Sunday, July 13, 2014

IJ is 5 years old!

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7.6.14

IJ is now about 38 pounds and 41 inches tall.  He is still wearing mostly 4t clothes and size 10 shoes.  His favorite colors are blue and orchid, a change from his original fave, green.  IJ loves music.  His favorite CD for the car is the Chorus Line sound track (which I skip a few songs of).  His favorite toys are his legos and they are only toy he spends regular, significant, alone time with.  Outside he likes his scooter, bike and digging.  For his 5th birthday we moved him up from his 12" bike to a 20" bike.  He is just as good at riding it but due to his stature struggles with starting and stopping a bit.

IJ's coloring and drawing skills have improved and he is also reading now.  We borrowed a friend's simple 3 letter word books at the beginning of summer and he blew through them.  They helped with his confidence and he will now read along in our regular books and sound out more words.  We are practicing daily this summer.

IJ had a great year in pre-K and a real graduation ceremony at the end of May.  He loved his teachers and loved to learn.  I think he's a bit bored this summer without it.  He is in swim lessons and soccer for most of the summer and we have a few play dates but otherwise it's just me and his sister.  He is doing well in swim lessons and is able to dive down for toys and swim but needs a bit more work to propel himself forward faster.  He improves quickly and still has 5 weeks of lessons so he should be quite good by summer end.  He is in his 4th season of once a week soccer practices and has improved a lot, understands more of the concepts and enjoys it.

IJ will be starting Kindergarten at the end of August.  He is excited and I'm nervous.  We applied for the school's dual language program and IJ got in, on sheer luck.  There are 7 Kinder classes at his school and 1 is dual language.  80% of instruction will be in Spanish and half the class are native Spanish speakers.  Most of those students speak English and Spanish but students who do not know English are put in this class as well.  These kids will be together through 5th grade.

IJ had his second road trip to Florida to visit Grandma and Grandpa this summer and he traveled quite well again.  This time we had a little family birthday party for him on July 4th.  We drove home the day before his actual birthday in time to finish his new room, his big birthday gift.  NJ build him a bed and he's now in a twin size and off his crib mattress for the first time in his life.  He has an outdoor/bike themed room now.

We're having a lot of trouble with IJ hurting his sister this summer.  It seems every time I leave the room or stop directing the play/entertainment he hurts her.  He needs constant attention and direction to follow our rules.  Keeping him busy and active works best but is not always possible.

IJ is a great sleeper.  He sleeps from about 7:30 pm till 6:30-7:00 am.  He is finally, consistently waking, taking himself to the bathroom and going back to his room to play quietly in the morning.  He is getting more and more picky with his eating but he's only given healthy choices.  He just had his first ever lollipop (natural/organic) on the drive home from Florida and was shocked he was having candy.

IJ had his second dentist visit and everything looked great.  They were again amazed at his cooperation.  He still has a few compulsions such as touching his nose when he needs to be patient or is zoned out like watching TV and smelling things, like his sister's hair or his pillow.  He's had 4 colds in the last 6 months.  One of which progressed to a bad cough and then fluid in the ears or an ear infection evidenced by his waking up and crying and complaining of ear pain.  Luckily a couple days later he was feeling better.  He's had zero doctor visits in the entire last year.

Here's his 5th year at a glance.  See last year here.
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Here are the pics from all his birthdays.
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1 comment:

Mikey P said...

That was not "sheer luck"!! He's brilliant and that's why he got in!