5 Years Old

 

 
Our baby boy is 5 years old, which seems absolutely impossible.  Every day, week and month passes faster than the last, and now we have a bright, funny, silly, and sweet 5 year old kid in our family. 

When he woke up the morning of his birthday, one of the first things he said was "Am I going to Kindergarten???" followed by "I don't WANT my teeth to fall out!" (Both things we told him would happen when he was 5).  So funny what kids hang on to!

Recently, Greg and I have been noticing more and more aspects of his personality that we recognize will likely be part of his personality forever.  For example, I'm pretty sure we have a little Type A child on our hands.  Ben is happiest when he can organize his thoughts and his activities into some sort of order that makes sense to him.  What activities are happening on what day, what order we are going to do things, and what he can expect in the future are very important to him.  He definitely gets this from me, so I'm very happy to oblige!  I need to incorporate more charts and calendars and lists into his life because I know he would absolutely LOVE having a visual for what he can expect to happen.

One example of this is that he only likes to be in his jammies when it's bed time and NO earlier - he will check to see if it's getting dark before he allows jammies.  And once he is in his jammies, he will check to make sure that everyone else is in theirs.  Same thing for being in his "dressed" in the mornings.  

He cracks us up with his preference for the color pink at the moment.  He requested pink balloons and a pink cupcake on his birthday.  At the doctor this morning he chose a Snow White sticker over the Ninja Turtles.  And then in equal measures he loves his car toys. And I just love that he likes what he likes and hasn't yet been influenced by anybody to think these choices should be any different.


This year has been such a big one for him.  He has learned to read and is starting to learn simple math at school.  He has done soccer, flag football, martial arts and is now enrolled in swimming lessons - something he absolutely HATES but I told him he needs to continue until he feels more comfortable in the water.  I'm noticing slow and steady progress so I have hope!  He also has become great at golf and Greg enjoys taking him out to play 9 as often as they are able to.

We have traveled to Hawaii, to Idaho, and to Disneyland this past year with him - and Ben is such an amazing travel buddy!  He has added a 4th day at school and loves it there so much.  He has made so many friends and loves telling us all about his day when he gets home.

This past weekend we celebrated with a big birthday bash at our house!  I reluctantly invited ALL of his classmates (as this is generally what is done in this class) along with all of our friends outside school.  I knew this might be testing the limits in terms of capacity at our house, but luckily - it could not have worked out better!  We rented a bouncy house that took up 1/2 of our backyard and was soooooooooooo much fun.

 

 

We bought Ben a cool light up Flo's Cafe (from Cars) and gave it to him the night before his birthday.  We've been keeping the Disney theme going strong around here :)

 

We love our 5 year old so much and cannot wait to see what this year brings!