Family Fuller

Everytime I drop Colin off at school he says he wants “X” hugs and kisses. It started with 4, then 6, then 10 and now we are getting a little out of control with 12. It goes hug, kiss, “1″, hug, kiss, “2″, hug, kiss, “3″ and so on – you get the idea. It is his little routine, but now that it is up to 12 it takes quite a bit of time. All the parents see it and laugh that I am going to have to tell his girlfriends when he gets older to which I replied “Let’s just hope he doesn’t want 20 hugs and kisses before he goes out on a date.”

Now that Holden has seen him do it so many times, he also thinks he needs a whole bunch. He does the exact same thing, counting along, but his numbers go more like “ma, mo, da, ba.” You can imagine how long it takes when I have to leave them both with a babysitter or something. Actually though, I think it is pretty cute – and I am not opposed to giving them as many hugs and kisses as they want.

Holden’s talking is coming along. He tries really hard, but it is still difficult to understand him. He tries to repeat all of our words, they just don’t come out right. He understands everything we talk about though. Today I asked Colin to go turn on the light and Holden heard me first so he ran over and did it.

One thing that is super cute is that Holden says “Me” all the time. If I am making lunch or something he will walk into the kitchen, point to one of the plates and say “Me?” in the cutest little voice. It is so sweet.

I just had to post this today because Colin continues to blow me away sometimes. I got him Mad Libs Junior about a month ago and he just thinks it is the best thing. Mad Libs Junior is a little different because it provides a list of words for you. He calls it his “joke calendar” – who knows why. Anyway, as you can imagine with a 4 year old sense of humor (actually I guess every one’s sense of humor while using mad libs) he wants every adjective to be “stupid” and every noun to be “toilet.”

This became a problem when I brought Mad Libs to his preschool to be my “small group” lesson for the day. I told him before hand that stupid, toilet, pee, barf and fart were not appropriate for school. While I was reading the kids the word choices I would just skip the “bad” words, however Colin can read most of them so he starts pointing out all the bad words and everyone just erupted in to laughter. They got totally out of control and Colin, giggling like a manic, just kept saying “I just can’t stop, I just can’t stop laughing” if you know how Colin giggles you would know how incredibly funny the whole thing was.

Anyway, on to the amazing part. Today we were doing a mad lib and I asked him how many of the words he knew from the list of nouns, he proceed to read this list all by himself:

starfish
pancake
octopus
marshmallow
banana
jellyfish
yo-yo
butterfly
cupcake
sunflower
scarecrow (this is the only one he even hesitated with)
dolphin

He just read them straight down the line, totally out of context. Plus he isn’t sounding them out, he just knows them. Therefore I wouldn’t really say he is reading, because he doesn’t sound them out (he can, but never wants to spend the time doing it) but really, when you grow up you don’t sound things out – you just know. It is crazy to me.

Which brings me to the next topic: Kindergarten. Up until Monday we had thought we would just wait another year because he misses the cut off date this fall. Then I met with Colin’s preschool teacher. She said she thinks he is really ready to go, as much as any other kid in his class, all of whom are already 5 or turning 5 shortly. He is very bright, totally ready in that department. He is social and confident, has lots of friends, plays and shares well. He sits during circle time and is always the first to raise his hand to contribute to the conversation. The only issue is that he is a little small physically. That is my one worry, although he doesn’t seem to have any clue or care in the slightest. Most people who know him at school have said they think his personality is strong enough for that to not be an issue. So now we are at a loss about what to do, plus our options may be limited.

Colin’s birthday is Sept 14 so that means he misses the August 31st deadline (you have to be 5 by then) to go to school. You can get your child tested and then apply to go early, however the Seattle public schools are so messed up there are all these choices and you don’t necessarily go to the school in your area. Also if you want your child to go early you are the last to be placed which means there is almost no chance of getting to go to the school you want to go to, especially because where we live is very crowded right now.

I really don’t know what is the best thing to do. I honestly can’t imagine him going to preschool for another year – they are just starting to identify letters now. Plus he gets along so well with all the kids he is currently with who will all be going to Kindergarten next year. In addition to deciding, then there is all this pressure to pick the right school – why can’t we just live in a one school town and that is where you go…? I think we are going to try to get him in, but have a back up preschool like Jump Start to send him too if he doesn’t get the school we want.

Thoughts on this anyone?

We haven’t blogged in awhile and I promise to put up some Christmas pics but I have to give Holden his blog.

Holdie Boldie (as we like to call him) will be two at the end of Febuary and just recently he seems to be making big leaps with his vocab. Up until recently he didn’t have much interest in working on words. I would try to get him to say something and he would get mad and turn away. That has all changed and now he will attempt to repeat the words. They don’t always come out the right way but he is getting there. Some of his favorites are:

“Cu-Me” = Excuse me
“Mah” = Thank you – although now it is more like “Mah Ku”
“Ba-Ball” = football
“Nee” = cheese
“Ca” = Colin

and my personal favorite “Me” = Me. Whenever I say “Who….” anything, Holden raises his hand and says “Me, me, me, Me!” For example “Who wants to go out to breakfast?” or as they said on Reading Rainbow “Who would want to eat that spiky shell?” to which Holden raised his hand and said “Me, me, me!”

Here is a little video of him (this is already over a month old) but it’s cute.

He has really been into football and always wants to play, which mostly involves tackling. He is a crazy couch jumper to the point at which it is really freaking me out. He gets up on the arms of the couch and throws himself off doing a flip in the air and landing on his back on the cushions. I am trying hard to put a stop to that.

He has learned how to go up and downstairs with no hands but it still makes me nervous. On our front steps today, he went down all by himself but at every step he nearly lost it and almost fell forward. It took all my will not to just run over there and grab his hand – but he did it.

Of course he loves Colin and does everything Colin does, good and bad. He is starting to use the potty. Not on a regular basis but he is getting the idea. Both he and Colin started swimming lessons and will go every week. The first ones did not go well but I am sure it will improve. I also signed Holden up for preschool starting next year. Just two days a week but I am sure he is going to love it, he never wants to leave the school when we drop Colin off.

Anyway, he is a real cutie right now – I just don’t want him to grow up too fast