Physical Stats:
Height: 43" (95th percentile)
Weight: 37.5 lbs. (65th percentile I believe. I can't remember but I knew it was between the 50th and 75th)
Teeth: 20, counted at the dentist, no cavities!
Sight: 20/20
Hearing: Normal
Sizes: Currently wearing 4T clothes, 5T pajamas, some shirts are 4-6 or 5T, and we're stocking up on bigger sizes with sales, or second hand opportunities!
Sleep: ~9pm-7am, no naps at home but ~1hr nap at preschool
Favorites
Favorite Food: Sugary Sticky Crap (which I don't buy, but he seems to always manage to acquire!), Shrimp, Sushi, French Fries, Chocolate Milk, Ice Cream, Carrots, Broccoli, Chocolate, Spaghetti with Meatballs
Favorite Drink: Horchata, Hot Chocolate
Dislikes: Cheese, Orange Mac & Cheese, lettuce
Favorite Book: Whichever one is the newest usually. Currently "Peaceful Piggies Meditation" Also, Magic School Bus series, Berenstein Bears, Beatrix Potter books
Favorite Toy: Dinosaurs, Sea Creatures
Favorite Color: Red
Favorite Outdoor Activity: Riding his Skuut Bike
Favorite Indoor Activity: Playing with Dinosaurs
Favorite Sport: Football ("Go Steelers")
Possible Future Occupations: Paleontologist, Chef, Daddy
Favorite TV Shows/Movies: Dinosaur Train, Caillou, Cat in the Hat Knows a lot About That, The Magic School Bus, The Land Before Time movies
Fine Motor Development
RJ can write most of his letters in their capital form, and some in their lowercase form. His drawings become increasingly complex by the day and since it clicked that he could draw faces and draw things that he could cut out and use as toys (stingrays, sharks), his drawing output has increased exponentially. He is getting better at buttoning and unbuttoning clothing and working snaps and zippers, but often still gets frustrated and asks for help.
Gross Motor Development
I am really impressed by RJ's balance on his Skuut Bike. He picks up his feet and zooms along for longer and longer distances every day. He's even more advanced than he was when I filmed him in late June and early July! He can stay upright on his rollerblade trainer skates too. He is also taking his gymnastics class, where he has mastered the forward roll and walking along the beam, working on his bar skills and backward roll. He is constantly in motion and we are working on his body awareness in space because he is seemingly oblivious to where his body is at any given moment, which frequently results in Daddy being kneed in the groin or me getting elbowed in the boob. He can pump his legs when swinging and can climb almost anything on the playground now. We are working on ball skills, mostly because we just haven't pushed him playing with balls all that much. RJ will be taking a session of swim lessons next week and already likes to blow bubbles in the water. We might try soccer in the fall after his session of gymnastics ends.
RJ fully engrosses himself in thematic study and while I have been selecting our themes for the past year (transportation, dinosaurs, ocean), he is now taking the reigns and asking to learn about things that interest him. He is now learning about bees since he was interested in the bees that pollinate our "bee tree". We go to the library and pick out books on his topic, and read them and he asks me to look up answers to questions that I don't know the answer to, such as "What do baby bees look like?", on the computer. His curiosity is intense and he asks questions pretty much non-stop through the day. He seems to have a preference for learning about animals, even though just a year ago, it seemed that all he would ever love was transportation! I really enjoy teaching RJ because he retains the information so easily and because he loves demonstrations and experiments (such as when we cut up grass in the back yard, put it in water and then poured it over a sponge, so he could see how baleen whales eat!).
Language Arts: It is clear that RJ's mind is always working. As he plays, the animals or cars or whatever have intricate conversations and elaborate story lines, which often come out in made-up songs! At bedtime, we read a book and then RJ makes up a story jointly with one of us (usually Daddy). His stories are often
RJ is highly motivated in language arts skills, as he speaks mostly like an adult with a few occasional pronoun or grammatical quirks, and is constantly rhyming real and nonsense words, telling us when something rhymes, what letters start a word, or making up his own words (mostly as silly names for characters in his play). He never stops talking and/or singing songs, which is not ideal when we want to try and encourage Logan to use words, but we are working on teaching him to talk to Logan rather than talk around him, which helps. On the plus side, RJ has taken interest in independently "reading" picture books to Logan, where he does a good job of teaching Logan how to name things. In terms of his pre-reading skills, he recognizes all his letters in capital form and many in lowercase form, and with help can sound out some words. He has an uncanny ability to decode what Lance and I try to spell over his head too. Our days of spelling to each other are numbered. Perhaps we need to start speaking French or Spanish, until RJ picks that up too. He does occasionally ask me how to say something in other languages, and when we visited Quebec, we taught him a few key phrases, which he has since forgotten most of them.
Classification: RJ has been naturally classifying objects for a while. He knows the basic shapes - circle, square, triangle and generally understands bigger/smaller. He typically separates his dinosaurs not only by type, but also by what they eat and lines them up from biggest to smallest on occasion, making nuclear families out of the various sized sets.
Math: RJ can count to 100 with help remembering the tens. He can count to 20 independently, and can count objects with a one-to-one correspondence. He has spontaneously added small numbers of things together (e.g., "1 ball and 1 ball is 2 balls). Additionally, he is starting to understand the concept of "half" thanks to sharing toys of a certain variety with Logan and cooking activities (which he LOVES).
Sequencing: He knows the days of the week and knows which days are preschool days. He also knows that his birthday is in June, but his concept of how long a month or a year is is limited at best. He only understands time in terms of the sequence of the day, not at all by hours/minutes/seconds.
Spacial: RJ is still not very interested in puzzles. I can occasionally get him to work on one with me, but he just doesn't have the desire to do it.
Emotional/Behavioral
RJ is an intense kid and still working on how to interact with people when he's frustrated or angry, despite his ability to express himself verbally. His emotions are intense and we still deal with him hitting other people when he's angry or frustrated or not getting his own way, although lately I've found that he says mean things instead in some cases, which is a change of pace.
He also tends to have an oppositional approach to new things, which is frustrating when we are trying to introduce him to something fun and he pitches a fit only to absolutely LOVE the activity afterward. He is best behaved at preschool, most likely due to the consistent routine. We follow a routine at home too, because we all thrive on routine, but of course, things always come up. His behavior is worst when he is out of his normal habitat, but the more I can prepare him ahead of time, the easier things go. We try not to bribe him to behave, but we do try to encourage him when he is acting appropriately. In terms of discipline, we are against corporal punishment of any kind, and still using the most natural consequences possible for infractions (e.g., if he takes a toy from Logan, then he can't play with that kind of toy for a little bit; if he doesn't help during clean up time, any toys left go into a basket and he can't play with them the next few days). We use a cool off time for him to calm down, but we don't typically use time out as a punishment.
Despite his intensity with negative emotions, RJ can also be quite a joy to have around when he's being nice! His teachers love how kind he is and how well he plays with the other kids. He also loves Logan very much and likes to kiss and squeeze him, which, while overzealous and not always appreciated, is well-intentioned.
He's growing up fast. I can't believe he will start Kindergarten next year!
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