6 YEARS!

I started writing this entry a few weeks ago.  I wasn't too wrapped up in the emotion of my boy getting older because I was so wrapped up in other issues as I last posted.  But now that I'm finally giving this a title and all I'm starting to well up.  I remember writing his 6 month letter and it seems like yesterday.  And now we're 1/3 of the way to 18.  PLEASE slow down, time.

Dear Gobbles,

Your 6th birthday came this year amid a flutter of chaos in our house but still you handled it with the grace and maturity of a much older kid.   As always, I am incredibly thankful for that.  Buddy, you seem so grown up right now, only in kindergarten but already my little helper with chores and your sister and just an all around good guy.  When we get home from school you hop out and get the mail, let the dogs out, bring them back in and wipe their paws, feed them, and start your homework.  Sure, you put up a bit of a fight with the homework but I get it, you don't get home til after 6 and you're hungry and tire and it's the last thing you want to do when there's tv to watch and you just want to unwind.  But you're good at it, you breeze through it and I'll just give it a quick check and you're on your way.   Like me, you spend more time fighting over doing it than you spend actually doing it!

School is going well for you, academically I have no worries as you're already interested in math up to multiplication and you're reading all the books school sends home.  The fall has been a bit touch and go with your friends.  You have two bffs you've had since you started in the infant room and I think the rule of 3 is coming in when you guys are deciding what to what to play at recess.  Batman vs Star Wars (you fighting for the latter) between two stubborn kids and the tiebreaker.  You've branched out though and I've heard you talk about other kids you've become friends with.  You also have your girlfriend D who you know I love and your sister is bffs with her sis (and her mom and I get along famously).  You are always so sweet with her, holding her hand and sharing your stuff, even holding doors with her. I love it.  

And speaking of sweet, you have the biggest heart of any 6 year old I know, always drawing pictures for me or making extra airplanes for your sister.  I am so incredibly proud of you for what you decided to do for your birthday party this year.  We found out you could have parties at the local SPCA, so we asked you and of course you jumped all over the idea of having dogs and cats at your party.  I gave you an option of getting presents from your friends like normal or requesting donations (presents for the dogs and cats) instead.  You didn't even hesitate when you said Mommy, the dogs don't even have homes, we need to bring them presents.   Your intentions were so sweet and my heart is still swollen with pride.  Your party ended up being a big success, with other kids loving the animals just as you do.  Despite the offer though, no one went home with any live party favors!

Finally, since I missed the entire fall a few updates on you.
-Your favorite color has shifted from yellow to red because you are a jr sith lord who was emperor palpatine on Halloween and Darth Vader and now Kilo Ren are your heroes.  We saw Star Wars a few days ago and you sat agape the entire show, enthralled for over two hours.  You still have an immense interest in science and planets and all that fun and seem to understand the big picture when we explain things like season change and even day and night.
-You got your report card and of the nearly 90 ranked kindergarten assessments you received 3/3 on all but 3 of them.  You know you're a smart kid but please, always remember to work hard and not give up.
-You've currently changed your career choice from engineer to dog rescuer.  You don't care that Daddy and I told you that wasn't really a "career", because that's what you're going to do.  Yes, you have gotten a bit more argumentative in your old age but if you didn't I'd start to wonder where you came from.
-You already eat like a teenager in terms of quantity and love fruit.  Your palate has recently expanded from just ordering pizza or mac n cheese at restaurants to burgers and more.  You haven't stopped talking about the chicken parm I made for you and you even ate loads of clams Daddy made on New Years Eve.  Keep it up, always be open to new things because you never know what you'll like.
-You may or may not become the next american ninja warrior.  You can climb trees and monkey bars with ease and can maneuver yourself on top of them in ways that I even can't.  Just please be careful up there buddy.

Well my favorite time of the day is almost here - when I pick you guys up from school and you greet me with the best hug and Hi Mommy! in the world, usually followed by Look at this ___ I made today!

I love you more than you'll ever know! (and yes, as you told me when I said this on your birthday Mo-om, you ALWAYS write that....)

Love,
Mommy

You made star wars puppets during after-care one day.  You made your sister
put on a puppet show with you and it was awesome. 

You loved this horse so much you asked if we could get one. 

Yup, that's an adult order. No problem for you. 

A boy and his best friends. 

You do still go back to your old faithfuls.. Make your own pizza? Every. Time. 

Just a leisurely ride through the neighborhood. 

this is you (in the blue) after I told you to NOT go as high.  To me
this is still too high!

A sick day at my work, you made no complaints about doing some math too...

You prefer apple pie (or cookies) to cake...

She loves you so much.  

One of the many things to decorate your mini-adult room.  Others include more posters,
a lightsaber lamp, star wars decals, and a full size bed complete with Star Wars comforter. 

Best birthday party ever.  As you've been told!

A random weeknight with your girlfriend.

Your favorite Santa gift - the Force Push

I forgot to mention what a great helper you are with putting things together.
Here you are taking apart the daybed/crib to move out of your sisters room. 

Legos = awesome!

Day 2 of Christmas break at grandmom's house. yikes!

Day three of Christmas break at work with me.  That day you told one of my
coworkers how funny it was when Spoons jumped on you and it "tickled my wee wee..." yikes again!

Your new old favorite game, chess.

Finally! A seafood eater.  Yummy clams. 

Your New Years' Kiss at midnight!

I have a feeling this will get a lot of use this summer! 

Five!!

Petah Pan,
Help us please,
We need you,
Wherever you ahhhhhhhhre
- As sung by the Lobster Roll

Dear Mr. Gobbles,

I got the chills as my fingers tapped the title of this post.  Five.  I cannot believe you are five years old, where did my baby go?  You heard me being wistful this morning as I sang that song above that your sister sings day in and day out in the British accent, with you piping in saying Pizza Pan!  I could use a little Peter Pan right now because my eyes are welling up at the thought of you growing up.  Yesterday when I asked you if you'd live with me forever, you told me that you're going to move out when you're 18 even though you have to cook for yourself.  Oh buddy.  

Okay, enough of me being sappy over you growing up and onto all of the things you do that make me beam with pride.  First, and most important, you are incredibly kind.  You are always considering other people and I don't think you've ever received anything without making sure there was something to keep your sister happy too.  Sometimes you get frustrated because other kids don't see things the way it's supposed to work out in your head, and it upsets you greatly.  You are very much like me in that sense- always envisioning a situation and getting upset if you lose control and things seem unfair.  You'll learn to deal with that in time, it's hard, I get it.  But despite this, you're always thinking about how to include everyone.  You even asked Santa for some more pull-back cars, because even though you have two, when your cousin comes over there aren't enough for her, so you want to make sure there is next time.  You're the only 5 year old I know who would use up a Santa gift on someone else.

Gobbles, I know you hear this all the time, but I have to reiterate, you are so.darn.intelligent.  (btw, stop saying 'darn').  I have no doubt in my mind that there will come a day where you become smarter than your Daddy and I, you just have to keep up that enthusiasm for learning that you have now.  Your favorite subject is science because you love the experiments, and half the time your teacher would report on your daily that you're one of the few kids to accurately predict the outcome.  You display a natural ease with numbers and math and are able to perform the four functions through simple division without much brow furrowing.  As far as reading goes, you can pick out a lot of shorter words but are still trying to sneak through with your memorization instead of sounding them out, usually because you're in a rush to get through the story or because it's tiring to read at bedtime.  Daddy and I have a hard time spelling in front of you now because even when you seem like you're not paying attention you are listening and you'll repeat what we spelled, usually later at an inopportune time.

You are going on your third year of wanting to be an engineer, just like Mommy.  In your classroom, a distinguishable picture of a backhoe (excuse me, an excavator as you corrected me) with the caption "When I grow up, I want to be an Engineer" -Gobbles hangs in your classroom among kids wanting to be firefighters, spiderman, and batman.  As much as you love the super heroes (and growing very rapidly, Star Wars), your old soul still shines through, and you are always thinking and planning.

On the way home from school the other day we were listening to "I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas"  and I asked you and your sister if you'd want that.  You replied "That's ridiculous, our house is not big enough for a hippopotamus!  We'd have to borrow Mr. Rich's pool just to store the thing!"  I love that just in the time span of your reply, you were already working out in your head the logistics necessary should we get one.  Similarly, we were joking the other night at dinner asking if you guys wanted a third dog or a third kid in the family.  We already knew your answer, since you always say instead of a brother or sister you'd want "a nothing! because I don't like babies!"  This time though, you elaborated - "I want a giant dog, like Clifford the big red dog.  So we can use him to climb to the top of the house and get that J off and throw it in the toilet!" (referring to the J on the side of our chimney installed by the original owners indicating their last initial)  It doesn't seem to bother us but it must bug the heck out of you, Gobbles.

This year, your big birthday party will be shared with your sister since we've got a lot going on, so we had a solo family party for you on the day before your birthday.  Your two favorite gifts from there are the Hess Truck / Rocket and a Star Wars angry birds jenga game.  You have not put these toys down in the last week and it's quite refreshing to see that you're into these because lately, it's been Kindle, phones, and Apps.  I'm glad you still have some little boy in you and you're not all tech all the time (although we do love a good round of Frozen Free Fall together).  And despite us having all kinds of Christmas fun with Santa stuff this weekend, you shared with your class that your favorite part of this past weekend was setting up your ninja turtles zipline with Daddy.  I would have to agree, buddy, that from the sound of your voices and laughter coming out of the basement while you played ninja turtles together, that was my favorite part of the weekend too.

Well Gobbles, five will be a big year for you, Kindergarten in a new school will be here before you know it, and Mommy, Daddy, and your sister will be here with you to celebrate every step of the way.

I love you so much!

Love,
Mommy

See- it's an excavator because the hook is in the front, Mommy!

I wish that Mommy would stop crying about me growing up!

I love the yellow wrapping paper Mom, good choice!

A 3D death star?  I can handle that!

Ninja turtles everywhere!

Here Lobster - lemme help you with that!

Mommy - you are so cheating!  This is from my bff's party!  Yes I'll have the
same guests at a similar place, but it hasn't happened yet!

Ok, I'll smile ONE time!

Pizza party!

yup, i wanted an apple pie for my cake!

Love you buds!

Well I'll just lick this lightsaber here!

Whoo ho - I got a cupcake too!

 

here lobster - you can use the baby rocket!

I just want to borrow OLAF!

Last minute decorations - who needs them when you have 3 parties instead?!

The Pre-K Life

I know, i know, I'm a stud with my haircut and shades!

It all started when Gobbles' new pre-K teacher came to the school back in March.  She saw a place where morale was down with teacher after teacher leaving and unmotivated kids, bored with their routine of seemingly playtime every day.  She decided that the kids in the class were unprepared to move up to kindergarten next year and began to whip them into shape. Sure, Gobbles and a few of his buddies still have a whole year before moving up because they're only 4, but he was along for the ride.

I've never seen my kid develop so much as he has in the past three months.  Motivated and eager to learn, he has gone from writer of his first name to attempted writer of sentences, reader of 3-4 letter words, and (naturally) lover of math and science.  His end of the year "report card" basically said he is ready for kindergarten now, and we couldn't be prouder of him.

When he's not asking questions about just about everything (What does perspective mean?) or lecturing his sister on how much different coins are worth (A dime is ten cents, even though it is smaller than a nickel.  but you really want a quarter because that's as good as twenty-five pennies!), Gobbles is always saying something thought-provoking, matter-of-fact, or just downright, what in the world made him put that together?

- Most animals pee outside, but people pee on toilets.  But if you're at the shore and can't make it back you can just pee in the water.
- Four fives are twenty and five fives are thirty.  But so are three tens...
- On the way to school we always change around the radio until the kids decide the like a song.  Gobbles passed up Oasis' Wonderwall for a Lemonheads remake of Mrs. Robinson. When the song was over, he made this random observation:  Wonderwall is like Wonder Woman, and well, Mrs. Robinson has Robin in it - he's a superhero too.

Socially, he has his "in class" posse, his two bffs and doesn't like to venture outside of his group.  He reminds me of myself when I was younger - he has no problems talking to anyone and everyone, (considering the number of birthday parties he's invited to he must have some interaction with a lot of kids), but being kind of uncomfortable with himself day to day so he prefers to stick with his inner circle.

Gobbles favorite extra-curricular activities are soccer and swimming.  The former I've written about a few times, and he has actually declared that I don't even LIKE baseball, I JUST want to play soccer, always!  The latter was, unfortunately only a temporary stint, where we had him enrolled in a two-week, an hour a day after school, swim course at the University.  Our goal was that for Gobbles to be able to save himself should he stumble into the wrong pool.  He passed with flying colors and even bravely jumped into the deep end and worked his way across one night, and the next night went off the diving board without hesitation (so fast that I captured about 87 pictures of him walking across the board and missed the actual jump in the water!).  This brought me great piece of mind knowing that, on swim days at school this summer, where they're actually transporting the kids 4 and up to a pool for fun and lessons, he'll be a-ok not seeing 100% (well, barely 50% since they only make prescription goggles half of his necessary magnitude).  Regardless, if he mistakenly ends up in the deep end he'll be able to get to the wall on his own.

Pre-K graduation was last week for 80% of Gobbles' class, and even though he'll still be there in the fall, of course I teared up at the thought of him growing up.  He proudly sang the songs he'd been practicing for me in the car for weeks, kindergarten, here we come! knowing full well he's not going anywhere.  I'm so proud of my boy for being the youngest to walk across the lawn and get his little diploma, and so ecstatically happy that he'll be doing it again next year, as I'm not ready for him to have to say goodbye to these kids, most of whom he's known for longer than his time in high school will.  Love my Gobbles dude.

My first written sentence!  It's supposed to say "I liked reading words",  but
I sounded it all out myself!  My mommy said she's proud of my writing but she
just laughed and laughed when I showed her my drawing and all the parts I included!  

Ok, OKAY, i'll stop drawing certain body parts... but I'll never
stop drawing people!

I LOVE to paint!

And I have the concentration and memory to use the right colors!

You mean there's a right and wrong way?  Mine looks great too!

Yep - there's me wayyyyy down in the corner.

Look mom - no hands, just back stroking along!

I'm the one sitting all zen waiting for my friends!

Showing off my skills to Daddy!

I'm a team player!

And i cheer from the sidelines too!

But check me out in action - Lobster are you paying attention? 

i also take good care of my lil sis!

C'mon lobster let's slide!

Didn't you forget to add laundry to my extracurricular activities?

And gardening!

My favorite activity to do with Daddy!

I don't mind hauling yard waste either!

But sometimes the noise bothers me!

Wake up, Gobbles - it's graduation day!

I'm so proud!  Hi everyone!

And I'm a much bigger person than this bully - thank goodness he's
going to kindergarten in the fall (even though I'm more mature!). 

Hi, mom!  Check me out!

I'm just chillin!

So long, Pre-K! Until September, that is!

My boy, B and I!

My other boys, M and B.  That's how we roll!

LOVE my teacher, Miss J. 

Some well- deserved cake and chips!