This year, we had a dinosaur party. (Translation: dinosaur cookies, a few dinosaur treats I ordered online and dinosaur balloons taped to the walls as decorations. As I've said, I'm not very talented in the birthday party department. First Son did make one poster. It says "Humans Beware! Dinosaurs in the area!" He taped it to the door so everyone would see it as they were leaving.) First Son wanted to roast marshmallows in a bonfire, but it was bitter cold and freakishly windy (even for Kansas) so we lit a fire in the fireplace for the first time and roasted them there. We avoided smearing any melted marshmallow into the carpet (success!) and Second Daughter only ate a quarter of her weight in chocolate and marshmallows (success?). They played Duck Duck Goose with improvised dinosaur variations. When they started a game of hide-and-seek, I convinced them to hide some toy dinosaurs instead. Our living room isn't that big. Everyone brought dinosaur presents and one dear friend brought a dinosaur card he and his mom had printed out months ago and saved for First Son's birthday.
First Son has two permanent teeth on the bottom and has recently lost the two baby teeth on top. He doesn't noticeably lisp. It's clear the teeth are growing in crooked. Sigh.
Earlier this week, he wrote up a list: First Son's List of Things He Likes (It's all in capital letters, but that's a little annoying when typed)
LegosHe spelled most of it himself and only looked up a few words in books. He told me later he didn't write "homeschool" because it's not fun. (In fact, he likes his lessons. He just doesn't like to be told to stop doing whatever he thinks he should be doing so we can start lessons.)
Dinos
Pharoahs
Pyramids
Mummys
Dogs
The Solar System
Cucumbers
His favorite lessons are piano and Latin. His least favorite are handwriting and the math facts worksheets.
When First Son knows the answer to a question or thinks of something remarkable (in his mind, at least), he stops in his tracks, points to the ceiling and says "Ding!" Then he proceeds to share his revelation.
One of his favorite restaurants is a local buffet where he can reliably find squid, crab legs and cocktail shrimp. They totally lose money on him (and Second Daughter who can eat a surprising amount for a two year old, when she's in the mood). He also likes McDonald's if there's a slide, Taco Bell, and Chipotle.
His favorite ice cream is mint chocolate chip, but only if it's green.
Since he could walk, he has run back and forth in whatever room is the largest and he still does so. He's always tripping on toys scattered around the living room floor. When we go outside, he often sits in one place and sometimes reads a book.
He likes to ask math questions of me and Kansas Dad. Luckily, they're still easy: 100 + 100, 160 + 160, 5000 + 1000. He also likes to ask things like "How many nickels are in $1000?" I keep hoping our quick answers will show him how useful it will be to perfect his math facts, but no luck so far.
He's always drawing. I think he must draw every day: LarryBoy, dinosaurs, Rudolph, the mouse king from the Nutcracker, whatever has recently struck his fancy.
For his birthday, he asked for (among other things) a dinosaur book that included drawings of their skeletons. His favorite birthday present is LEGO Pirates Brickmaster
. He's been wanting to buy it with his own money and we delayed for a while before we finally said he couldn't buy anything until after Christmas. We knew Grammy had already picked it out for him. When he opened it, he was so excited he was speechless. (My favorite of his gifts is the Tyrannosaurus Rex Puppet
, also courtesy of Grammy and Paw Paw. He was a little startled by it in the bag and I thought that was adorable.)He's currently reading The A to Z Mysteries
on his own. We're reading Ribsy
together. We're listening to some of the other Ribsy stories and are up to Little Town on the Prairie
in the Little House series. He loves hearing the Laura stories. He loves Lego games
(or perhaps I should say he loves the idea of Lego games). He also loves playing Duck Duck Goose and Freeze Tag. We enjoy Simon Says and Red Light Green Light as well, but the following of the rules for those games is still questionable.
He still loves VeggieTales, 3-2-1 Penguins, and LarryBoy. I love that he still loves them. The Playmobil pirates (aka "people pirates") are also big favorites.
Almost all of his pants are too short. (He really needs more in size 8.) He has put holes in the right knee of nearly every pair of pants he's worn in the past year.
He still sleeps with Mr.Giraffe, which we received at our Kansas baby shower before he was born. (I hope he's not too embarrassed I included this fact. He took Mr. Giraffe to show-and-tell at story hour earlier this month. The other almost-seven-year-old boy also brought his stuffed animal.)
Want to see some old pictures? Check out First Son's first five birthdays (counting his Birth Day). I just noticed he wore stripes each year. It would have been fun to keep that up, though of course he had to wear a dinosaur shirt this year in honor of his party theme.
I peeked in his room in the middle of the night on his birthday and had a sudden memory of snuggling him as a newborn in the hospital bed when he was just a few hours old (when he already knew he didn't want to have anything to do with a bassinet). We had no idea what we were doing, but he seems to be turning out alright just the same. What a wonder it is to see him grow!
