Four

I wish I could bottle four, and save it forever.

There's a simple joy in a four year old. A love of life, and every experience is cherished. Treasured. Emotions run high - a moment after laughing, there could be tears. Intensity, yes, but a growing ability to listen. A smidgen of reasoning. A delight in accumulating new knowledge.

I love the paradigms that four constructs, both the nonsensical and the more logical.

Today FB was watching me make meatloaf. "Is that ground beef from our cow?"

(We bought a quarter of a local, grass-fed cow back in June.)

After I affirmed, that yes, it was from our cow, he asked me how I had made meatloaf before we bought the cow. In his mind, he can't remember the paradigm before, where we bought it at the grocery store.

We didn't get a digital camera until just as EG turned five, so all of my pictures of her at four are on film, not digitized. One of my favorites of her, ever, though, was taken that year. Standing on the beach, bathed in the waning sunlight, her grin both innocent and impish. Sometimes I'd like to have that four year old back - and I know I can't.

I know I can't stop FB at four, either. I won't be able to keep PC from turning five in her time. I just have to try to store the days up in my head and remember them. All 1,095 of them.