5.25
Henry has just been cruising along, being an awesome five year old. He is really fun to be around and keeps us entertained.
He and Ingrid have been hilarious lately. They're constantly playing or fighting, and the line between the two is really, really thin. The kids have been going to sleep in our bed every night. It started because Ingrid was bothering Henry, so Henry moved to our bed, but then they missed each other, so Ingrid ended up in there too. Usually we listen to them fight on the monitor and then go upstairs to find them curled up together like puppies. He continues to be incredibly sweet to Heidi and tries to make her happy when she's sad. Heidi squeals like he's a rock star when we spot him at school pickup.
The kid only has two speeds. There's exceedingly lazy, when he wants to spend all day on the couch, and super-intense, when he works or plays SUPER hard. On lazy days, he likes to watch movies and play video games with Karl. I have the usual ambivalence about kids and screen time, but at least the movies we find for him have some cultural or cinematographic merit, and the video games actually require a fair amount of problem-solving and collaboration. It's better than the cr*p TV his friends are watching on Netflix.
When he's in "go" mode, he's a machine. One day during Snowzilla, we didn't see him for six hours. He was too busy all-out playing with the other boys on the block. People say kids experience a huge leap in physical ability and stamina around age seven . . . I cannot even imagine what that would mean for Henry.
He also likes to power through on a project. A few weeks ago there was a plumbing incident that ended in Karl installing a new toilet. It was going poorly and Karl was about to throw in the towel and call a plumber, but Henry shamed him into finishing the job. Also, last week, Henry decided he was going to write personal notes to each of his classmates (in spite of the fact that his teacher wanted non-personalized Valentines). This is no small feat for a five-year-old who can barely write in a class with 22 kids. But you know what? He did it! He thought of something sincerely nice to say about every single kid in his class and wrote almost everything himself. He even stayed up late on Wednesday night to finish, because he really wanted to do it, even though I offered him an out when it was 8:30 and we still had 8 cards to go. I was really proud of him.
And on the subject of writing...his un-aided spelling is incredible. The best part of giving him a phone is that we get these awesome texts from him. It's about 25% gibberish, 25% hilarious unintentional autocorrects, and 50% pretty decent phonetic spelling.
Can you figure out what these say? (hint: he often confuses m and n)
One to Karl:
And another to Grandpa Dave:
We do need to discuss the concept of the spaces between words.
He still complains about going to school in the mornings, but when I pick him up, he always seems to be working very happily and he's always excited to tell us about new lessons. We hear a lot about the land and water forms and the math materials.
It's fun to watch him develop interests and pursue them. Karl and I are generally adverse to scheduled activities. We were totally not planning to be Those Parents, but Henry now has three activities, all of which he requested with no prompting from us. Still does Parkour on Saturdays and karate on Tuesdays and Thursdays (though karate is on hiatus while sensei Bob moves into a new dojo). Then he started guitar lessons right after Thanksgiving. He likes the lessons but resists practicing most of the time. Of course, he's very pleased with himself after he finishes practicing. So, pretty much totally normal. He is plunking out some decent melodies. The finger work is hardest for him, but he is doing quite well at reading the music -- better than I expected! He initially relied on his teacher's cheat-sheet notation (which shows string and finger position) but just transitioned to reading the real notes.
Loves to yuk it up in front of the camera. How did my baby turn into such a handsome big boy?
He and Ingrid have been hilarious lately. They're constantly playing or fighting, and the line between the two is really, really thin. The kids have been going to sleep in our bed every night. It started because Ingrid was bothering Henry, so Henry moved to our bed, but then they missed each other, so Ingrid ended up in there too. Usually we listen to them fight on the monitor and then go upstairs to find them curled up together like puppies. He continues to be incredibly sweet to Heidi and tries to make her happy when she's sad. Heidi squeals like he's a rock star when we spot him at school pickup.
The kid only has two speeds. There's exceedingly lazy, when he wants to spend all day on the couch, and super-intense, when he works or plays SUPER hard. On lazy days, he likes to watch movies and play video games with Karl. I have the usual ambivalence about kids and screen time, but at least the movies we find for him have some cultural or cinematographic merit, and the video games actually require a fair amount of problem-solving and collaboration. It's better than the cr*p TV his friends are watching on Netflix.
When he's in "go" mode, he's a machine. One day during Snowzilla, we didn't see him for six hours. He was too busy all-out playing with the other boys on the block. People say kids experience a huge leap in physical ability and stamina around age seven . . . I cannot even imagine what that would mean for Henry.
He also likes to power through on a project. A few weeks ago there was a plumbing incident that ended in Karl installing a new toilet. It was going poorly and Karl was about to throw in the towel and call a plumber, but Henry shamed him into finishing the job. Also, last week, Henry decided he was going to write personal notes to each of his classmates (in spite of the fact that his teacher wanted non-personalized Valentines). This is no small feat for a five-year-old who can barely write in a class with 22 kids. But you know what? He did it! He thought of something sincerely nice to say about every single kid in his class and wrote almost everything himself. He even stayed up late on Wednesday night to finish, because he really wanted to do it, even though I offered him an out when it was 8:30 and we still had 8 cards to go. I was really proud of him.
And on the subject of writing...his un-aided spelling is incredible. The best part of giving him a phone is that we get these awesome texts from him. It's about 25% gibberish, 25% hilarious unintentional autocorrects, and 50% pretty decent phonetic spelling.
Can you figure out what these say? (hint: he often confuses m and n)
One to Karl:
And another to Grandpa Dave:
We do need to discuss the concept of the spaces between words.
He still complains about going to school in the mornings, but when I pick him up, he always seems to be working very happily and he's always excited to tell us about new lessons. We hear a lot about the land and water forms and the math materials.
It's fun to watch him develop interests and pursue them. Karl and I are generally adverse to scheduled activities. We were totally not planning to be Those Parents, but Henry now has three activities, all of which he requested with no prompting from us. Still does Parkour on Saturdays and karate on Tuesdays and Thursdays (though karate is on hiatus while sensei Bob moves into a new dojo). Then he started guitar lessons right after Thanksgiving. He likes the lessons but resists practicing most of the time. Of course, he's very pleased with himself after he finishes practicing. So, pretty much totally normal. He is plunking out some decent melodies. The finger work is hardest for him, but he is doing quite well at reading the music -- better than I expected! He initially relied on his teacher's cheat-sheet notation (which shows string and finger position) but just transitioned to reading the real notes.
Loves to yuk it up in front of the camera. How did my baby turn into such a handsome big boy?
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