Happy Birthday, Sava!

Dear Sava,

Today you turn four years old. Many cliches come to mind when I think of how to convey the depth of our love for you, and the joy you have brought to our lives. So, rather than wax sentimental, I thought I would share with you what we have seen you accomplish this past year:
* You became a big brother in October, and during the first months of Raya's life, your maturity and ability to adapt to our changed lives exceeded our every expectation. You remain gracious towards your sister and eager to become friends with her. You sometimes get frustrated that she is too little, or not as interested in your toys and preoccupations as you'd like her to be, but you keep waiting (patiently, most days) for the day when she will "grow up." She, for her part, adores you. You often make her smile or laugh just by being in the room, and she especially loves it when you turn on your silly buttons--making faces, speaking in "Savahili," repeating the same nonsense again and again, farting with your mouth, jumping around her while she bounces in her Jumperoo, etc.
* You started preschool for real in August, and you are thriving. If someone had told us this time last year that you would have friends and would be looking forward to school each day, we would not have believed it for a second. Now you are friends with all five boys at school--John, Jack, Kyle, Naveen, and Oliver--and your teachers have gotten to know you for the wonderful sensitive boy you are.
* You learned to poop in the potty! That's right. After months and months of peeing in the potty but asking for a diaper each time you had to go number two, something finally clicked and you are diaper-free during the day.
* You learned how to ride a scooter and you are a demon at it.
* You learned how to count to pretty much 99, and you recognize all two digit numbers; your favorite number is 88!
* You have become really good at building with legos, and, given 5-10 pieces, you can make dozens of imaginative shapes; you especially like to make trains and rockets.
* You have learned how to build elaborate train tracks as well, and you love playing trains both at home and school. (You play trains at school every day with Oliver.)
* You have learned to sit through much longer books, and not only about vehicles, although these remain your favorites.
* You will eat a meal by yourself occasionally, without us having to coax and bribe you. This may not sound like a biggie, but it is.
* You are starting to eat cheese without too many tummy consequences. You especially enjoy pizza, and you had some today for your birthday!
* You put your pants and socks on in the morning by yourself.
* You can cut with scissors.
* Just recently, you learned how to hold a pen/pencil the correct way.
* You know everything about trains, thanks to some wonderful books we've been reading and some great DVDs that you and dad have been watching.

This is what comes to mind tonight, but I am sure there are many other milestones, big and small. Here, in pictures, is how you spent your birthday.

Starting yesterday, we are no longer feeding you the dreaded oatmeal for breakfast, and you have a choice of other things to eat; this morning you started by requesting to blow candles stuck in a piece of toast which you didn't eat:

Then you went to school, where teacher Laura made you a birthday crown and you and all of the children ate an Oreo cookie each in celebration of your birthday (a venerable Children's Corner tradition); when I picked you up, you were still wearing your crown:

We then headed for lunch at Google, where we ate outside and you spent a good bit of time playing with water, as you always do when there is water around:

You also especially enjoyed going to dad's office and basking in the adoration of all of his colleagues, who decided to play a joke on their boss (off at a Giants game) by taking a picture of you in their boss' chair:

 In the afternoon you helped me make dairy-soy-free cupcakes, while grandma and Raya looked on:

  And for dinner, of course, you had to blow four candles on one of those cupcakes, which you nibbled but didn't eat:

A wonderful serendipitous and unexpected gift for all of us today was the discovery on the windowsill of our kitchen of a small dove's nest with nothing less than a perfect little egg in it; somehow we never saw the dove making its nest there until today, and it also seemed startled by our presence, as it flew off a couple of times when we opened the fridge, which is right next to the window; we'll try drawing the blinds in the next few days so as to give it peace and allow it to nurture its egg:

 

Happy birthday, love. You are growing too fast.