I Want to be Four
This morning my daughter slept until 8:00, which is a luxury I never really get to indulge in since my son usually wakes up around 5:00. I checked on her around 7:30 and saw how comfortable she was snoozing under her covers, and that’s when it hit me: I was jealous of her. I wanted to be sleeping soundly instead of folding clothes while my son practiced his death-defying leaps off the laundry basket. I wanted to wake up to a hot breakfast that I had nothing to do with preparing because it was made while I was still snoozing.
It was a fleeting thought, of course, because I do still remember how frustrating it sometimes was to be a young child. I remember not liking having my day planned out for me by someone else. I didn’t like my parents telling me what to eat, what chores to do, and I didn’t like not knowing how to do things for myself. I distinctly remember being awfully frustrated because I couldn’t tie my own shoes.
In other words, being four years old isn’t all glitz, glamor, and sleeping in until 8:00. She’s hard at work learning about the world around her and rapidly expanding her extensive repertoire of abilities and knowledge. She probably gets more frustrated throughout the course of the day than I do, but I just don’t realize it because she doesn’t admit it. So when it boils down to it, I guess she deserves to sleep in occasionally while I’m busy doing chores and entertaining her early-rising brother. After all, she has a lot on her mind, and sometimes a little extra sleep is just the thing to recharge.
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