Thursday, January 27, 2011

Four

Our firstborn is four years old. Time just keeps marching on.

The great thing about writing a blog is that you can look back. I read what I wrote one year ago, to see if I had expressed the usual amazement at how fast time is flying, and how our boy has changed in the last twelve months. And to my surprise, I realized I could almost cut and paste what I wrote last year. I don't mean that Zach hasn't grown or developed, but it's very obvious that at this age, he is who he is, and that basic personality isn't going to change. Everything is just MORE now.

Some examples:

Zach's love of cars, Pixar and otherwise: cars are still his number one go-to toy. When I get around to posting pictures of his birthday party, you'll notice a familiar theme. His love of Lightning McQueen seems to know no boundaries. :)

The need for speed: Zach would still rather run than walk. And boy, is he getting fast. He loves to look at old videos of himself, and recently we were looking at one taken when he was about 20 months old. Scott and Zach were playing t-ball in the backyard (another thing that hasn't changed); after Zach hit the ball a few feet Scott was encouraging him to run to first base. Four-year-old Zach got a HUGE kick out of watching how slowly he "ran" at that age; Scott was taking those huge exaggerated steps, walking slowly to "chase" him. Now not only can Zach run with an amazing amount of grace compared to that little Zach in the video, he can hit a ball without the assistance of a tee, and hit it far. And now Scott has to put quite a bit more effort into catching him!

Numbers: I think Zach has definitely inherited a fascination for numbers from his father and maternal grandmother. He understands basic addition and subtraction at this point, and is constantly pondering the concept of infinity. I never thought I'd be trying to explain infinity to a preschooler, but Zach likes to know what numbers are bigger than others, and that led to the question: what's the biggest number? One drive home from preschool he spent the entire time asking me which of four numbers was biggest; he'd throw out numbers like 999, 9000, 52, and 28. The last I heard him count, he can make it up to 109 (for him, 200 comes next). He's starting to understand that 59 is a smaller number than 72; previously he would focus on the second number rather than the first (ie 9 is bigger than 2 so 59 must be bigger than 72). For someone who isn't all that fond of math, it's been very interesting for me to watch his brain work!

But of course, he has changed in some ways since last year. Becoming a big brother was definitely a big change, but one he adapted to amazingly well. I still get tears in my eyes at times watching my two boys play together. Charlie finds his big brother absolutely fascinating, and I'm often surprised how interested Zach is and always has been in Charlie. And now he's turning into another parent; he speaks to Charlie in the same voice we do, trying to teach him the signs for more or eat. Once I overheard him say "Charlie, we really need to cut your nails!" and the other day he explained to Scott that it was ok to give Charlie lots of cheerios at once now, giving his dad the same explanation I'd given him earlier that day.

My other favorite change is Zach's new ability to read. He has always loved when we've read to him, and I've tried really hard not to push him on learning to read himself - I didn't want reading to become a chore, something he HAD to do. Basically I want him to love to bury himself in a book as much as I do. And he does! He's always been interested in letters, and we've been working on some basic phonics with him when he's interested. But now his memory has clearly taken over - he can recognize an amazing amount of words. He also uses the context of the book - the pictures, etc, to figure out what he's reading. Now everywhere we go he's trying to read the signs, so proud of himself when he can tell us what it says!

We've been skipping naps occasionally the last couple of months, replacing them with "quiet time" in his room. And I can't tell you how much it makes me smile when I go up and find him happily sitting in his chair, poring over a book, his little fingers pointing to the words as he reads them. And I have to hide my smile the times I have to go up to tell him he's being too loud when he's reading his books with the appropriate amount of enthusiasm (he loves Mo Willem's Piggie & Gerald books, which contain a lot of exclamations). To me, learning to read is as exciting as when he learned to walk - there's a whole new world out there waiting for him to explore!

Related to reading is writing - another skill Zach is acquiring. He's been writing his name for a while, but working on a letter a day at preschool has really accelerated his abilities. And since he's so interested in reading words, that has translated into being able to write those same words. It's so fun to see.

Zach has also become more interested in the calendar, now that he has a good grasp of the months of the year and days of the week. So now he likes to say things like "What day in June will we go to lake Elmo?" or "How about I take a nap on Monday and Friday?" He's become a planner. :)

Other than playing cars, Zach LOVES to play the Wii (so we, like many parents, are trying to find the right balance of "screen time"). He started out loving the bowling and golf on Wii Sports, but his new favorites are beach volleyball and snowboard cross (downhill snowboard races). Watching him with the Wii just emphasizes what we already know, that technology is going to be a HUGE part of his childhood and the rest of his life. He had absolutely no problem figuring out how to maneuver through the menus, which is done using the remote control like a mouse.

But the part about the Wii that makes me smile the most is his absolute absorption into the "people" of the Wii games. The games come loaded with opponents, who all look different, have names, and in some cases, different strengths. When Zach plays, he's mostly interested in WHO he is playing... is it Flores? LeBron? Ashley? He knows them all - and there are lots of them!

Another favorite activity for Zach is any type of game. He still loves Uno, but lately has shown a lot of interest in checkers. He tried it a few months ago, and at that point just loved the idea of jumping and taking someone else's checkers - he didn't care if you got to jump him as a result. But now he's starting to get the strategy, the idea of trying to plan what your opponent might do. He also loves to do mazes. I've gotten him a few books of mazes, but mostly he likes me to draw them on his whiteboard for him (a common "quiet time" activity). And sometimes he draws them for me too!

As you can see in the pictures, we had a great afternoon at the Mall of America on Zach's actual birthday. We had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe; he was so thrilled when they sang to him! And then back on the rides - he tried two new ones - the bumper cars and the swings. We ended up going on the swings FOUR times - I think it's a new favorite!

I'll close with this recent quote from Zach's preschool teacher:

"I just absolutely adore Zach and would love to have him 3 days a week! He has been interacting so well with the children. He is probably one of the best at talking to all the children and asking where they are if they are missing too. He talks to us great too....but it is fun to hear him having fun and being goofy with his classmates during snacktime or centers!!"

That's our boy!

Friday, January 21, 2011

Zach's birthday day of fun

I may not have a chance today to write my usual "everything about Zach" update in honor of his fourth birthday, because we are only at the beginning of Zach's day of fun!

He's already been out to breakfast with dad and swimming at the Y, and shortly we are off to the Mall of America for lunch and an afternoon of riding the rides! And tonight he gets to play with his favorite babysitter Kayla while we go curling (trust me, this will be highlight for him, he screams like a teenaged girl spotting Justin Bieber when Kayla walks in the door).

Happy birthday buddy... we hope you have a great day!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

9 months postscript

Charlie had his well-child visit today. The best thing about it? No shots! Our healthy boy sailed through the exam with passing colors, charming the nurse and doctor with his grinning and bouncing.

As far as his stats, he remains our little peanut. He's 26.75 inches tall, which puts him in the 10th percentile. Weight is 17 lbs 5 oz - the 5-10th percentile. But he does have that big head - he's in the 75th percentile for head size! The doctor wasn't concerned at all about his size, his gain has been good, and he's pretty consistent as far as his growth curve.

I peeked at Zach's 9 month visit info and learned Zach was already 20 lbs at this age, and had almost 2 inches on his brother. Their head sizes are similar though! :)

I also realized I forgot to mention some of Charlie's new "tricks" in my last post: waving and clapping. He thinks it's hilarious when we cheer for him when he manages to do these feats on command. We think he may also be trying to do the sign for "more" when he's eating, but it looks an awful lot like a clap, so it's hard to tell. :)

Monday, January 17, 2011

9 months

Charlie is 9 months old! His personality continues to develop and show itself - reflecting that he's the same smiley guy he's been since day one. A joy every day.

He's getting closer to mobility. He did finally roll from his back to his front, after I found the perfect incentive - the tv remote control. He still doesn't roll either way with any enthusiasm or ease - he's not one of those babies who are rolling around all over the place. He doesn't stay in the same spot when you put him down, but his movement is from rocking back and forth and inching. When he's sitting, he falls forward now, since he's always stretching out so far to try to reach some interesting object (usually the dog or Zach's cars). He'll get up on one knee with the other crossed under him, close to the crawling stance, but that's about it.

This boy wants to stand. If you sit on the floor with him, he'll instantly reach for your hands so he can pull himself up. He stands in front of his "learning playground" for quite a while before he seems to get tired. Every once in a while he'll move his feet, but mostly he stands there and bounces. And speaking of bouncing, you should see this guy in the jumperoo!! I have video of that... someday I'll get it on the blog. He particularly loves it when we jump with him - he gets really loud and squeals as he jumps up and down.

Charlie's first tooth poked through on 1/4 in the typical spot - front and center on the bottom. And now the one right next to it has made an appearance too. Neither are particularly visible yet, but you sure can feel those sharp edges. He didn't have too tough of a time cutting them, fortunately for all of us. Now he just needs to grow some hair!

We finally stopped swaddling him when he's sleeping. He must do lots of kicking and wiggling, because now every morning when we get him out of his crib, his left foot is tucked inside the right leg of his pajamas. Since his pjs fit him pretty well, his calf ends up wedged across the crotch of the sleeper, which you would think wouldn't be comfortable. But every morning - same thing!

We've discovered Charlie is Zach's exact opposite is when it comes to drinking. We actually had to ration Zach's liquid intake until about a year ago - if you put a bottle/sippy cup/cup in front of him, he'd pick it up and would not put it down again until it was empty. And then he'd be too full to eat any actual food. We got a lot of funny looks from people when they'd hear us telling Zach he could not have any more milk. What kind of parents don't want their kids to drink a lot of milk??? Anyway... the same is not true of Charlie.

For a couple of months now, I've had to try to feed Charlie in the quietest, darkest places possible (which is not easy when Zach is around), even during the day, because he was so incredibly distractable. Once he had enough to take the edge off, anything was more interesting than nursing. Now he's almost weaned, and unfortunately the same is true of the bottle. I consider it a success if I can get him to drink 6 oz of formula. And that takes a while, since he drinks a little, pops his head up to see what's going on in the world, drinks a little more, head back up and swiveling, etc etc. It's a process, to say the least.

Basically, Charlie would prefer to eat his meals, not drink them. This goes against the advice of pediatricians, who say that the primary nutrition should still be breast milk/formula at this age. Charlie is currently eating solids at each meal, and he rarely is telling us he's had enough when we've run out of food. He loves food - there hasn't been anything he wouldn't eat, and eat happily. We go in for his well-baby check later this week - it'll be interesting to see what he weighs now!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Adventures in eating

Charlie has yet to meet a food he doesn't like...

Peas:


Berries - best if you stick your fingers in your mouth and then in your hair, your ears, and up your nose:

And especially prunes:

Brotherly love

A few recent brother pictures...

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Our kind of New Year's Eve

Forget finding a babysitter, making reservations for an over-priced dinner, driving across town hoping to avoid the drivers who celebrated too much, and all the other traditions of this over-hyped holiday. Instead we invite friends over to our place, to celebrate kid-friendly style. All you need is:

Plenty of toys and room to pull them all out:


Big kids to entertain babies:


Or just a few fascinating babies and some celery:

Kids who don't know it's not really midnight yet:

Wii curling:

And good friends:



It would also help to have more bedrooms, but we did manage to get all 4 big kids (Zach is the oldest at not quite four) and 3 babies asleep at some point or another. Whew. What we didn't need was for Zach to get a 24 hour stomach bug... but that's what happened. Hey, it's not a good party until someone throws up, right?

And then you need a nice quiet day to recover from it all.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

A Christmas in review

As always, I had trouble deciding which pictures not to include in the blog. So I stopped trying.

Our trip to WI was uneventful, which is a really good thing when you're on the road with two small kids. Zach did the same thing he did last time; spent the first couple hours and all of lunch telling us he wasn't going to sleep in the car, and then crashing practically mid-sentence after we'd been back on the road for about 15 minutes. But he was a happy camper when he woke up and we were almost to Grandma & Grandpa's!

He was also a happy camper when he saw this pile on Christmas Eve:


We had spent the day relatively quietly with my parents, other than a quick trip to visit an old friend of mine and her family. Then it was gift-opening time...


And Christmas morning... more gifts from Santa!

Grandpa and Zach spent the rest of the morning playing with their favorite techie toys. After Grandpa showed Zach how to race on his i-touch, Zach returned the favor by explaining how the games on his laptop work.

Nap for dad, but not for Zach.

Both boys were pretty excited when their cousins arrived.

And they got to open even MORE presents.

Zach's highlight was probably this odd wrestling game the kids played for quite a while:

While Charlie loved first playing with the fur on Sophie's dress...
And then his favorite activity - he got to pull Grandpa's hair!!!


Add in some time spent with my aunt & uncle and cousin, and you have a very merry Christmas.