No. Nope. Not happening. Not even close.... but it is. As of tomorrow, Will is officially five-and-a-half. Halfway to six. SIX. What on earth? Both of our kids need to slow their roll and take it down a notch. It's so crazy to think that Will is going to be six in just six short months. He will start Kindergarten soon. He is already registered and ready to go. He is growing up so fast right before our eyes and it is a happy and sad time for me as Mama, for sure.
So, a short update on Will at 5-and-a-half...
- Will is growing like a weed. It is not uncommon right now for people to ask me if he has grown inches upon inches overnight. We are noticing that he is catching up to Kenzie fairly quickly and some of his friends that he used to be very similar in height to, he has gotten slightly taller than them. It's just his growth spurt time, apparently. He remains remarkably skinny. So skinny that his clothes tend to fall of of him if we don't have adjustable waists. Thankfully, boys shorts are long so we can size down right now in a lot of things and they aren't too short. Pants are another story... to get them long enough we have to have an adjustable waist or it just won't work. He typically wears a 6 for length in pants but can sometimes manage to get into a 4-5 in shorts because they tend to be long. He wears a small or medium in shirts just depending on where they come from. His length remains mostly in his legs, so shirts are less of an issue and they last a while.
- Will has his first wiggly tooth! Initially I thought for sure we would be out of this shelter in place before he lost it, now I'm not so sure. It's getting very wiggly, very quickly. However, I also know from Kenzie... these kids can get to the end and figure out a way to keep that tooth hanging on for dear life for a while. He's excited to lose his first tooth, but a little nervous that it may hurt.
- Will is picking up on academic skills like crazy right now. It is amazing to me how much of a sponge kids are at this age. While he is older than Kenzie was at this point in his VPK year, he is actually quite far ahead of her academically at this grade level stage (maybe not age based) so we find it interesting how much he knows and can do. It keeps throwing us off because we just aren't used to it. He can identify all the letters upper and lowercase and knows all of their sounds with the exception of randomly forgetting /i/ and giving me the soft /g/ instead of the hard sound. He can count to 100 pretty easily. He is doing simple addition and subtraction and loves playing math games. He makes us give him random math problems to solve. He has also gotten really into spelling lately and can spell most words phonetically without much help. He is working on learning to read using phonic skills lately and we are starting on some sight words. He has about 4 down now, but we started slow last week two and added two more this week. Presently, we are in a shelter in place because of covid-19 so I have started working with him since he isn't in school.
- Will is loving all things baseball right now. He was playing his third season and his first season in coach pitch until things started being cancelled. He should return to baseball (hopefully) when the shelter in place is lifted and finish out an abbreviated season. While he certainly isn't currently slated to be the next Big Papi or anything, he is coming into his own. He has grown leaps and bounds in his skills already this season and is truly enjoying playing the game. That is what we mainly want to have for him. A love of something, be it a sport or something else. We do appreciate that he chose a game both of us really like, as well. Bonus: Will in rolled baseball pants is super adorable. While we have been at home, he has continued to want to practice hitting and throwing which is a big thing for us. Like I said, we wanted something he wants to do and this definitely seems to be it right now.
- Will is still crazy affectionate. He continues to be our snuggler. He is a hugger. Though we did have an instance when Kenzie told him bye at the baseball fields once and gave him a kiss... then his teammates told him he had cooties. LOL. He didn't know what cooties were so he wasn't bothered. Otherwise, he is often giving one of us a hug or kiss. He loves to get in bed with us and snuggle. We did the kids' love languages and although his came out as gifts, I think that is mainly because when you ask a 4 year old questions and one answer involves being given something, they are almost always going to choose that answer. I still think he may be stronger on the physical touch side of things.... but we will see as time goes on.
- Will is our grazer. He would prefer to eat small amounts all. day. long. rather than a normal meal. Now, when he is hungry, he can polish off quite a bit of food, but he would prefer small meals throughout the day. He is also getting better at trying foods he used to stick his nose up at. For instance, he now loves broiled/baked fish. Just a few months ago, he would refuse to even try a bite if I made fish. He is also our spicy food guy. He loves loves loves salsa. He likes buffalo flavored pretzel chips. He is into chili and spicy soups.
- Will is obsessed with being outside. He would prefer to play outside all day every day if we let him. He typically enjoys it more because we often have neighbors over to play with, but he asks to go outside daily even if he knows it will be just him out there. He likes to ride the plasma car and pedaled go kart. He likes to practice baseball and play make believe games like Super Heroes. He has gotten really into his bike lately and we are hoping to remove training wheels soon. He is a bit anxious about some things though and is afraid he will fall. That's the only reason we haven't done it yet. We think he is ready, but we are waiting for him to be mentally ready. He asks to go on a bike ride daily. Because we are doing social distancing, we don't see our neighbors often right now, but they will sometimes take a bike ride together. They are spread out on the sidewalk and stay far apart so we let them basically ride sort of near each other. That being said, the oldest neighbor will often take the kids on a bike ride through the neighborhood and I don't have to follow along. Their current route is about 2.3 miles (Steven walked it last week so we could see how long it really is) and Will rides right along with the bigger kids without complaints. I did hear that he fell once last week, but he got up, brushed himself off, and kept going.
- Will's sleep has always been iffy. He gets what he needs and is rarely tired in the mornings. He plays hard though and is exhausted by evening usually. He hasn't napped in about 3 years, so getting him to take a nap would be downright ridiculous. He has a very strict bedtime routine he likes to stick to; however, if we aren't home, he can adapt. He likes to pray with the family, have everyone give him a kiss and hug goodnight, get his "words" from Daddy (which is basically a speech about no wind to wake him up because the bushes outside his window won't scratch at the window or warning that there is some wind so he may hear noises and his nightlight being on, etc), and have me sing Somewhere Over the Rainbow to him. We have experienced some issues lately with his door being open versus closed. We have always closed the kids' doors, but he has been anxious about it lately so we went with a cracked door for a while until he fell asleep and then closed. it. We are currently back to a closed door, but he insists I check on him to make sure he fell asleep and crack the door if he has trouble going to sleep. Honestly, he is out almost as soon as he hits the pillow most nights so we don't have to worry about him being up. We are also still having some pretty significant night terrors 3 or so times a week. They usually last anywhere from 10-20 minutes. He also gets up once a night maybe 4 times a week and comes into our room to ask me to come sing to him so he can go back to sleep. Right now I'm doing it because his sleep has been so strange that I don't want to try to break that habit yet and make it worse. We'll figure it out. It was nightly for a while and now we have him down to just a few nights per week.
- Will loves to play in the pool. He is so happy we have a pool now, but he is afraid of water getting in his eyes and isn't a fan of goggles so he doesn't often go underwater. We know he can still swim as we make him practice when we are in the water with him, but he tends to stay on the stairs or use an inner tube to go around the pool. We know it is just a matter of time before he is off and swimming like a fish.We aren't pushing it at this point. We want him to love the water so we don't pressure him. Our concern has always been him knowing how to swim (which he does) should he fall in. We are hoping everything is back up and running by this summer so we can get both kids swimming lessons. He could use a refresher and someone else in another pool to make him practice. It's more difficult for us and we don't want to freak him out so he doesn't want to go in the pool at all.
- Will is currently in a puzzle stage. We didn't know if he would ever be into puzzles, but all of a sudden, they are his jam. He is also really into coloring now. Another thing we didn't think we would ever see from him. Kenzie was similar in that she didn't like coloring or drawing for a long time, but by VPK, she was really into it and now is obsessed. I don't think Will is going to be quite as obsessed, but he definitely likes to color or draw now.
- Will is hilarious. He continues to constantly look for ways to make us laugh. He tells stories with the best of them. His facial expressions are the icing on the cake when he does it. He is constantly looking for a laugh and chasing one once he gets it.
I could go on and on about Will, for sure, but this is just a snapshot of what he is like right now at 5-and-a-half. He is our silly, snuggly, friendly child. We are so lucky to be his parents.
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