Wacky. Weird. Wonderful.

Dear Hagen, 

Here are some things you're into these days:

1) Avoiding social gatherings of more than three people. 

Chaos is not your bag. A few weeks ago, Laney had some shrieky girlfriends over to play, so you built a wall of pillows around yourself on the couch and burrowed down with an iPad and waited for those crazy girls to go the heck home. 

We had a play date over here with some fun siblings not too long ago, and you played with the boy for about an hour and then said, "Well, this was fun. I need some alone time now." And went in your room and shut the door. It reminded me of those classic stories of Dean Martin throwing a party at his house in Beverly Hills, then calling the cops on himself to break it up so he could go to bed. 

2) Instructional videos.

Your favorite thing to watch these days is not a show, but YouTube "unboxed" videos. I didn't even know such things existed until you found them online and started watching them semi-religiously. An "unboxed" video is footage of someone - usually a toy reviewer, but sometimes another kid - opening the box of a brand new toy and talking through the pieces that come with it, how the toy works, the pros and cons, etc. Turns out you love talking specs. 

3) Finley. Still and forever.

Finley came by the other morning for the carpool to school wearing a frog towel. You looked at him for a split second and said, "I'll go get my duck towel and we can go." Because it's totally reasonable that if your friend is an aquatic creature, you are, too. 

I bought y'all matching fire rescue packs and you spent hours together, just squirting water off the porch. 

4) Avoiding physical activity. 

Your teacher Ms Correy sends me pictures of you at recess, and while everyone else is running and playing tag, you're chilling in a tunnel. 

We got you on a scooter the other day, but you said it was only fun if Dad pulled you through the neighborhood. 

You can be talked into walking through the woods if we don't call it a hike, and you get to stop every ten feet to talk about Transformers. You maintain a 0.25 mph pace. 

5) Talking. Dear God at the talking. 

This is a picture of you playing Pictionary. You and your dad were a team, and you narrated every single thing you drew as you drew it.

(P.S. Laney and I still won.)

6) A wolf-inspired system of eating.

You can go two full days without eating anything, and then devour enough food to make an NFL player blush. I used to worry about it, but then your dad explained to me that this is what wolves do...go long stretches without eating as they prowl the tundra and then, you know, bring down an elk.

Or in your case: Two full kid's meals from Outback Steakhouse and an ice cream sundae.

7) Flirting. 

I know it's a crazy thing to accuse a 4 year-old of, but holy smokes do you come alive for older women. This happened a few weeks ago:

Cracker Barrel Waitress: "Hi, I'm Betty."

Hagen: "Hi, I'm a Hagen. A Hagen Burbach. But you can call me Hagey-Bagey."

Me: "Please don't call him Hagey-Bagey."

All the women in the various service industries of Missoula want to eat you up with a spoon.

8) Outerwear

If you take a hat or rain coat to school, you want to wear it ALL DAY. And then possibly sleep in it at night. 

Ms. Correy sent me this picture of you at school earlier this week, and I love everything about it. Correy has an ancient lab named Saint who comes to school every day. Sometimes he wants to hang out on your work mat, and it doesn't bother you a bit. 

"Saint" was definitely the right name for that dog, because she also sent me this video clip of ten seconds in the life of Saint:

9) Being fiendishly clever.

Your dad and I have been in the process of converting our side utility porch into a pantry. It was finally time to get the thing painted last weekend, so I told you and Laney (and her visiting friend Amya) that you could help paint. The girls were enthusiastic for the first ten minutes, then abandoned the project for something more fun. 

I came back to the pantry after a break, and found you still in there, painting away. I asked you, "What's going on? What happened to the girls?"

"Well," you explained, "I'm painting, and they're ain'ting."

Ain'ting is my new favorite verb.

Later in the afternoon, I came back from a potty break and discovered you were gone...but so was my little tub of paint. I found you out in the yard, painting the exterior of the house that squash yellow. "I'm just so sick of this dark green," you complained. 

Man are you fun these days. 

Love,

Mom