Being 4 forever!

Being a 4 year old. As I sit here and watch my daughter play I wish that I could remember what it was like to be 4. She seems to have so much fun. She lives in this fantasy world that involves changing her outfit every 5 minutes. One minute she’s Queen Elsa, the next she’s Belle, or Ariel and then the next she will be Darth Vader or Spiderman. I love watching her imagination at work. I also love the fact that she doesn’t feel that she needs to stick to the princesses. She loves to pretend to use the force just as much as she does to freeze the world like Elsa. I also love the commitment that she gives to each role. When she comes up in her pink princess dress she walks like a princess, talks like a princess and acts like a princess. Because in her mind she is now a princess. This makes me think about her future, and what this means for her. Is she destined to be an actress or maybe a model? Although I don’t think as a parent we should limit our children when they are learning and planning what they’d like to be when they grow up, but at the same time I want them to be routed in some reality and I know that being either and actor or model isn’t something that many people actually achieve. Plus the life isn’t for everyone. Though she does enjoy being in charge and bossing people around so maybe she’d enjoy that type of life.

Back to being 4. I love the way she carelessly goes about her day. She’s so happy to sit and play with her toys for hours and hours. It makes me miss the simpler life. She loves the days when her sisters are at school and she gets the toys all to herself, yet when they come home she is happy to follow them around the house and play whatever they’d like her too. She constantly is wishing she could be bigger so she could go to school and be more like her big sisters, and I wish I could make time stand still so she never has to grow up.

I’m loving her being 4, she’s just independent enough that she can do things for herself, most recently she learned how to do up the buckles of her car seat, but yet she’s still little enough that she wants me to cuddle her every morning after her sister’s leave for school. Since she is my baby I’m trying to cherish each stage she’s in, trying to keep her little for as long as possible. No matter how much she wants to be big, I want her to stay little. God was kind enough to help grant me this, as she is tiny. Although she’s 4 ½ she still barely weighs over 30lbs. I love that my baby is my tiniest child it helps be keep her little.

When I was a new mother many years ago I was always wishing my oldest daughter would get bigger and be able to do more things and then I realized before you know it she’s half grown up and you don’t actually enjoy it. So I’ve learned from that mistake again and plan to keep my baby, my baby for as long as she’ll let me. I will cuddle her as much as she needs and I will hold her when she cried. I will let her sleep with me when she has a bad dream or when she’s sick. These are the moments I’ll hold onto when she does inevitably grows up. I will not tell her to grow up or stop acting like a baby, because I now know that it will happen with or without me wanting it too no matter what.

Dear child, if you become wise, I’ll be one happy parent. My heart will dance and sing to the tuneful truth you’ll speak. Proverbs 23 15-16