- You spend an anxiety ridden hour with him making brownies that were a bribe to get him to stop asking for cheezies before dinner. He HAD to do everything himself. Including viciously stirring the ingredients even though the recipe said to gently fold them, and spilling half flour everywhere so his sister could enjoy eating handfuls of it. He then eats two bites of the brownie and goes to play with his trains.
- It's 1000 degrees outside, but since you suggested he wear shorts to daycare, he wants to wear black sweatpants.
- You lovingly pack his little lunch every day, making sure to include something from every food group and a special little treat. He comes home with over half of it uneaten. Every. Day. When you ask him why he doesn't eat his lunch at daycare, he says it’s because he wants to eat it at home. Right before dinner. So he barely eats any dinner. Then he insists he needs a bedtime snack because he's starving. Every. Day.
- He wants to search for the Hungry Hippo game someone gave us, probably as a gag gift, because he saw it on a YouTube show he was watching. You follow him downstairs to help search for it (even though you know you threw it out a few months ago). Then he stops in the middle of the playroom and says, "Now, where's that f$%*&ing Hippo game?”. No idea where he learned that...
- He gives his little sister a morning hug, a bed time hug, and any other amount of hugs she will tolerate every day. He tells her he doesn't want to go to daycare either but Mommy and Daddy have to go to work. He wants to be the first person she comes to for a loving squeeze when she gets hurt. He will actually cry when she doesn't want to hug him.
- He has been potty trained for 4 months but will still call Mommy and Daddy in, when it's a number two, to look at the finished product in the toilet before he will flush it.
- All the threats that previously worked to get him to do things, don't work anymore. In fact, he is now threatening you, saying you are not his best Mommy anymore, and he will throw his sister in the garbage if you aren't letting him do what he wants.
- He asks if you still love him when he gets in trouble. He promises to eat all of his dinner from now on, even if he tastes it first and it's yucky. He says he never wants to move into his own house when he's an adult... then changes his mind and says he will move to his own house but Mommy and Daddy can come visit, we just can't stay for very long.
- He's convinced that he had parents before you because you used to be little kids too. No amount of explaining that he wasn't born when we were kids will change his mind.
- The amount of things he's learned in just the past year seems like more than you've learned in your entire life. You are so proud of him your heart could possibly burst at any moment.
Raising kids is an adventure to say the least. They always manages to come up with new and exciting ways to really push our buttons, surprise us and melt our hearts every single day. These are just some examples which, if you can relate, must mean you also have (or have had) a four year old too.
The list is actually endless - but these are my top 10 from recent memory. Every day brings something new and I really wouldn't change a thing!