Andrew is 5 years 2 months old

Well, the month has been filled with ups and downs, but we are only about 1 month away to kindergarten – hooray!  I am excited for Andrew.  Maybe I will feel sad, too, but right now I am mostly excited.  He really needs time with other kids and thrives on structured time with someone (i.e., the teacher) teaching him things and giving him positive feedback.  Plus, he really loves learning.  So, I think it will be great.

I am SO glad I started teaching him to read this summer.  It has given him so much confidence and he is so proud of his abilities.  We are on lesson 53 and he has started wanting to do 2 lessons a day many days (we still forget and skip days sometimes).  He still guesses and hates to sound things out, but his reading speed is SO much faster now – he doesn’t have to sound everything out anymore and he has pretty good reading comprehension, too.  I am impressed.  He has the hardest time trying to remember the sounds that short and long vowels make, but he does pretty well.  I think he is probably reading at a level they would expect exiting kindergartens to read at, but I am not sure.  He does need more work with sight words though.  He is not too impressed with words that don’t sound out at all.

I reread the book “The Explosive Child” and realized that it describes Andrew to a T.  He has really poor impulse control, but thankfully in not too many situations – namely, when he wants something because he has a good idea for it but someone else has it, when he does not get to make the choice he wants, and when Seth upsets him by taking something.  And he obviously is very verbal, so thankfully communicating (at least communicating poorly or too little) is not a problem.  But his situations are really spur-of-the-moment, so the solution of planning ahead doesn’t work well.  I never know when Seth will take something of his and suddenly Andrew will explode.  But at least I can better recognize his behavior and try to work on his anger management and impulse control.  And it helps to read that Andrew is not the only one, anyways.  I think the summer when we are all home all the time really brings the issues to a fore.

This has been a SUPER hot summer – we just got over a streak of 10 100+ degree weather days with most of those being high, like 105-108.  It has been MISERABLE.  And Andrew had outside swim lessons twice a week, so that was tough because we not only had to be outside the house, but also had to walk there!  Swim lessons went well.  I can definitely see progress.  He is not thrilled about taking them, but swimming is a life skill – deal with it.  He is a lot more comfortable going underwater but he still tenses up.  He floats well, but he has a hard time keeping his body horizontal when they are practicing swimming.  We will start up lessons in September again and just keep doing them until he is proficient.  Swim lessons are cheap and close.  Andrew doesn’t really want to do any sports and I’m not going to force him.  We may or may not do gymnastics again.  Andrew seemed to enjoy it some, but only a bit.  He mostly liked racing back and forth with the other boys as a warm up and getting a sticker at the end.

Andrew is back in Primary, hooray!  He still is not a fan of church, but his teacher promised them these cupcakes and he seriously talked about them for a whole week.  And then it was fast Sunday so he didn’t get them.  So he talked about it for a whole nother week!  It must have been one fancy cupcake!  But at least he is going.  He always encourages us to read scriptures and loves to have me read him stories out of our set of Book of Mormon kid books.  I think the boys have already gotten more use out of them than we did when we were kids.  Of course, they are also used almost every day for forts and army strongholds, but you know …  I swear, Andrew is going to know the scriptures stories better than anyone I know.  The boys have loved learning about Gideon, Samson, Ruth, and Samuel this week in Family Home Evening.

Andrew’s drawing and writing keep improving.  He is really into doing activity books and sheets now.  He also has started making mazes this month.

Andrew has spent quite a bit of time playing elaborate battles this month, by himself and with Seth.  He also has been building huge creations with Trio blocks, usually pretty much every block, with secret hiding spots for soldiers and like 10 wheels so it can roll around.  They still get a lot more play time than the Legos, though he likes those, too.

Andrew loves playing with Logan and is really kind to him most of the time.  He really loves his brothers.

Fun Things This Month:

• Surviving the heat wave!
• Swim lessons – 7 sessions over the month – with his teacher, Chris.  He really liked his teacher and worked really hard.
• Finished Gymnastics lessons.  Enjoyed learning all the routines.  Most especially enjoyed getting stickers – he collected all of them on one shirt and refused to let us wash it.
• A couple baptisms with Daddy, one for a friend.  When I asked him how it was, he replied with all the refreshments, as a classic Funai.
• My parents came to town.
• Botanical Garden – saw the Chinese lanterns with them and ran around the Children’s garden. 
• St. Louis Basillica – Andrew was really excited to try to see all the Bible stories he knew.
• City Museum – Andrew had a lot of fun exploring everything, though he wasn’t quite as adventurous as Seth. 
• Chinese Buffet and Mr. Wizard’s frozen custard.
• Blueberry Hill – the boys loved the décor.
• Playing with (and probably injuring) Grandpa.
• Seeing a Magician at the library.
• VP Parade downtown.  We watched it from Union Station this time, so we could sneak in for AC as needed since it was a hot hot day.  Of course, Andrew wanted to see the entire 2 hour parade and collect lots of candy.  He was really excited to count each balloon that he saw and make sure he saw them all.  We were going to see fireworks from Katsu’s air-conditioned work, but then there was a water main break and significant flooding, so we couldn’t go.  Andrew was heartbroken (probably still is), but we got special snacks and watched it on TV while the boys laid on their futons.
• Science Museum – boys enjoyed playing in the digital area, which we really hadn’t played with much before.
• Zoo – we saw the new Seal Lion exhibit which we have been waiting for for almost 2 years.  Andrew was super excited to go in the underwater tunnel and see the seal lion swim over his head. 
• Picnic with friends at Tilles Park for Seth’s Birthday.  Andrew had lots of fun playing at the splash park.
• Finishing both summer reading programs.  He won Cardinals tickets again –now if it will just cool off!