Finally Four

Jared has been wanting to be four, and has been hounding us about it, for a VERY LONG TIME. He's finally four (as of Saturday, June 7th), and is already asking when he can be six, like Emily. Apparently his plan is to just skip right on past age 5. (If only I could just skip 30 on up and stay 29!! ha!)

Sweet baby Jared arrived 12 days early, which was 8 days earlier than his induction date. Of course, my OBGYN was on vacation that week, so she missed the birth of baby#2 as well. He weighed 8lbs 6oz, and was 20.5 inches long, and he seemed SCRAWNY compared to his sister when she was born (even though she wasn't even a full pound heavier).


After a long battle with anemia, colic for the first 6 weeks, and the discovery he has a benign-ish auto-immune disorder (he has some funky shaped white blood cells, and will probably always have issues with anemia, but his first year wasn't riddled with random high fevers like most babies would be, hence the "benign" term), and a year filled with the sweetest, most content and laid back baby you ever met (after we figured out I needed to eliminate dairy from my diet if I wanted to nurse him and the colic symptoms went away), he turned into this messy little man:


And after he turned one, he turned into a tantrum-throwing, screaming, obnoxious little beast. But he was so darn funny, and talked WELL by 18-20 months old, and could always make us laugh with the goofy things he'd say (and still does!). By the time he was two, he talked so well, people thought he must be closer to three, and he could wheel and deal with the best of them.

Bet you can't guess how old he is here:


And this truck is still one of his very favorites:


He went through a dolly-loving, dress-up stage for awhile (curtesy of his big sister's example and his desire to do anything Emily did!), but quickly discovered something called SUPERMAN, and by the time he was three, he was well and truly obsessed with anything superman, spiderman, batman related (and that falls true a full year later!)


Between ages three and four, he discovered PIRATES, and isn't he just about the cutest darn pirate you ever did see? (this was at his birthday party):


By age four, he's also stopped letting me pick out his clothes, and I've given up even buying him anything unless he's picked it out himself, or he'll just flat out refuse to wear it. I have a whole section of shirts in his closet that have maybe been worn 2-3 times each, and each of those times was under extreme duress. This is the style of clothing he prefers (and he'll dig it out of the laundry basket if I haven't done laundry in a timely enough manner to his liking):


Jared is also my most loving child. I lose count in a day how many random hugs and kisses I get from him each day. When he's not feeling threatened or left out, he's the MOST considerate and kind-hearted little fellow around. He's quick to share most anything with his family, and he's quick to offer up his beloved stuffed animals if someone is hurt or sick. He doesn't believe in his ability to do a lot of things (which we're working on), but he catches on to things soooooo very quickly (he knows all his alphabet letters by sight and I've not ONCE picked up a pack of flashcards with him). I know he struggles being the middle child. He's not the baby, but he's not the oldest, so he carves out his importance in other ways. We're so very proud of him and we love him very much! Even though his birthday post is LATE, it's not the "forgotten middle child sydrome" at play, it was that rear-end ordeal and I hope someday Jared will understand if/when he ever realizes I posted this three days late!

Here he is growing with his bear in pictures: