Our boy is FOUR YEARS OLD today.

Sheesh. That sure went fast.

Funny enough, before Sam came home ... a 13-week-old at the time ... Mark talked about how he looked forward to him being four. Something about the age sounded somehow magical to him, and conjured visions of fishing trips and man-to-man conversations ... or something like man-to-man.

I warned him at the time just how fast this would happen, but being that Sam was the first baby he'd paid much attention to, he had no idea of the time-warp-envelope children inhabit, or how slippery the growing-up slope actually is.

Sam has been as excited as a flea discovering overweight Great Danes for the past two days, so for a bit of peace today in the run-up to his party this evening, we let him open one present this morning. It's all almost too much for him.

Gay stopped by with more gifts and let him open another one. He's been watching the new copy of "Babe" she gave him back-to-back ever since. (Thankfully it's a movie I like!)

There will be more photos tomorrow of the festivities, and a report on how he takes it.

I'm guessing by about ... what? ... Monday he'll start talking about getting the Christmas tree ready.

Of course, next time I finish a good blink, that will be over, too, and his 5th birthday will be nearing.

This old world really needs to slow down a bit. Any ideas on how to get it to do that?