Dear Spotty Chop you are 57 months old today

You drew a picture for me and told me it was about a solar system, some stars, lots of planets “and”, you whispered to me, “even a planet that isn’t a planet any more PLUTO”.
Papa took you to the Harvard Museum of Natural History to see dinosaurs. You told him they were not dinosaurs but fossils. You got to see crystals and a giraffe. You also ate chicken on the bone for the first time and loved it.

Speaking of new foods, you also tried pork chops and turkey and seemed to like them. You would still prefer hot dogs or ham sandwiches, but it is great to see you trying new things. You tried blueberry pancakes and did not like them one bit. Blueberries were too mushy.

Daddy has bought you two more Captain Underpants books and you are devouring them. You love to trick me and tell me that daddy is only going to read two chapters, and then he reads you 4 or 5. You always come out to tell me, and then you want me to give him a “piece of my mind”. When I asked you what that meant you told me, “it means listening and hearing stuff that you might not want to hear.”

You gave me a bit of disappointing news; you said you didn’t want to play soccer. I have really been looking forward to teaching you to play; I even have looked into being the assistant coach. You said you would play football, T ball and hockey. I know it’s only how you feel now; you will likely change your mind 100 times before you actually play any sports, but, you are good at soccer. Drat.
We have gotten back into baking. You really like making cakes. We made an angel food cake. You were SO very disappointed when you tried the batter. You said it tasted bitter. But once it was cooked you liked it a lot.

You love to take the elevator at school. But you like to trick me. I say “let’s go to the 1st floor” and you take us to the basement. You get the biggest kick out of seeing me confused. I will then tell you to “take us to the 2nd floor so we can walk down” and you take us to the 1st floor. Then we walk back down to the basement and walk up a different flight of stairs to finally get to the 1st floor.
You bought a video game with your own money. The last time we were in Game Stop you saw a new (to us) Sonic Riders game and you talked about it for weeks, when we explained that we didn’t have the money to buy the game right now (more thinking it was close to Christmas and it would be a great gift) you said you had money in your bank and you could buy it. So we let you. Well we actually put your money back in your drawer. But it’s the thought that counts.

We went to our town’s tree lighting. You were happy to be running around at night and playing in the playground, but when Santa came you wanted to leave.You are FREAKED out by Santa. When Boy Toy mentioned that we were going to have to go visit Santa and tell him what you wanted, you punched him in the head. I am not sure why Santa has freaked you out so badly. I remember you weren’t overly happy to sit with him last year, but your fright seems to have grown and I can’t figure out why.

You decided we needed to have a soccer game in the house over the weekend. Your rules:
the ability for you to use your handsboys against girlsstink bombs that prevented me from moving
We had such a blast! It then turned into a basket ball and then football game. We really needed to spend some time as a family having fun and this fit the bill nicely.

You have had a lingering cough for the past week or two. The other night while you were lying in bed you sat up a few times and started punching your chest and breathing funny. Luckily I have an inhaler and we have a “kid friendly” inhaler thingy that we got from the doctors last year. You HATE the taste of it, but it has worked like magic. We will see if the cough medicine can keep the cough down, if it doesn’t its back to the puffer.

Kiddo, I love you so much it hurts. Here’s hoping Santa is good to you (even if you hate him).