Dear Hayden,

Last week, you turned 4 and ½ years old. That’s one thousand six hundred and forty four days…days that are going by way too fast.

I know we tell you that all the time, but last weekend when you woke Davis up and gave him a banana and sippy cup full of water, your dad and I looked at each other with such glee. On one hand, we were so excited about the new found independence. We thought about just leaving you guys there and heading out to a movie or something. I mean, if you can “make” a banana and a sippy cup with the top half-way screwed on, I am sure you could manage throwing together a PB&J sandwich for lunch.

But on the other hand, it means you are growing up. Before we know it, you’ll be bringing girls home and begging to take the car out. Our grocery bill will double and our house will have the distinct scent of teenage-boy tennis shoes. Which I remember ever so clearly.

Anyway, the whole banana and water thing looked like such a nice gesture. To an outsider, it appeared to be a big brother caring for his dependent little brother. But we all knew the truth. In reality, that random act of kindness was just another excuse to climb onto the kitchen counter. You’ve loved climbing since you were about 10 months old. Anything, from scaling the brick fence in our backyard…to the outside of the staircase.

You’ve never been interested in things you are *supposed* to climb on, like a play set. Only things that are off-limits. If Toys R Us sold a Giant fake couch called the Climb-on-Me couch, we would definitely buy it for you. You would use it for about a week, until you noticed it wasn’t a real couch. After that, it would lose it’s appeal.
But they don’t sell the Climb on Me Couch. I know that, because if they did, you would have told me about it. Right now, you are an absolute marketers dream. In the mornings, as I am blowing my hair dry, and you are snuggled up in our bed watching Ben 10, I hear you shouting out toys on your birthday list. You’ll say, “Mom, I need Batter, Batter Baseball!” or “ooooohhhhhh, I want aerators by Sketchers for my 6th Birthday!” When I remind you that your 5th birthday is actually the next one, you nod and give me this look like you’re absolutely aware of that, but your 5th birthday list is already completely full. If you see a toy commercial with something too girly for you, you’ll try to play off that it would be a gift for me. You’re all, “Mom, I am going to buy the new Blendy Pens for you.” In fact the other day, you even asked your Dad if he were to buy Proactiv, would he put it on at night or in the morning? I think you might have offended him.

You’ve also developed a new routine at night where you sneak out your bathroom door and crawl through the hall on your belly. You have found the exact spot to lie where you can watch whatever non-cartoon television we are watching without being spotted from downstairs because of the angle. I think this has allowed you to keep up with the entire 9th season of Big Brother. You are so silent and sly that now Dad and I are forced to walk half way up the stairs during commercial breaks to see if you’re in your hideout. The only problem with your sneaky trick is when we are watching something like Dateline and it is too boring to keep you awake. You’ve been known to fall asleep in the act. I can officially say you are smarter than me with regards to one thing…a Rubik’s cube. If it is completely mixed up, you can’t solve it yet, but Dad knows exactly how many twists and turns you can master. You two spend hours mixing it up for each other. Although I would love for you to be able to solve it 100% every time so that maybe it would land us on the Ellen Show or Oprah or something, it frustrates me to no end that my mind does not work in 3-D, and yours does. It is just one more trait that makes you a miniature version of your Dad. Thank goodness I gave you your thin, straight-as-a-board, unmanageable hair, or no one would believe you were mine.

I also passed along my exceptional dancing skills. The other day, I had three separate teachers stop me in the hall and tell me how you spent one entire recess dancing in front of the large mirror-like windows to the Alvin and the Chipmunks soundtrack. They said you were hopping on one foot and twistin’ and a turnin’. And throughout the entire CD, you never took your eyes off of yourself.
Since you’re our guinea pig with raising kids, we never know what to expect from you. You make us laugh every day, from the way you say, YO DAVIS!...to the way you announce so proudly that you’ve eaten all your ice cream, so could you have a snack? But something I wasn’t expecting from you was your desire to host parties at our house. I have been stopped by a couple of different parents in the last month asking if we were having a movie party at our house over the weekend. Your friend Alexander had his mother so convinced that you were having a movie party that she wanted to call me to ask if the invitation had gotten lost. Alexander had given so many details…like how you were all going to watch Transformers and your mom would make everyone popcorn…she was certain it must be a legitimate party.

You also have an exceptional memory. You’ll remember the tiniest details from events that happened two years ago. But what’s even more uncanny is the way you remember the names of your 50+ stuffed animals. You’ll name them the first day you receive them and it will stick no matter how ridiculous of a name it may sound to us…there’s Spikey, and Fokey, and Iffy, and Party-like-a-rock-star-frog-party-frog, and Sushi, and Louie, and …that’s about the capacity of my brain.

All and all, you’re a great kid with a great big heart. I love you, my cuddly BOY!

Love, Mom