. It didn't. I enjoyed all the stars on my walls last night.

We have done absolutely nothing to move him in the direction of being nighttime potty trained. He continues to soak a pair of Paw Patrol training pants every night. I really need to get over my laziness and start training him the same way we did Delaney and Annie way back when. The thing is, I don't know if he'll be as compliant as the girls were with being woken up and brought to the toilet late at night. It took months of that, and then still having wet laundry in the morning, before it worked for the two of them. I think I might be a little afraid of the specter of a grumpy Joey being dragged out of bed. It is so much easier for us all to just sleep, and for our beds to all stay dry. Why couldn't he have made it easy for me like his brother did, and start spontaneously waking up on his own to go to the bathroom at night? Because he's not Timmy, and Timmy was an aberration, that's why. Before disposable diapers and "training pants" (a misnomer -- they've never helped train anyone) became so cheap, everyone had to do what it took to potty train their kids for day and night, the sooner the better. And as Joey might say, "That's not my problem."😆

I want to talk about something besides Joey's sleeping and toileting habits, so I had to start clicking through pictures to jog my memory. And, a-ha! This is one of my most recent and will be for all time, one of my favorite Joey stories. Tim and I ran the Turkey Trot this year, as we also did last year. The race takes place in our neighborhood, and the route takes us right by our house in the home stretch. Wouldn't it be something to see a kid or two outside cheering us on? Last year, nothing but crickets. So this time on Thanksgiving morning, we made sure they wouldn't forget. "Did I mention already that Daddy and I are going to be running right by this house?... Oh, I did just five minutes ago?" Well, someone was listening. At the end of the 5K, as we were running toward our house we saw a little figure in blue standing next to a race volunteer in our yard. It was our sweet Joey smiling and waving. Tim dashed over to give him a high five, then we ran through the finish line and turned back around right away to go squeeze that boy. And with that, he secured his place as our favorite child.

It makes me a little sad to say, after nine years in our family, the jig is up with Chippy, our Elf on the Shelf. What could I say in the face of his increasingly pointed questions that went something like: "Did you put him there?" "Can I touch him?" "Is he real?" He wasn't buying that it's "magic". So I gave him the truth.* "You're a smart boy, Joe. Chippy is just pretend. Yes, you can touch him." (Sigh) The Big 3 were very much into Chippy for years, but maybe that was because they were all so little? I don't suspect any of our other kids of spoiling Chippy for Joey, but I think that just being around them and all their talking and arguing over just about anything, has maybe made the logical part of his mind develop a little differently. I won't lie, though, I'm a little relieved. It was so hard to stay on top of moving that elf around every night, but I didn't want to stop if it was something Joey was still enjoying. If I were to offer any Elf advice to new parents, it would be, "Don't do it!!" That's what Tim tells all his Marines.

So far, he hasn't asked any pointed questions about Santa, and that's great. Santa is way more popular in our house than the Elf ever was, furthermore, he is real.

Joey loves school. His favorite things to do there include running around the playground with his friends Noah and Ethan. He can recognize his name and spell it. He does not like girls, and shies away from their friendly advances. He's getting better at counting all the time, counts things every chance he gets. Once a month, I pack him a lunch and he stays an extra hour for "lunch bunch". He really looks forward to that. He also asks me all the time when he's going to be the "snack helper" again, because the snack helper also gets bring something for show and tell. His turn for that comes once every month, he does not grasp the concept of time. As with everything else he looks forward to, he keeps asking me when is it going to happen, but doesn't understand my answers.

We celebrated his birthday a few days early because of this upcoming weekend being a busy one with half of us going out of town. He was one excited little man as we sang "Happy birthday" and he got ready to open his presents. Then Tim played a mean little joke on him that started with, "Smell this spot on the cake."😦 Poor Joe was in tears with cake all over his mouth and nose. I didn't take a picture, which would have added to his humiliation. A few moments later, all was well as he was opening all his presents. He even said something about it like, "Yeah, that was great!"

I know that everyone thinks their own child is the most unique, amazing, and intelligent creature to walk the planet, especially in these little years when they change so quickly. Even though he's our fourth four-year-old, I still feel this way about Joe. He makes us all laugh, melts our hearts on a daily basis, and completely wears this 40-year-old mama out.🤣 I am excited to see everything that age 4 holds for him.

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*After all, we're bringing them up in the Catholic faith, which requires belief in things we can not see, and things that don't make logical sense, such as bread becoming the body of Jesus. In light of that, many would say it's never a good idea for us to tell our kids that Santa comes down the chimney and the Elf flies to our house every night from the North Pole. I would disagree. I think that pretending things is OK when they're little, and I cherish my own memories of looking out the window trying to see Santa's sleigh on Christmas Eve. But when they ask questions, they are ready to hear the truth, and we owe it to them.