Happy Birthday Sam!

Sam, it is your 5th birthday today. You have been asking how many days until your birthday for about two months now. Well, it is finally here buddy. You headed off to preschool today with treats in hand to share with your classmates and a goose egg on your forehead from running square into a cement pole at Sam's club last night and a gash on your arm from the fall you took the night before while walking into Chick-Fil-A. Honestly though, this is exactly how I would have pictured you walking into school today. This is just who you are. You are extreme but you are spectacular and fun.
When you are excited about something, you get really excited and want to share it with others so that they will experience that same joy. Unfortunately, there are many times that others do not seem to have the same appreciation for things as you do which then breaks your heart. You often cry loudly shouting something like, "You hate me!" or "Then I will just never play with you ever again!". Because you live in a world of extremes, it is kind of hard to know when you are faking it, a little sad, really sad, or when your heart is broken. You have always been able to cry big crocodile tears with really little effort. (Maybe acting is in your future.)
You get angry from time to time and when you get angry, you get really angry. Most the time you just growl and scrunch your face up but you have been known on more than a few occasions to run after a brother or two and pummel them in the head.
You play hard. You rarely walk anywhere. At this moment your front teeth are both chipped and dead, you have a massive wound on your arm, knot of your forehead, knot on the side of your head (Monday at preschool), and red scar on your peenie (somehow you fell off the toilet about nine months ago and the toilet lid got ya).
You ooze love. You are my hugger and always have been. You're the snuggler. I don't think you left my lap until after you turned 3 and that was only because Isaac arrived and kind of took that spot. I am not sure you liked him enough at first to share the space;)
Sam, you are a wildly emotional child but you are a delight. I always know how you feel. Sometimes that is frustrating and requires me to work harder as a mommy but most of the time, it is just plain amusing. You are a funny kid. I NEVER know what you will say. In the past year you have told our carpooling friend that her car smelled bad, a good family friend that he was a "little bald", another good family friend that she drove like your grandma, and another carpooling friend that you knew I was a secret agent because I have a secret compartment where I put my sunglasses:) I can count on a good laugh or red face from you almost every single day.
So thank you Sam. Thank you for keeping me humble and in regular conversation with God. Thank you for bringing such joy to our family. Thank you for coming to me in the middle of the night when you are scared and actually believing that I, little ole mommy, can keep you safe from the scary guys. Thank you for being my little buddy!
Happy Birthday buddy! We love you.
PS - A couple of other little Sam notes from the past year:
-You only eat peanut butter sandwiches because, although you like jelly, you don't like getting your hands sticky.
-You won't drink milk out of one of the cups in our cabinet because the duck on it has a dirty face. For that matter, every time you finish eating, you ask if you have anything on your face. You also get grossed out if Ike is sitting next to you with a dirty face. I mean like you make gagging sounds and everything:).
-You take forever to go to the bathroom, especially in public restrooms, and you will talk about anything and everything while you sit and we wait.
-You told me the other day that it was my fault that you need to play Indiana Jones on the Wii all of the time. If I had not bought it for you, then you wouldn't have to play it so much.
-You are an awesome reader and you have been for several months now. Good job buddy!
-You always take your shoes off and place them right in the entry way. This doesn't sound like much but I can't get any of the other people in my house to do this.
-You started swimming like a fish this summer. You ditched the life jacket and love the freedom! Yea!
-You were frustrated the other day because you were struggling with something on the Wii. When I tried to help, I myself had a couple of failures so you said, "Now you feel my pain."
-You love to tell jokes right now. You love it so much that you are willing to tell the same one over and over to the same person over and over just in hopes of getting a few more laughs.
-You don't really like girls right now. You say that they "make you nervous". That's ok with me though. You made sure to clarify that it was only "wittle girls not big ones like me";)
-You were obsessed with Ninja Turtles for most of the past year which is why there are so many pictures of you with swords. You were a Ninja Turtle:) Then you moved onto an Indiana Jones obsession. You carried your woven belt around because mommy was too cheap to buy you a whip. Now you love Batman. You have a mask and Batman boomerang. Just wait until you see what you are getting for your birthday:)