Austin, 4.25

“That’s a distraction!”

“Where did you learn that word?” Hayden asked.

“Mrs Keeno told me.” (his pre-K 3 teacher’s helper)

“Good use of vocabulary, Austin.”

*looks proud*

At 4 years and 3 months, Austin is a full-on little boy. He is loving school. Each day he reveals the artwork from his day: lots of rainbow drawings (proudly using both sides of the paper), some writing (he can write his name and the names of most of his classmates - Robert, Hope, Eli, Avah, Nora, Isla etc) and his latest color by number coded drawings.

He LOVES baseball and is currently favoring the Yankees over the Nats. He doesn’t even pretend that it is for any other reason than because they win a lot. Austin is super competitive. We recently entered him into a “fun run” and he was actually nervous about winning. Even with lots of “winning isn’t everything” pep talks from us. As I am a professional worrier, it’s hard not to see this as a foreshadow for his competitive sports game experience in the years to come.

Hayden seems to be constantly surprised that Austin is not shy. He is not. Anyone close to his age is an automatic invitation to engage. Even with adults he feels he can carry a conversation and funnily enough he can. I think people like him, because he is one of the few four year olds they come across who can hold a coherent back and forth, linear conversation on the weather, botany, baseball, etc...

For example, I wrote the above paragraph before receiving the following email from my dog walker, Angelique today:

"I just wanted to tell you that Austin is hilarious. I just walked Jeeter, and when I entered he says "I was wondering when you were going to get here."

There was another day he told me he had to put up with a lot of nonsense. 

When he's home, he puts a smile on the day. :) "

This morning we had his final parent teacher conference of the year and it went as expected: in conclusion, Austin is doing really well! He loves learning and his teacher, Mrs. Mukendi, expressed true shock at how advanced he is for his age. He wants to learn, he wants to write and he is trying to read. We could not have had a better year at Miner Elementary School.

As I write this glowing report, I think of how many times I yelled at him this week. He is not perfect and we are not perfect parents. He runs out of fuel quickly and when he does, it’s batten down the hatches! He gets super hangry. And I’m often tired after a long day and don’t exactly shine my best either at 9:15pm when he is showing no signs of sleep.

Alas, ‘tis but a wrinkle in an otherwise perfect little boy. He is truly amazing, beautiful and we are so blessed.