Zoo

We took Fletcher to the Columbia Zoo in October. The weather was perfect and he got to stay in a hotel for the first time. He has been intrigued by the idea of hotel for a while, so we were happy to let him see one.

 

The parrot display, it was a little freaky with them flying all around us.

 He loved the merry-go-round more than anything else.

 I guess it is a characteristic of being 5, but it is nearly impossible to get a good picture of this kid.

 He loves to make funny faces...

 or serious faces

Finally, there's my sweet boy!

 and now he's trying to climb in the elephant pen. Oh well, we had fun.



Dinosaur Museum

So one Saturday morning many weeks ago, Fletcher says "Mommy, I've never been to a museum." True, the teacher in me cringes, how have I forgotten to do this?

My reply: "What kind of museum do you want to go to?"

Fletcher: "a dinosaur museum!"

I knew there was something at the College of Charleston and thanks to Google, we found out it was open. So off we go!



We started with a search of the building. Fletcher wanted to find the paleontologists (really Dr. Scott from the show Dinosaur Train), but it was a Saturday and no one was in the offices. We did find this astronaut suit though. Fits perfectly!

 



Fletcher could not believe this display of PEZ dispensers. The museum is in the Hall of Science at the College of Charleston. Scientists are odd birds.

 This is a saber tooth tiger, but I couldn't get the head in the picture. Fletcher is showing his surprised face at how big it is.

This was his favorite display, a megalodon jaw. He made me read everyone of the information plaques to him. This one said the actual shark was 40-50 feet long or about 3 school buses.

This is actually the first picture I took. He was so excited to see the displays and the museum is set up for kids. I hope his curiosity never wanes.

The land of a million questions

I have always heard that kids will get into the habit of asking why about everything. Fletcher does not have this problem. He asks VERY specific questions and a lot of them. Where is that ambulance going? Why do you have to stop for them? Why doesn't that truck have anything on its trailer? Why can I see the moon during the day? Why can't we see the stars during the day? Why isn't there a sidewalk here? I could on, but I think you get the idea. And he won't take simple answers and let it go, he has follow-up questions. I am not complaining, I love that he is curious; but it is exhausting explaining everything in a language that a 5yo can comprehend. Today I had to explain the characteristics that make a good climbing tree. Last week we had a long conversation about the difference between a first down and a touchdown (admittedly I really enjoyed that conversation). He will talk your head off and if it is not questions, it is plan. He is all about making a plan about what he and everyone else around him is going to do, step by step and in great detail. He must get this from Mark (I see a lot of lists in his future) because it does not come from me.
He loves race tracks. We must have at least 50 and he will be quick to point out the ones he does not have. We have even taken to getting some for the bath tub.

He remembers everything he sees, hears or is told. Dinosaur Train is one of his favorite shows and honestly, he knows more about dinosaurs than me at this point. It is one show I don't feel bad about letting him watch because it is very accurate and well done.

He is currently big on expanding his vocabulary, although he just calls it learning new words. He was so proud of himself when he told me that he learned a new word for funny = HILARIOUS! And then another way to say make = CREATE. I, of course, had to tell him these are synonyms, and we have been learning new ones everyday. He is quick to ask me what a word means if he doesn't understand it, and he will request a simeron (he can't say synonym). He just learned the word infinite at school, but he doesn't truly understand yet. He does however, try to use it when he thinks it's appropriate.
He loves to sing and still makes up songs about what he is doing. He remembers songs from music class at school or ones he sees on TV.

He has taken to creating drum sets out various items. I am hoping the desire to play drums fades quickly.
He is a vanilla junkie, and I can get him to eat most things by proclaiming it is vanilla flavored. Ice cream is no exception.

Silly faces are a must when the camera is out and he immediately says, "let me see it" . He would have struggled in the days of Polaroid cameras.
He loves to play games, and is big on identifying the rules. They make up games on the playground at school all the time, and I think they try to outdo each other with the number of rules they can come up with.

Having friends over is still one of his favorite activities and with mostly girls who join us we have to make it  a dance party.

Please note the game of Candy Land on the table. Fletcher had to stop periodically to play this game during the dance party. Maybe he will be good at multi-tasking one day.
We took him to his first concert in June. It was a friend of ours band (a WSP cover band of course), and it was early and outside. They advertise it as kid and dog friendly. Fletcher loved it and after dancing with me he leaned over to give me a kiss. Please tell me this will never end.

 

He continues to be sweet and loving all the time,and although this picture makes me a little sad I wanted to share it to show how wonderful he really is.

Happy Birthday

Fletcher turned 5 in June and for about 9 months prior to that he said he wanted to have his birthday party at Brick by Brick. It is a basically just a big room with thousands of Legos. They do camps and parties and have the kids race to build the tallest tower or build a car to race down a ramp. It is genius really because kids love it and their over head is really low. Why didn't I think of that?!

 

Well, I foolishly scheduled F's party for the Saturday of Father's Day weekend, so a week before I had not heard from many kids and was worried the turn out would be low. I sent a few emails and low and behold we went over on the number of kids with nearly his whole class and all the neighborhood kids. Oh well, he had fun (even though he still had the cast on).

He still does not like chocolate, so I had to make vanilla AND chocolate cupcakes, because he readily admits that all his friends like them better. It was a Lightning McQueen party (of course) and all the kids just licked the icing off the cupcakes. Maybe next time I'll just give them a spoonful of that and skip the baking altogether!

 

Despite my concern about how many would show up, Fletcher was only concerned about one person, SILAS (on the left)! They were in the same 2's, 3's and 4's class and they are best buddies. They were inseparable the whole time. Silas had his party at the same place.

 

So I decided to have 2 parties (this will come back to bite me next year). Since F's bday is in the summer it is perfect pool weather, but I do not want to invite his entire class to my parents house. I do however, want to enjoy a day at the pool with the Harris family and F's bday is perfect excuse to do so.

Mac and Fletcher spent the day in the pool tormenting poor Kate, but she is tough despite their attempts to run her over with the raft or shoot her with the water gun.

 

My big boy slowed down long enough to take a picture with me.

 

Speaking of big, he was the 25% percentile for height and the 50th for weight in July. I question the weight because it is nearly impossible to find pants that are long enough but small enough in the waist. Let's just say you can count his ribs pretty easily.

I took this picture last week to show that he has grown considerably since June. He is bugging me to mark it again but we only do it twice a year. I wonder where he will be in December.

Chipping away

So it must be obvious that blogging is not my favorite thing to do. I'm too much of a perfectionist, and I want it to be witty and thoughtful. Well I'm just going to have to get over that and do it more often. So here is my attempt at chipping away at the last year.

Fletcher broke his arm (this year) playing on the monkey bars. Apparently, they were trying to run and jump to the fourth rung after successfully making the third rung. Fletcher said he didn't want to do it, but Natalie dared him. Great, he succumbs to peer pressure.
It was a Friday afternoon and I got the call from his school around 3:30. They said he fell and then did not want to keep playing. Not good, he will do just about anything to be able to play with his friends. By the time I picked him up he seemed okay and was able to move his wrist. However, the x-ray showed a hairline fracture, but that was not until 5:30 on a Friday afternoon. Perfect timing! We put him in a splint for the weekend and waited to see the orthopedist (who we obviously need to put on speed dial). He got the cast Monday afternoon May 28 just in time for summer. It kept us out of the pool for a month....

but not out of the river! Fletcher and Mark went to MS for Memorial Day (I went to CA for a wedding). I was horrified when he told we they had been out on the wave runner, but luckily no one fell off.

Fletcher and his cousin, Gray, had a blast together. It is a bummer that we don't live closer because they two LOVE each other.

They both only know one speed, so they go hard and fast...and neither was able to escape the day without a nap.

Fletcher has decided that we need TWO wave runners of our own. One for he and Daddy and another for me. I will fight this as long as I can.

 

The trees are getting ready for Christmas....

This is what Fletcher said to me when he saw the Christmas lights go up at the entrance to our subdivision. It was so sweet and honest, and it made me realize I have not captured how grown up he is on the blog. It is amazing how quickly they change and can do new things, so here are a few things about him at 4.

He can almost swim. We spent A LOT of time working with him over the summer.


He can dress himself......mostly. He wrestled with a few shirts and got his head stuck, so he insists I open them so he can get in.

He has never met a stranger, and all kids are friends immediately. He will walk up to anyone and introduce himself.

At 2yo he did not say a word, but at 4 he is quite eloquent. However, he can't say "th", so thirsty sounds like firsty.

He loves the show Dinosaur Train, and he can tell you the name of any dinosaur (so at least he's learning something sitting in front of the TV).

His favorite color is now red, but orange is a very close second.

He snores loudly! If you know his father there is no surprise here.

He has about 20 freckles scattered across his nose and cheeks, and he still has eyelashes to die for.


He and Mark like to make up songs in the car about whatever they are doing or about to do.

He is starting to eat more new things. We have recently added eggs, shrimp, burgers (no cheese) and rice crispy treats (he had these at school and proclaimed they were delicious). His favorite pizza toppings are pepperoni and bacon. We can use bacon to get him to do almost anything!

Fletcher has loved school from the start but more for the playing than the actual learning. In August, he could not write his name nor did he have any interest in doing so. The first few weeks in the 4's were not great because he got frustrated with the work and just wanted to play. Luckily, he has made great progress.

This picture is a few months old...but you get the idea.

Mrs. Martin always selects one student's work to be displayed. Fletcher is a minimalist when it comes to coloring. He's only going to do what he has to in order to get a pass to go play. Image our surprise when we showed up for his Halloween party and his pumpkin was on display!

He was the first one finished AND he colored everything! Mrs. Martin made a big deal out of it. He was so proud.

He loves the movie Cars. The sequel came out on his birthday and it was his first outing to the theater. He has nearly all the characters from both movies. When he saw the Lightning McQueen costume in September we got it.

He does not really love candy (and he will not eat chocolate), but he had a blast going up to people's houses to say "trick or treat".

We have about a half a million kids in our neighborhood, so his favorite part was running around with them before it got dark.


He LOVES to have friends over, and it's nice for the grownups too! Here's one of his BFFs, Mac...they had a lot of help making that mess.

He is also a big fan of " going to someones house".

So he was in heaven when we rented a beach house with friends in September.

He continues to be incredibly sweet...most of the time. And when he does something wrong (like push someone at school), he tells on himself. I wonder how long that will last?

Houston...we have a problem!

I have read and heard about the irrational fears that kids sometimes have, like being afraid of the dark, monsters or thunder. However, Fletcher has always been fearless and I thought that now at 4yo we had escaped that issue. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Let me explain.

F is obsessed with the movie Cars, so for his 4th birthday we got him a Lightning McQueen bike (the main character in the movie for those of you without boys). Our neighbor Matthew has a bike, and F wanted a big boy bike of his own. It came in a box, so he and Mark put it together and he immediately jumped on and started riding. We have a pool in our neighborhood, and the next day he wanted to ride his bike to the pool.

Here he is on the way to the pool. Please notice that he is smiling.

He was not super fast, but we got there and played for a while before heading home. About half way back he got going a little too fast crossing a sloped driveway and he fell. He cried a little, but there was no blood (he has some permanent scars on his knees from previous battles with the sidewalk), so he got back up and rode home. A couple days later, he rode around the block with me no problem. A few days later Mark took him and he cried the entire time, saying he was scared of falling?! I talked to him about it and tried to assure him he would be fine, "You've fallen before and didn't get hurt, right?" YES, but I don't want to go fast. "No problem, go slow until you get more confident", I urged. NO, he said. We talked about it a lot and he was insistent about his fear of falling. I'm talking tears, big fat heaving sobs. I gave him a few days away from it thinking it would pass. So one afternoon I said let's go ride your bike. He was reluctant, but I promised him he did not have to go fast or far, just ride around in the garage a little. As soon as we got the bike out he started crying. What to do? " I told him he had to do three circles in the garage or we would have to pack up his cars and trucks and give them away. Not my finest parenting moment, I KNOW, but I was sure it would work (he LOVES his cars), and I knew once he got back on it he would be fine. Boy did I back myself into a corner. He sat on it...sobbing but would not peddle. After about 5 minutes of trying to talk him into it, he said let's go pack up my cars. WHAT!?!? So I had no choice, I had to follow through and we packed up all the cars and trucks and he sat in a chair thinking about it for about an hour.

So we go to Florida and get away from the whole bike fiasco for a week. I was hoping it help, but as soon as I mentioned going for a ride he started making excuses. So I made him a deal. He has been wanting a Cars 2 track, so we bought one, but I told him he couldn't open it until he rode to the stop sign and back. Again, I know I'm not up for mom of the year, but I was getting desperate. Well, it was not pretty and we went through a number of tissues because he cried almost all the way there (my neighbors must think I'm crazy), but he did it! Of course, I haven't mentioned the stupid bike to him in a week. Sigh.....




So here is the track and F explaining what's going to happen.




His reward for riding his bike.