Dear Jack,

Today you are 42 months old. I want to write to you today about resolutions. Your mom is a serial resolver. It's equal parts restless dissatisfaction and reckless optimism, and at the beginning of each year I'm prone to self-inventory and to-do lists of varying magnitudes. I generally take the "kitchen sink" approach to self-improvement.

Not this year.

At 32, I can fairly well see that most of my successful transformations occur without fanfare, particularly without a title. When I was maybe nine, I decided I would try to stretch a little bit everyday with the assurances that I'd be able to do a split (and be a competitive gymnast, of course). I made it about three days. The first day I forgot, I just stopped. That's just the first time I remember setting an unrealistic goal and failing at it. For all the beautifully pencilled lists I've made, there is a corresponding, ugly disappointment and discouragement when the deadline goes whooshing by.

So this year, I'm giving myself just one resolution: break the cycle. I'm going to stop feeling inadequate, or when that feeling comes, I'll nod my head at it and keep moving.

For you, I think this means you get more of me. I am more present for you. In the few days I've been more mindful of this un-resolution, I've taken fewer pictures, spent less time online or on the phone, and had a lot of fun with you.

We've been playing games lately. You're starting to "get" turn taking, scorekeeping, and losing and winning gracefully. We're still working on that last one, though.

Your fourth Christmas was the most fun! All I could have asked for was your excited face when you saw your gifts, and how you've begun to understand the Christmas story.

Here are some awesome things you've said recently:

After I asked you to wait a minute, you said "But I've already been waiting SO hard!"

You ask constantly Can a ___________ defeat a ____________? It's usually a rhino and a hippo, or a peregrine falcon and a mountain lion, but once it was a hot air balloon and an airbag. You keep me on my toes.

Everything is 65 or 85. You interchange units of measurement randomly. Things are "65 meters round" or "30 pounds tall" or "A quarter mile for hour."

You're also always asking "What's more than ____?" or "What's less than ____?" I have to tell you, for instance, every number that is less than 65. Or more than one. For the latter we've discovered the concept of infinity, or "infimity," which you seem to understand is a very large number, the highest there could possibly be, but certainly not as big as say, 65.

Finally, when you're playing with dinosaurs, or action figures, or anything else for that matter, I hear you narrating under your breath. It's a lot like comic book third-person, "Meanwhile, back at headquarters," or "He leapt in the air and crashed to the ground!" Hilarious.

There are not enough words, or enough combinations of words that can get me close to describing you. You burn hot, my son. You feel things very deeply. You can punish cruelly. You love profoundly. You are so very excitable. It's not easy to parent you, but it is easy to love you. I hope you get the chance to feel this one day.

Love,

Mama

p.s. here's a picture you took: