4 Years

Dear Roan,

You are four years old.  "Whaaaat?!"  That's how I feel, and that's what you say when I tell you something crazy or unbelievable, like we are putting sprinkles in our pancakes, or the small intestine is full of millions of tiny villi that slurp up energy from our food, or that Toys-R-Us is still under water from the storm (all conversations we had on the morning of your birthday).

You have so many questions.  I try my best to answer you, but you are starting to ask questions that I don't know how to answer, or I have to check the internet in my downtime and get back to you later.  Having a 4-year-old is realizing: I don't know as much about how things work as I thought I did.

E-mail is something I am just unqualified to explain (and you are unsatisfied with my explanations).  We've been talking a lot about storms, and helping people in shelters and people without power.  It's hard to explain a power outage when you're not sure how electricity works in the first place.

Your birthday was Sunday and Daddy took you shopping.  He spoiled you - you came back from your outing (which, like most Daddy outings, involved a hot chocolate from Southside) with a lot of gifts.  We had Mac n' Cheese for lunch at your request.  Then you played with some of your new toys while Lani took a nap.

In the afternoon we rode our bikes to your swim lesson at Beth Elohim.  On the way there we stopped at Pink Berry for frozen yoghurt.  You were so excited to tell your teacher all about your birthday.  "Today is my birthday for reals!" you said, "we made pancakes for breakfast with sprinkles!"

"Pancakes with seagulls?" she asked.

Sometimes I forget that not everyone can understand you.

We rode our bikes home on 8th Avenue through piles of leaves.  We stopped at Judah's house to meet their new cat, which they rescued from a shelter post Sandy.  You ate vegan chicken nuggets and then ate a second dinner at home, steak and mashed potatoes.  Then you got raspberry and blueberry ice-cream.  And so did Lani Lou.

I tucked you in with four blankets, and then your birthday was over.  But the celebrations are not over yet.

Happy 4 years, Roan Michael.