November 2014: 50 months (4 years and two month old)

Dear Patrick,

• You came into our home office after your bath on 11/3 and asked what I was doing.  “I’m typing a few notes about you,” I said and explained that Dad and I like to remember things about you that we share with the family. “Tell the people that I like to snuggle with my mom,” you instructed.  So here you have it, people.
• Occasionally you will say things like, “Pretend I’m eight years old and I’ve lost two teeth.” If you are wondering how one plays along, you basically say something like, “Hello eight year old Patrick - it looks like you lost two teeth.”  And that the extent of the game. 
• NPR words this month - you asked about: “Washington,” “blades” and “Obama.”
• We attended your Thanksgiving Day program at school where you sang songs with the other kids on stage, showed your belly and - when it was your turn with the microphone - told the audience that you were thankful for “pie.” Earlier that morning at the doctor's office, you had been diagnosed with an ear infection so you would interrupt the program (mostly between songs) to find me on the front row of the chapel and ask when you could take your medicine. “Now, Mama?”  “No, baby,” I’d say in a loud whisper, “not now - keep singing.”
• I love how you walk so carefully with scissors - just like we taught you: very deliberately, two hands, the tool outstretched like it was a trophy - very slowly and with such focus. 
• Your father went to New York with your uncles Jono and Sonny, and I went to Los Angeles this month for work -- so its been the month of travel.  
• Together we traveled to Macon for Thanksgiving Thursday through Sunday at the end of the month. Dinner at Natalia’s, shopping, Omi and I worked on Michael’s house and we got Payton, the babysitter, for you so that your Dad could relax a bit too. Oh, its nice to see you so happy at Omi and Pop’s house. One of my favorite moments was leaving the Hope’s pizza party Saturday night and the whole group of adults (most of them strangers to you earlier that evening) all stopping their conversations to wave as you shouted “Good-bye Everybody!” at the top of your lungs. It was like that scene from The Sound of Music when the Von Trapp kids go to bed and the entire party sings goodnight to them. You are a charmer, my boy, loved by everyone who meets you.