Wonderful Four Year Olds

I have decided that I would like my twins to stay four years old forever. I have yet to figure out to whom I make this request, but I am working on it. With seven and a half years of parenting experience under my belt, I have come to the conclusion that four years old is the age of pure perfection. Despite my many whining, ranting, and raving posts to the contrary, my youngest children are truly at my absolute favorite age right now.

They are young enough to still believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and fairy dust and magic. They have yet to discover sarcasm, despite living in my house...which just happens to sit at the epicenter of sarcasm. Their favorite cartoons consist of beloved characters like Dora and Diego, The Backyardigans, and Wonder Pets...rather than the shuddersome and borderline creepy Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon their older brother loves. They are fiercely independent, but young enough to still need their mommy to kiss their boo-boos and tuck them in at night. They still ask for hugs and kisses and snuggles. Hello Kitty and Scooby Doo band-aids can heal all wounds in the world they live in. When they are sleeping, they look like celestial creatures delivered directly from heaven above.

They are still captivated and bewitched by the natural world around them. They relish the things that the rest of us have grown too busy and beleaguered to even notice. A yellow leaf twirling in the wind. Ants slowly making their way across the sidewalk. Fat worms wriggling in the dirt, warmed by the summer sun. They can draw, cut, color, and paste for hours on end. They smell amazing when they are freshly bathed and dressed and in their cozy pajamas. Then again, even when they are dirty and sweaty after an entire day of playing outside, I can't get enough of the sweet scent of their little dishwater-blonde heads.

They are old enough to give voice to their hopes and dreams and fears and joys. I can have real conversations with them. Their capacity for talking...Nicholas' lung capacity, in particular...is endless. They have surprisingly sophisticated language to describe their feelings, but often lack the ability to deal with those emotions. They are still prone to angry outbursts, irrational meltdowns, and the occasional tantrum, but those moments are precious to me. It is in those moments that they utter the outrageous and unexpected phrases that make me laugh out loud and provide fodder for my best Facebook status updates.

They giggle incessantly and unabashedly. They laugh those wonderful deep belly laughs that belong only to young children. They are young enough to still find the world an extremely merry place. Merry and enthralling and exciting and fascinating. They want to learn about everything. The whos and wheres and whens and...most importantly...the whys.

They get chocolate pudding up their noses when they eat. They spill milk. Lollipops may as well just be placed right in their hair...cut out the middleman. They manage to be clumsy and exquisitely graceful at the same time. They think everything I say is gospel. They idolize me in a way no one on this entire earth does. Their older brother learned years ago that I am not perfect. Sophie and Nicholas still live under the illusion that I am.

In reality, they are the ones that are perfection personified. My sweet, hilarious, tempestuous, exhaustingly hyper, gentle, affectionate, utterly lovely little four year olds. They exist somewhere on the border between babyhood and childhood.

It really is an amazing place.