FIVE!

  Here’s all the stuff M and E have been up to in 2017 as four year olds and the first month of five. I read over the Four post and a lot of their behaviors and stuff is still the same.

These boys are kids now. Not toddlers or little preschoolers anymore. They have lost all baby talk and sound like real little kids now. They still have sweet little boy voices, though, especially M. They say “drawl” for “draw” and E still says “helicoffter”. They love saying “actually” and doing that little head shake that 4 and 5 year olds do. They still have big chubby cheeks too. Here’s them getting to work like mama and daddy. 🙂

They are such kids in other ways. “This is boring” is a frequent sentence heard in our house. They think it’s hilarious to copy everything we say. They shorten words like little millenials! Breakfast foods mostly: oatmeal=oat; cheerios=cheer; pancakes=pank; french toast=french. 🙂

They’ve been in full time daycare/preschool a little more than a year now and it’s going well. In September they moved up to the 5s class, advanced pre-k. Their learning has started to expand so much. Their unsavory vocabulary has also increased, thanks to the older after-school kids. Grrrr.

They can write their names, they can write all the letters and numbers, they can write if you dictate to them. For awhile M drew his name with a backwards C. E doesn’t always write his letters all in the right order. They’re pretty good at trying to spell out words, except for vowels, which are always so tricky.

They can also do math! They can do very simple addition on their own and some of it they’ve seemed to memorize, like two plus two and three plus three. They can also mentally subtract. Just this morning I was doing a “spot the difference” with E, and there were six differences. We found some; he counted four and then said, “Only two more!” I am not super familiar with all the age milestones but I feel like that kind of two-step mental math is pretty impressive at this age.

Behavior wise, they are definitely five year olds. They get very hangry at the end of the day when I pick them up from daycare. There is FREQUENT and annoying whining. Here is a mean-mama photo I took of E: We were at the ICE CREAM SHOP and he had a tantrum because his ICE CREAM was in a cup not a cone.

They love crafts. They draw people now! It is so adorable! They also like making necklaces with pipecleaners and plastic beads, making bracelets with those tiny rubber bands (which are every-damn-where all over the house), drawing with markers, coloring, cutting paper into “tickets” (tiny squares) or snowflakes.

For extra-curricular activities, we put them in gymnastics for another term, which was wonderful. The teacher is SO patient and kind, and added new skills each class. And then we finally put them in a swim class for the late fall! We’ve been meaning to for, um, years now, but the Saturday morning classes fill up instantly. This time we decided to try a weekday evening class, which means we had to go straight from daycare. It actually worked pretty well. The boys loved it! That teacher was also fantastic–super patient, loved playing lots of little games with them.

Big travel year: Another visit to Washington DC this spring! We got to spend four days with A’s parents in Virginia and then two days in DC. This age was great, because they could understand so much and communicate so well. Plus they were so excited for everything, and that made it so much fun for us.

We did our yearly coast overnight trip to Astoria in September. It was our first time there, and it was great! (Except that the entire gorge had just caught fire, and the smoke rolled all the way out to the coast and made the sky awful.)

They continued to be scooter speedsters this year, racing down hills with confidence. They got bikes during Grandma and Grandpa’s visit in October and man were they excited! They ride well and definitely still need training wheels.

They’ve grown a lot. They still haven’t gained a ton of weight though; E has weighed 39 pounds and M is about 41/42 pounds forever. They’re in 5T clothes and size 11 shoes. Their feet don’t seem to grow very fast, and they wear out the velcro on their shoes faster than they outgrow the shoes themselves, which is annoying.

M has become an expert on the monkeybars this year! He has conquered all three sets at our local school playground. E finally learned how to really do the monkeybars while we were in Astoria.

Our house is officially de-babied! I took down the last baby gate in front of the stairs early this year. And we finally got big kid beds this spring! I can’t believe we kept them in their crib toddler beds for so long. They started wanting us to lay down with them, so we had to contort and fold ourselves, and it was super uncomfortable. One day I was like, I’m over this! and made the beds happen that weekend. I found these cute twin beds/bunkbeds on craigslist and we got awesome new mattresses and bedding at IKEA. They also slept in real beds at the hotel this summer and while visiting grandparents!

This summer they went through a huge phase of Ode to Joy. They would request to watch a certain concert fragment at night before bed, and they came up with their own interpretation of the words:

I can stop and make any venya
Us every morning save the things
Hark then im shoe petals
In California zumfit way ma foss

On TV/Netflix, they really like Paw Patrol, My Little Pony, Spirit. They really liked Magic Schoolbus for awhile too. Curious George occasionally; Daniel Tiger, Little Einsteins and Super Why are no longer of interest.

This summer M declared that he doesn’t come to snuggle in our bed anymore in the mornings. E does most mornings right when their owl clock turns green at 7, and snuggles with Daddy for awhile.

Bedtime is supposed to be 830 (meaning we leave their room around then), and on weekend days when they run around, it works great and they conk out quickly. During the week it’s much harder since they have so much more energy, and we don’t leave their room til 9 or later. Ugh.

Oh man, big news from this summer–they attended summer camp! That was the first time they’ve been in such a brand-new place, with brand-new teachers, and even in a brand-new language! It was at the language-immersion camp where I worked for the summer, so I was close by and got to see them a lot. It was so sweet, seeing their little selves with backpacks and new lunchboxes, starting to learn some Spanish, participating in the field days and stuff. They did really well and I was so proud of them.

The boys play together all the time. Last month I saw them play “Egg” where they both say “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeg” and the first person to finish saying “egg” loses. They make up games with random materials. They love running and racing in the kitchen/living room. They love playing hide and seek. They love playing with Hot Wheels cars. They make forts, they pretend to be monsters, they pretend to be babies, they pretend to be superheroes. They are so creative, and we adore seeing them be fun and creative and interesting *together.*

They’re old enough for lots of puzzles and board games! They love Chutes & Ladders, Paw Patrol, Uno, Ring It, Monopoly Junior Party. M has a hard time losing games though, and will either pout, or quit playing, or start crying loudly if someone else wins. We also subscribed to High Five Magazine, and added on Puzzle Buzz and Hidden Pictures magazines.

They moved up to harness car seats! It’s kind of my favorite because they can buckle themselves into them! Makes daycare pickup AWESOME, especially when it’s cold/windy/rainy–I can just jump into my own seat and they also get into their own seats. (They’re always whining about being hungry while they do that, of course.)

This year they really discovered Legos! They got some real sets for their birthday and really liked putting them together. (So did Daddy!)

The boys’ Halloween costumes were a little random this year, from Costco: a skeleton knight and Superman.

Their 5th birthday party was at the Lego store, Bricks & Minifigs Portland.  The boys and some friends had a great time playing with Legos! And eating snacks and cake. (Adorable and delicious mini cakes by Jam Cakes!)

These kids are growing up so much. They’re still so little but they think they know everything already! And they love learning and knowing things. They are sweet and exasperating and whiny and wonderful.