Quentin, Month 46

Dearest Quentin,

Tonight I was in charge of your bed time. After we brushed your teeth, you hopped into bed willingly enough, and asked me to read you "Harold's Fairy Tale," from Daddy's "Harold's Purple Crayon Treasury." After that was over you begged for "one more story," preferably our latest Dr. Seuss library book, "I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew," which is, of course, the longest book known to man. Instead I told you the (highly abridged) Story of You. When that was finished, you begged again for another story. When I refused, insisting it was time for you to sleep, you begged me to stay with you.

And tonight, I stayed, because in a breath, you will be grown. You will be a teenager who doesn't want anything to do with me, and then you'll be a grown man who doesn't need me. So tonight, I stayed with you until you were asleep.

As I stroked your hair, I tried to burn its texture and smell into my mind. I traced the outline of your face with my eyes, and drank in your dusky lashes on pale cheeks. I kissed your red lips and whispered that I loved you. Almost asleep, your eyes fluttered and you muttered "lveutoo." You gripped my arm to your chest with both of your own, even as you began to snore, and if I so much as twitched, you clung all the tighter. I stroked your long pianist's fingers with my thumb and tried to remember their size. My eyes glistened with the certainty that I would forget this moment, amidst a sea of others. I want to keep you just this way forever, even as you grow.

Quentin, you're not yet 47 months, still over a month shy of four years old, and every day I am stunned by your personality, your intellect, your will, and your talent.

You love storytelling. You love to be read to, to hear made-up stories, and to make up your own. A few weeks ago, your daddy and I told you a made up story to keep you happy on a long car ride, and you demanded to hear it over and over again for days, even preferring it to an actual book. You will tell us stories, narrating your version of favorite fairy tales and movies. You also like to take characters from your favorite stories and movies and make up completely new tales about them.

You like the tv a little too much, and we've gone back to keeping you mostly watching educational shows. We rent "Signing Time" from the library (and I'm taking an ASL course at the college), and you are soaking up signs as quickly as you see them. You are eager to show me what you know, to learn more, and to help your brother learn. You learned the ASL alphabet in one sitting. We've also been watching your Leap Frog Letter Factory and Leap Frog Talking Words Factory. You remembered everything from watching them months ago and now you're starting to read.

Quentin, at not quite 4-years-old, you are consistently reading simple words. We bought you "Bob Books," Set 1, and you can read every word. You sound out each letter most of the time, and then blend those letters into a word. Sometimes you try too hard to guess and get the word completely wrong, so eager are you to know the tale. You are even starting to remember the words you read and to be able to narrate the short sentence back after sounding out each individual word.

   

We've had you in park district classes this season, and you had a lot of fun doing gymnastics and art. Your favorite class, though, is preschool life science. You've learned about everything from sound and light waves to the inner workings of the human body and you love it. Lately you've asked question after question about dinosaurs - when they lived, what they ate, and most importantly, how they became extinct. You want to know when, why, and how, and where people were when it happened. So far we're going with the asteroid theory, since it's pretty straightforward.

Finally, you've been taking piano classes for almost two months now. Your teachers are amazed with you, your ability to concentrate (tempered with the energy of a 3-year-old), your fine motor skills, and of course, your ability to read letters and numbers. You are currently working with "My First Piano Adventure"You're learning all about forte and piano, long and short, high and low. You can find "middle C" on any piano or keyboard without much trouble, and you're great at finding sets of two and three black keys. You teacher and I are also impressed with your ability to mimic what we do on the keys.

Quentin, you try my patience, each and every day. But you are an amazing little boy and I love you intensely, passionately even. I whisper to you while you sleep, trying to implant in your subconscious the words I tell you at least five times every day. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. Don't forget it.

Love,
Mama