I now have a 4 year old

I can’t believe I’m writing this, but Squidge is now 4 years old. Where have the last 4 years gone? It’s funny, I’ve been fine at him turning different ages, not emotional, just excited for him, but this time I’ve found it quite tough. The difference in his development from age 3-4 has been incredible, and much more noticeable compared to previous years. He’s transformed from a toddler who no one other than me and a couple of others can understand, to a smart, funny, silly, loving little boy.

He still wants lots of mummy cuddles, and tells me he loves me 100 times a day (I never tire hearing that), but I can now see that he’s relying less on us as he’s able to do more for himself. I think what has made it more emotional is knowing we’re not having any more children, we decided to stop at two for lots of reasons – we’d need to buy a bigger house, new cars, I’d be 40 by then which brings its own risks, and we want to be grateful for what we have – two wonderful healthy smart little boys. But emotionally, I’m not done. I would love to have another, but it’s not on the cards.

Anyway, back to Squidge. This last year we’ve seen him become a lovely thoughtful big brother (ok, it’s not all rainbows and lollipops, he can get very angry with his little brother and too rough, but for the most part he’s great with him), his speech has come on leaps and bounds, he’s learning a second language (Welsh) and doing very well with it, he’s started gymnastics classes, he’s progressed so much with swimming classes that he now doesn’t need anyone to go in the pool with him! You just never know when these last times are going to happen do you?

He’s always been a pretty good sleeper, with the exception of the odd night terror (usually around 10:45pm) – he still gets those, but they only happen maybe once a month, whereas they used to be a couple times a week. He typically wakes up happy, the only exception to that is when we have to wake him up really early in the week for School and he’s still very tired. We physically can’t get him to bed any earlier than we do in the week, we’re not home until about 6pm (sometimes later), and the kids bedtime is 7:30 (they often don’t finish eating until 7:20).

He loves playing with his toy cars, especially now that he's had an influx of new ones for his birthday (thanks to all his friends), he's getting into Lego too. One thing I'm having trouble convincing him to do is crafts - he used to love it when he was younger - getting card out and doing some painting or sticking, but he's just not interested any more. He prefers to play on the Xbox (car driving games) or iPad (Sago mini games) although to be fair he's spending less time on them now too - doesn't go on them every day etc.

He's just growing up so incredibly fast I can't keep up. Anyway, hubby is snoring behind me, I'd better go and do the washing up/express/make lunch for tomorrow :) 

Did you find it emotional when your little ones turned 4? Any tips on coping with stopping having babies when you want more?

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