On his first birthday home, Superhero 4 attended the New Year’s Eve wedding of our beautiful niece, where a DJ and an entire ballroom of very happy guests sang to him as he panted over a multi-tiered cake that our unpretentious diva clearly assumed was just for him.
On his second birthday home, Grandma and Pop (with Mom and Dad in tow) took him on the traditional 5-year-old grandchild visit to Disneyworld, where this Mickey Mouse lover spent five days in the land of his dreams and stalked — I mean met! — the heroes who graced every shirt and jacket and pajama piece he owned at the time.
So on this, Superhero 4’s third birthday home, we basically prepared ourselves for disaster.
Because normally in this chintzy household, you get to choose EITHER a gift OR a party OR a day-long experience for your birthday each year — one that doesn’t involve hundreds of guests in formalware and weeks of amusement park rides with a firework finale. (Listen, grand themed parties were for the days of early motherhood when Pinterest and me were BFF and I still felt the need to prove my mom-ly worth based on the quality of the perfectly matched decorations and handmade party favors. Four kids in, we call a “party” any occasion when more than one human of the same age is at the house, we attempted to clean and there is possibly — but no promises — food.)
To our great surprise and utter shock, the extroverted birthday boy who loves being the center of attention didn’t want a party. (Praise the Lord, because we were already failing if we had to live up to the expectations of a catered wedding with live music.)
He didn’t want an experience.
Instead, this little family man who loves snuggling and quality time more than almost anything else, wanted to eat grilled cheese and tomato soup, ride his bike at the park, go out to dinner and then shop with his ge ge for his one present.
Oh, and then, after dropping by the local New Year’s Eve pinecone drop, spend the rest of the night eating ice cream to his favorite movies on the couch.
Apparently until we, in our gluttonous state, all eat ourselves to sleep.
Clearly, a brilliant birthday plan.
Of course, Bossy Pants did have a few not-so-subtle requests for the big day he has been counting down to since we turned our homeschool calendar to December.
“Hope so, you decorate the house before I come home,” he told me as I dropped him off at Grandma and Pop’s house for a sleepover in their new camper.
“With balloons. And banner. ‘Happy birthday, Superhero 4,’ it say.”
This, of course, was after he made Super-Spouse practice how he was going to greet him on his birthday.
“That not good. You be more cheerful, like this. ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SUPERHERO 4!’”
To which Super-Spouse cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled at the top of his lungs, “Happy birthday, Superhero 4!”
After observing his dad wake the entire block with his rehearsed greeting, the Director of Birthday Operations then replied, “That better.”
And that is our now 6-year-old boy.
Spunky and spitfire, bossy and brilliant.
He’s as spicy as he is sweet, and this one-man comedy act keeps us laughing all. Day. Long.
His faces, mannerisms, voice inflections and Superhero 4-isms, as we call them, make it impossible to ever take him seriously, and even when he makes a boo boo, it’s hard to keep a straight face when disciplining him, because inevitably, his response, which is always sweet and genuine and authentically remorseful, is then followed by 500 jokes and a dance where he wags his back end like a tail and sticks two pointer fingers in the air.
He is joy encapsulated, and his contagious grin with wide-lit eyes makes it impossible to be in a bad mood in his presence.
Even the humans in our house who are sometimes hijacked by hormones find it hard to be cranky when their 40-inch-tall baby brother is shaking his booty and walking canes like Beyonce.
Besides his love for laughter, jokes and the complete attention of every person in a room, this guy genuinely loves the Lord (even though we wouldn’t let him get baptized with his big brothers until he understood that it was more than just “swimming with Jesus”). He’s a fan of Star Wars, Legos, puzzles and board games (especially Exploding Kittens and Monopoly). He’ll snuggle up in a rocking chair and listen to books for hours, and he truly LOVES to learn.
When we set out on this homeschool kinder adventure in August, I wasn’t quite sure how this would go. But this superhero is so enthusiastic and motivated that he calls ME out when I try to shorten a lesson to get to the grocery store. (My favorite lines include, “Mama, this your BEST work?” and “Mama, so proud of you for doing all your homeschool!”)
Thanks to the incredible teachers who came before me, a children’s center that is out of this world, a fabulous summer tutor who broke through ESL barriers we have been working on for months and the help of our precious retired teacher friend, Mrs. Katzenberger (who Superhero 4 continues to call “Cats and Boogers”), Superhero 4 is just soaring.
After four months, he can now count to 30, name all the days of the week and months of the year (minus November on a bad day, but who apparently needs November when both Christmas and your birthday fall in December?), count objects, correlate 1 to 1, name all his letters and their sounds, recognize basic animals that we had apparently failed to teach, and now, even sound out simple three-letter words!
He still struggles the most with writing, and his OT is working on small motor skills and hand-eye coordination, but he can write his full name if you just creatively imagine a Y.
Following his surgery in September to lengthen his hamstrings, adductors and hip flexors, he’s taken 40 independent steps.
And now, thanks to the incredible PT who was the first therapist he ever saw when he returned home from China two and a half years ago, is learning to RIDE A BIKE!
(Read all about — and see the videos of! — his incredible and parallel mobility journey with Superhero 1 in this post from October.)
Because this motivated little man has had to fight so hard for everything he’s gained, he is also one of the most encouraging voices in the household. He frequently tells his big brothers how proud he is of them, and he is the first to say, “Good job!” when someone in the house claims a victory. (He once told me, “I so proud of you, Mama, for not burning dinner!” Clearly, we keep the standards low around here.) He’s grateful and gracious and compassionate and kind and also 100 shades of curious.
He asks a million questions a day (one time to my friend’s husband about the size of his penis), and he genuinely wants to understand his world, the people in it and how they operate.
And also why they French kiss.
In the fall, Superhero 2 had seen a couple French kissing and, as our whole team was driving together to another cross country meet in the van, he asked his daddy why that couple "moved their mouths back and forth like they were eating each other's heads off."
That's when Super-Spouse so gracefully and delicately explained a French kiss ... and Superhero 2, with his legitimate love for physical affection and his absolute aversion to germs, just could not reconcile the two.
"But why would you lick the tongue of someone you LOVE?!" he cried. "Do you not know how many germs are in the human mouth?!" 🤯
That's when Superhero 4, the asker and repeater of all things, chimed in from the backseat.
"You and Mommy do that love kiss thing?!" he half asked, half cried, as he waited with baited breath to see if we had indeed ever licked each other's tongues in youthly passion (which, according to Superhero 2, would have been WAY more gross than what we ACTUALLY had to do to create two of the four humans inside our home).
Before Super-Spouse could even answer with the truth that it WAS something we once did, back before the days of lovely little romance killers who sucked every drop of energy from our lives and caused us to fall asleep not making out but making much sexier promises that we would this time take TURNS getting up with the little pukers and pee-ers and havers of nighttime terrors in our home, Superhero 4 demanded a "licking" demonstration right there on the highway.
And his parents' "love kiss" became his new infatuation and obsession. 😍
He asked us to "love kiss" all cross country meet. (We refrained for the sake of the 13-year-old superhero who had two friends in tow and who may never have talked to us again. You're welcome, Superhero 1. You're welcome. 👊)
He asked the cashier at the store where I purchased my take-to-the-salon-because-I-will-never-be-here-again nail polish if these nails would help Mommy "love kiss" Daddy better. (No, buddy, but a night without 5-year-olds asking where my penis went might. 💁♀️)
And when I finally donned my dress for what is likely our very last military ball, Superhero 4, stunned that I actually looked half human after an entire lifetime of hats and ponytails, said, "Mama, is that dress so you can love kiss Daddy?!" 🥰
Absolutely, baby. Because it takes an operation orchestrated by the no-joke U.S. military for the two of us to make out on a ball floor in a place where we won't have either disgust-ridden dissenters or gawking goobers asking us for further demonstrations.
God bless America.
It is hard to remember a time when this joyful jokester wasn’t a part of our team (or a time when we actually believed he might be an introvert). Two and a half years have simply just flown.
Though we may have missed the first three and a half years of this special superhero’s life, we are daily blown away that God would even trust us with a boy as bright and brilliant as this one for the rest of his days.
Superhero 4, we love you to the moon and back, and we can’t wait to spend the rest of your days watching all the ways we know our God is going to use you in this world.
You are a warrior, and you, sweet superhero, were made to soar.
Happy 6th birthday.
