Four Years Old!

Dear Ransom,

You are four years old! Something you are VERY excited about! Having an August Birthday is a little hard when all your friends in preschool are having birthday parties 6 months before you! However, we eventually made it and you turned four in great style!
Our friend Dub Dub let us visit her airplane hangar, where you got to sit inside two airplanes and a helicopter, as well as watch planes take off and fly low overhead! One of the coolest things about your party this year was that ALL of your cousins were in attendance! We were having a family reunion with Nana's side of the family and so all 12 of your cousins got to come! You felt very special.

This year has been full of fun for you and your Mommy has loved ( almost) every minute! At the beginning of the year I was worried that someone had gotten it wrong and that it was actually the "terrible threes" not the terrible twos! But after walking out of a couple of targets because of tantrums you calmed down considerably. This year you sent your beloved Paci to live with another littler boy who needed a paci more than you. You took it VERY well! And we went to a trampoline place called Amazing Jump as a reward!

Since you were potty trained last year, you now know that you can go to the potty by yourself. However, that's a luxury your own mother hasnt had for several years now. This year during one of our family visits to the potty where you and Tabitha patiently waited for Mommy to do her business, you announced encouragingly that one day "You'll be able to go to the potty all by yourself too!" to Mommy. She's happy to know there is an end in sight.

This year you went to Saint David's Episcopal School two days a week and were in Ms. Amy's class. You really loved your school and by the second half of the year, you'd really found your stride. Your two best friends were Mary Wesley  and Audrey. You are kind of a big hit with the girls. However, on Valentine's Day when all the kids in your class were helping your teacher decide what she should get her husband for V-day, you piped up very excitedly. You hopped up and down and said, "You should get him a big....big....biiiiiiggg.....*pause for affect*......CRAP!" Your teachers were luckily able to hold it together long enough to tell you that that was a good idea, and then they couldn't WAIT for Mommy to come pick you up at school to tell me what you'd said!


While you are very very good with the english language there are still a few things you haven't quite mastered, and I have to admit I kind of love how you say some things differently....for instance you said "Brooming instead of sweeping", "Gunning" instead of shooting and "work-outing" instead of "working out". Also in learning about Pirates you learned about their mascot the "Jolly Rodger"...you got it a liiiiitle backwards and spent a goodly amount of time calling it the "Jolly codger" and when we then taught you what "an old codger" is ( no idea why...) you said "Cold Roger" instead. Fun times.

You still love books and usually have at least 3 books read to you at nap time and then two more, plus your bible story at bedtime. This year you've really gotten into "Lego books" which are easy-reader books with pictures of legos that we get from the library. This isn't surprising since you got Legos for Christmas and will send happy hours at the dining room table playing with your legos ( anything other than towers we build for you). You also like super hero books ( also little easy readers with pictures of comic book heroes) you learned about various super heroes from school and will spend a lot of time playing dress up or playing pretend fighting bad guys. The best time of the day is after dinner when you run around shooting bad guys and protecting Mommy and Tabitha. You enjoy saying, "this is very danger" in a gleeful sort of way when we are pretending.

Your other favorite books are the Bernstein Bears. One day you asked to read the "Crack House" book and at first Mommy was a little taken back. She didn't remember The Bernstein Bears and the Crack House, but then she remembered they'd been reading a lot of The Bernstein Bears and the Worst Vacation Ever, sure enough, the house with "all the cracks" was the one Ransom wanted to read!


You were continually surprising me this year with the things you picked up, for instance I didn't know you had any concept of money until one day you saw a stand selling Spurs championship shirts on the side of the road while we were waiting for a traffic light, and you announced, " I wish I had some cash. Id buy two jerseys one for me and one for lily ( my friend Lindsay's daughter who came to visit this year). Do you have any cash? When I get some cash I'm gonna buy a jersey....

considering mommy usually uses plastic, I have no idea where this conversation came from but it was pretty cute at the time!

You actually really started enjoying sports this year. Daddy took you to your first year baseball game with the San Antonio Missions playing the Rough Riders. You LOOOOOVED the mascots and that is what you talked about for days. You also discussed the players as the "good guys in red" and the "bad guys in black".....you liked to pretend to be the guys in black ( its more fun to be the bad guys, I guess) . I was wondering if you'd learned anything about real baseball from the experience, but apparently you did! You and Daddy play catch and hit a lot, and you're actually remarkably good at hitting the ball!

You also saw several basketball games on TV ( thanks to those Champions the Spurs!) and also The World Cup introduced you to soccer as well! You now have a basketball hoop and a soccer net in the back yard! What a lucky boy you are!

You and Tabitha get along pretty well for the most part, while there is some violence on your part when she takes something that you wanted to play with or even look at certain toys, and you're also continually taking her stuffed animals and putting them in your bed ( you are very much "connected" to any and every stuffed animal that you see....whether its at a friends house or visiting family, if you see a stuffed animal you strongly suggest that maybe it wants to come home with you, and that it will "miss you" when you leave....we have to keep a close watch on you! You've already got a healthy dozen sleeping in your bed right now! Currently "Panda ( who you 'adopted' from Mimi when you were visiting Nana's house this year) and Bear and Lamb are still the favorites, but all the others are important too).

But in general you enjoy Tabitha's company and you're always dragging her along for your various games. It is helpful to have her around because you do not like to be in a room by yourself. It doesn't matter if the other people in the room are necessarily interacting with you ( though that is the hope!) but you definitely don't like being alone!

We did a video interview with you again this year and this is what you said:

Your favorite color: Blue
Favorite food: Strawberries
Favorite book: "I can't decide."-  Bernstein Bears Have a Sitter
Best friend: Audrey and Mary Wesley
Favorite show: Little Bear
Favorite Movie: The Incredibles
Favorite thing about School: My teacher and the playground
Favorite thing to play: Trucks and cars
Favorite toy: Teeth ( silly boy!)