James is 4!

This picture pretty much sums up James' feelings about his birthday: excited, in charge, and oh-so-delighted about presents.

Happy Birthday, James! There's so much I think and feel and hope about you these days that it won't fit into a single blog post. Heck, it won't even come out straight when I try to put it to words. Let's try to keep it simple, then.

This was the day I first saw you with my own eyes:

This is the first time Alice and Robert ever saw you, too. 

This was the second day I knew you. You were much happier. You still look at me this way sometimes.

You did the funniest thing to our family. Suddenly, I felt like we were full and busy and more whole than ever before. When you got old enough to sit and crawl and interact with us, I just wanted to group us all together and take pictures all the time. It was almost like I couldn't believe I was surrounded by so many people that I loved so profoundly, and who brought me so much life.

Here you are just after you turned 1 year old:

 
And here's a picture of you when you were 2 years old:

That's a face I know and love SO well. Like this one when you were just barely 3:

This morning, you turned 4 years old. You had a nightmare and hopped into bed next to me. I love how you trust me. I love that I can comfort you when you're scared. I love that you tell me important things, especially when it's a really scary dream about losing your silly putty down a grassy ravine.

I kicked you out of my bed this morning, but I let you sleep on the floor in my room. With that single feat, you, dear James, have officially slept longer and more often in your parents' room than any of your siblings.

You are your own person, Little Man.

You have a knack for reading people's moods, and a gift for blurring the line between play and aggression. Your older siblings like to run your life and you like to show them they can't. You've matured a lot this year, though, discovering more ways to interact with kids cooperatively.

Posing by your bday cake that you had decorated with rainbow sprinkles and candy eyeballs.

This is how you paint these days...mixing colors, no real rhyme or reason to it, just seeing what happens.

This is how you prefer to color: focused, deliberate pockets of color. Absolute attention to staying within the lines, very little mixing of colors. You seem content to use one color or many, depending on what's at-hand.

And this is how you draw people and write your name. The people are carefully drawn, slowly, with just the right amount of detail you prefer. Your name is a little different every time you write it...that "s" just throws you for a loop.

And just last week, you came home from church absolutely bursting with pride at this giraffe you had drawn. I was pretty impressed, too.

Happy Birthday, dear Jamesey. I love you fiercely. Here's hoping for yet another year of growth and discovery!