A letter to my four year old.

You are, in innumerable ways, so perfectly, purely, indelibly, ordinary. 

Don’t get me wrong — not for one second — and mistake me for saying that you’re not anything special. Everything you do is tinged with special. With the extraordinary. But framing up all that extraspecialness is… a pretty run-of-the-mill toddler. Just a kid. Your typical preschooler. I find it, you, so comfortingly, frustratingly, expected. 

Just like so many four year olds before you… 

You stall like a champion, award-winning, black-belt, heavy-weight staller. 

You can do it yourself. 

You bang on everything.

You jump off everything, oftentimes while banging on something. 

You can do it yourself.  

You beg me and your dad not to kill ants or spiders or mosquitoes. (I always listen (except for the mosquitoes) and your dad becomes Rambo in the presence of anything with more legs than us.)

You can do it yourself.

You sing Old Town Road… the Emmett remix (“Got the ‘Vengers in my bag and the Snoopy Dog poop”). 

Everything is a competition. 

You love to be read to, to be sung to, to stand up when you pee especially when you’re outside. 

Your hide-and-seek skills are still woefully underdeveloped. 

You can count high and spell your name and you tell the best bedtime stories. 

You dance, you march, you race, you skip, you play, you snuggle, you laugh, you entertain. 

You ask questions. So. Many. Questions. 

You can do it yourself unless you need help and then you cry. 

And all that means I become every run-of-the-mill repetitive mom of a run-of-the-mill crazy four year old. You hear the same things from me, over and over and over and over and over and that’s not even close to the number of overs I could list. 

Watch where you’re going. 

Yes, you can take a bubble-y bath. And probably to follow it up with a chocolate-y treat. 

Be careful.

No, you can’t climb on that. 

Stop climbing on that. 

Get down. 

Pull your pants up. 

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD be careful. 

I love you too. 

This year, baby, let’s work on figuring out where you can be special, and where it’s okay to just be. I can’t wait to see where your extraordinary self takes you. What excites you and scares you and challenges you. It’s going to be an exciting, scary, challenging year, my little love, in all kinds of ordinary fourth-year ways. 

I hope you’ll carry mommy’s words forward with you, through four and into forever. Watch where you’re going. Take time to relax and smell good. Eat the treats. Pee in designated spots only. Be careful, my brave wrecking ball. How I love you, Emmett James. 

Year in (Book) Review: Q1

The Book of Speculation, Erika Swyler

One of my favorite accidents: I’m strolling through Target; I only have 62 things in my cart, so I’m on the hunt; I somehow end up in the book aisle even though I swear I was looking for … well, I don’t know what, but it wasn’t needed and it wasn’t a book; I pick up something I’ve never heard of on a whim and I love it. It’s super convoluted and kind of weird — it's got a librarian and some circus freaks — and it’s just right.

On Being 40(ish), edited by Lindsey Mead

As someone safely on the “ish” side of 40, I listened to a dear, dear friend and regular contributor to the book list talk about this one half checked out. Then, for her birthday (because she’s that friend) she sent me a copy of fun short stories written by ladies running the gamut from pretty young to almost old to one foot in the grave. (those might all be exaggerations.) It sits on my nightstand, all pink and little and cute, and it’s the perfect thing to read when you just need something lovely and relevant and sometimes bittersweet and sometimes hysterical.  

House Rules, Jodi Picoult

My take on that old cliche, as it applies to Jodi Picoult: She could rewrite the phone book and I would read it. There’s just something so inherently readable about her to me. This one’s the story of a mother, her autistic son who’s accused of a terrible crime, her non-autistic son who has his own uphill battles to climb, and how you cope with not having all the answers. Which is motherhood in a nutshell.

Becoming, Michelle Obama

This is not a book about

• politics
• Barack Obama

This is a book about

• a freakishly smart, incredibly gracious, humble, stylish, funny mama chick
• okay, sort of politics
• hope

If you’re politically inclined and lean left, read it. If you’re not at all politically inclined, lean right, want to feel slightly in awe and inadequate, and/or just think amazing women are amazing, read it.

My Husband's Wife, Jane Corry

Needed another spontaneous plane book. Have a propensity to gobble up page turners. This one fit the bill just fine: semi-creepy easy reading. Husband wants me to include a note that if anything mysterious happens to him, someone should check my Dateline notes.

Don't You Cry, Mary Kubica

Needed a spontaneous plane book since my copy of Becoming is hardback and heavy.

I admit to getting a little judgy — there are a few spots she tries a little hard for the, I don’t know the word (see why I write book reviews and not books) — the mood? (“The grass is brown. No longer green.” Thanks. Got it.) And also I figured out the ending really super early on, which I never do. But it was a fine choice for a mindless page turner. Plus apparently she went to Miami of Ohio so she’s got to be kind of cool.

You Are a Badass, Jen Sincero

Lemme start right here, right at the beginning: I'm not a self-help kind of person, book or otherwise. It's weird; I feel like I should be. I'm pretty introspective. I like improving as much as the next lazy person. But most self-help seems a little eye-roll worthy to me. A little ... much. But when your yoga teacher/girl crush/friend hands you a book — doesn't just give you a recommendation, I mean actually physically hands you a book — you take it. You say thanks. And you read it out of obligation.

And if you're lucky you end up loving it, in spite of yourself.

It's a little much. In the best way. Think The Secret, but with F bombs.