Happy 4th Birthday Sean!

Today is Sean's 4th birthday! He was born by c-section 4 years ago at 12:02 PM! I have no idea how he turned into a 4 year old that is going to pre-school. He is such a fun kid with a wonderful inquisitive and out going personality. Sean loves to laugh and to make others laugh - I see a future class clown in him! He has a kind heart and readily shares with others - even his brother or when no one will share with him. He loves his hugs and kisses but only on his terms! He goes at life full speed ahead but also crashes hard when he gets tired. Sean is an optimist and always sees the positive side of things. We say that he goes beyond marching to a different drummer - there is a tuba playing his beat! He doesn't care what others think of him and is happy to just be Sean. I hope he never grows out of that! He has proven this many times - especially by being the only kid wearing rain boots for about 8 months straight. He started with a yellow pair in November of 2006 and has worn out them, a red pair and now a blue pair with sharks that are in need of a replacement!

The only time he is really grumpy is when he is either tired or hungry - and really bad when it is both! He loves to scream - when happy, mad or sad! This screaming started when he was about 6 months old! He used to sit around and scream just to hear his voice. His father thought it was funny to throw soft toys at him when he screamed to make him stop! He would laugh and laugh at the stuffed toys! Brian Sr. had to stop this when Brian Jr. decide to copy his Dad and start throwing things at Sean too -and not always soft things! Sean loves to eat and many times is the first one finished at meals. One time he even when bite for bite with his Dad while eating hamburgers - we were amazed. He now has to have the big kid happy meals like Brian! His favorite foods right now are hamburgers, fries, pickles, blueberries, strawberries, bananas, PB&J and ham!

Sean is still attached to his "blankie" - he puts it up to his face and says he loves to smell it. Blankie was "stolen" from a little girl I used to babysit when Sean was about 9 months old. It used to be a pretty yellow color with jungle animals on one side. I am sad to say that even after many washings that blankie is a dull grayish-yellow now! He is a great big brother and even shares Blankie with Justin for short periods of time!

I think he is going to have a real knack for math. Sean does a great job counting and even has the one-to-one counting of objects. And he can tell you how many items there are without having to point and count - up to about 5 or 6 items he takes one glance and can tell you the correct number. This just amazes me. He was funny the other day and said, "Brian is the biggest brother and Justin is the littlest brother - so I am the medium brother!"

Sean loves to play outside - he is a real rough and tumble boy and loves to get dirty. I tell people that he is a cross between Linus (blankie) and Pig Pen (always dirty) from Peanuts. Inside he loves to play with cars, animals- especially his hippos, trains (Thomas and Geo-Trax) and marble runs!

Over the past year he has - 1) been potty trained, 2) become a big brother, 3) learned to ride a bike well (with training wheels), 4) gone to vacation bible school by himself and 5) grown bigger - he wears a size 12 shoe, weighs about 41lbs and is about 44 1/2 in tall! He has his well visit tomorrow so we will see how close our measurements are!