Andrew is 4 years 4 months!

Another month older.  I can’t believe how fast he is growing up.

The biggest event this month is, of course, starting up preschool again.  Andrew is still at Salem Methodist and is now in the 5 day class.  I was a little conflicted about having him in preschool this many days a week, but almost every preschool in St. Louis is like this in the Pre-K year.  You don’t really have a choice in the matter – it is all or nothing.  So, he goes every morning from 9-11:45.  But I think it is really great for him.  He gets a lot of social time, which he otherwise gets none of, since we have no friends that live anywhere close to us and no neighborhood kids.  I also can not imagine homeschooling him because he is resistant to sitting down and doing anything I say – he wants to do his thing his own way only.  But he is much more compliant with teachers.  I can already see a big improvement in writing letters and it’s been only a week!  And this is a non-academic preschool for the most part, really focused on play, but they do craft projects and have a letter of the week each week and now Andrew is getting motivated to write his name. 

He has two new teachers, Mrs. Steinhoff and Mrs. Dieffenbach.  At first, when he heard their names, he was NOT happy at all.  They are quite a bit more difficult than his teachers from last year, but he seems to like them really well.  His class is also quite a bit larger than last year – 17 kids, I think.  But he seems to really be enjoying meeting all the kids.  I was a little worried because on visiting day, his best friend Peyton was there (a little girl he adores) and he was doting/stalking her and wouldn’t even say hi to the other kids.  I noted my concern to the teachers, but they have told me that each day he is playing with all of the other kids and barely sticking to Peyton at all.  So, yay!

Andrew also seems better able to play by himself some in the afternoons, too, or the boys will play by themselves really well for quite a while in their room.  I really think Andrew had a HUGE need for social time with kids his age and he behaves much better when he gets that met.  That said, he is still having some anger issues.  He is usually pretty good, but then sometimes he will blow up with Seth.  And he has especially had a really hard time dealing with us telling him “no”.  He throws these big huge fits.  We are trying to get him to deal with them without using violence or being destructive and I think it’s getting better, but it is kind of frustrating.

Can I just reiterate again how social Andrew is?  Sometimes, I forget.  But he will talk to EVERYONE.  Like literally everyone.  When we walk to the store, he will talk to the people going into or out of the store, telling them where he was and where he is going and why.  He will talk to everyone in the store, telling them about his favorite foods and introducing him and Seth.  He will talk to the cashier about how much food we are buying and how he is not sure if they can bag it all.  I can barely get a word in edgewise with my OB at my visits – Andrew prattles on and on and on.  We went to the library this week (okay, confession, we went to the library 4 times this week … even I am a little embarrassed), and he went up to a librarian shelving books and introduced both him and Seth and then explained why we were getting the movies we were getting and how they lined up with their interests. 

Andrew is quite a thoughtful boy.  Today he was asking all sorts of questions about Santa Claus and how the elves know which toys to make.  He said it’s a good think that Santa brings toys because otherwise there would be not enough toys for everyone (I love that the boys haven’t really gotten the idea that adults could actually buy kids toys at times other than birthday/Christmas).  Then, he was talking to me about how he was worried about overcrowding in cities because there are so many babies born and then there are more and more people living there.  I told him, that is true, but it isn’t as bad, because people also die, too.  But then he told me that they are resurrected and then they live again.  Which I agreed with, but explained that probably most people won’t get resurrected until after Jesus comes again, so we will probably be okay.  Andrew is very certain about resurrection and brings it up often. 

Andrew has really been enjoying playing sports with Katsu in the evening.  They play basketball inside or frisbee outside almost every night.  Andrew has been getting better at those athletic-y sort of things.  So, that is great as well.

Unfortunately, allergies have hit both Andrew and I with a vengence this week.  And his asthma is coming back.  So, I guess we are back to our Claritin/Albuterol/Flovent drill.  Sigh ….  And tomorrow means flu shots which Andrew is really really NOT excited about.

Fun Things this month:

- A visit to the zoo.  We did almost the whole thing, and even bought a couple bags of animal crackers (I never buy anything there, usually).  We were so tired!

- Riding bikes and having a picnic in Creve Coeur Park.  Andrew has a bike with training wheels (it is an old one from freecycle, as Andrew was telling me, “none of the bikes at preschool have pedals that fall off”) that he can pedal really well now.  I was wondering if that would EVER happen.

- A few Saturday mornings with Dad.  Andrew loves being with Dad and doing special things with him, especially when that involves eating at Chinese buffet which Andrew requests frequently.

- A couple trips to the Botanical Gardens.  We were able to see the tree houses before they left and also play in the Children’s garden which is our favorite.  So glad it is not quite so hot anymore.

- Festival of Nations at Tower Grove Park.  We watched a Japanese taiko drum group called Cobu (?).  They were pretty good and we enjoyed it.  We also did some crafts.  We parked pretty far away and walked quite a ways to get there and it was pretty hot so we didn’t stay too long in the end.  We were tired.

- Another quick visit to the Transportation museum.  The boys were disappointed that the trains/trams weren’t running, but LOVED running around inside some of the trains.

- Another Cardinals game!  Andrew won 2 sets of free tickets through the summer reading program (one at each of the library systems), so we all went.  He was super excited and we brought tons of snacks, but he got bored by the 2nd inning.  We made them stay until the 7th inning stretch.  It was a boring game, though, but thankfully for Andrew, short.  He still had fun, though.

- Visit to the St Louis Art fair which is in walking distance from our house (yay!).  The kids weren’t too excited, but did their favorite things – getting a free sand art, doing some crafts, watching a puppet show, and getting their pictures taken in costume at a special educational booth for kids.  And we also watched a flamenco show, which the kids really liked.  But then Andrew’s asthma was starting to kick in, so we needed to get home.