Celebrating Five

Iver wanted to have another gymnastics birthday party this year, and his actual birthday fell on a Saturday, so we booked Flips for Kids for another fun time.

It was an extremely rainy day, so to have protected time for the kids to burn off energy jumping on mats, bouncing off trampolines, and swinging was much appreciated!

This boy sure played hard-- check out his rosy cheeks (with Aubrey and Abbey)!

with Evelyn

 Aubrey is certainly one of his most favorite people

 

 Niall enjoyed himself, too (last year, he could only crawl around)

 

with Bentley

"What are you doing, Niall?"

 "Hiding...."

  

 

 

Group pic

We had 30 minutes for food (pizza) and treats (homemade gingerbread cookies with frosting and crushed peppermint-- Iver helped with all steps, and they turned out well!)

(Niall had his first taste of chocolate milk... and was a fan!).

 

Thanks to Nina for capturing this sweet photo, and several others.

 

We requested no party gifts (and guests actually listened!), but Iver was showered with many other lovely gifts from friends and family (only some of which are pictured here), including games, clothes, shoes, movies, a sleeping bag, and weather station.

Here is him in a new footie pajamas, working on a seal project from Little Passports (from my parents). 

 Playing an around-the-world game

Reading "Bedtime Math" from the Lees

An awesome logic game (also from the Lees) "Rush Hour."

We Facetimed with grandparents and aunties and it was an all-around fun birthday for our little (er... big!) guy.

f-I-V-E-R!

 

It's hard to believe that we now have a FIVE-YEAR-OLD!!!
Five feels so grown up, and puts us officially out of toddlerhood (I think?) with our oldest.
We became parents on the winter solstice half a decade ago!


Iver will finish up this school year in Pre-K and is slated to start Kindergarten (school TBD) in the fall.
He weighs around 35 pounds, and wears 4T shirts and ~5T bottoms.
He is still quite the spunky, spirited child.
He is energetic, intense, passionate (explosive at times), and persistent (although we have been having fewer power struggles as he gets older, and we have learned to better manage better his strong feelings and need for control in decision-making).
He is quite the negotiator, and has great brainstorming ideas to get what he wants (we are working on his asking respectfully rather than whining and shouting).
He is analytical and has a photographic memory (he can remember what he wore and on what weekday things were, years in the past!)
He loves board games and can outsmart us adults in UNO, Tic-tac-toe, and others.
He has quite an aptitude for math, doing several-column math with "regrouping" (carrying over), and double-digit addition and subtraction and some multiplication in his head.
He loves books, and is reading short and frequently-visualized words.
He loves dealing with time (he has a beloved Frozen wristwatch) and can calculate "how many minutes until..." in his head.
He loves art, drawing, and writing birthday and Christmas cards.
He did a little acting class this fall and loves going to musical theater shows as a member of the audience (acting in them may or may not be in his future, but certainly a few years off).
He loves routines and rules (and will call us out if we're one minute later than we said picking him up), and is somewhat slow-to-adapt to new settings and people, but has formed very secure attachments to several caregivers/teachers, friends, and family members.
He loves dressing up at home (mainly as Disney princesses, appropriating my tops as dresses and a hooded towel as "hair").
He chooses his own school clothes, and is partial to brightly colored tops and leggings, and one black and neon green hoodie sweater. He loves flip flops and sandals.
He loves to listen to and sing along to songs (mostly Disney, especially Frozen) in the car.
He likes to help in the kitchen and bake with me (even though I don't like to bake nor cook!).
He loves parks, bounce houses, monkey bars, climbing, and active play.
He can ride a two-wheeler without training wheels.
He's incredibly sensitive and will tear up at things like papa forgetting to play"chase" before school when he said he would.
He is sensitive to textures, and bothered by tags and certain socks if they don't feel just right.
He is an okay eater but loves to snack. His favorite breakfast foods are raisin bread, yogurt, cereal, and fruit. For lunch, he is partial to Hormel pepperoni slices, spicy sausages, and mac-and-cheese. His favorite veggies are peas, beans, broccoli, and carrots. He definitely has a sweet tooth (we allow dessert on two nights of the week, which he gets to pick). He loves to have an after-dinner snack if he eats a reasonable amount of normal entree food.
He definitely has severe "FOMO" (fear of missing out) and never wants to sleep ("I just lie there with my eyes closed!") or admit to being tired.  Nevertheless, he sleeps from about 8:15 pm until about 6:15 or 6:30 a.m. without a nap (recently, we've had him sleeping in the guest bedroom as Niall wakes up, and sometimes wakes him up, sooner). He's been letting us check on him "whenever we want" after he's in bed (instead of previously five-minute intervals, which became problematic as soon as he could read and understand time because we'd try to drag the intervals out and then would get chastised). He ditched his night-time pull-ups at around four-and-a-half and we're working on him wiping his own bottom, which we've told him is a requirement for KG (even though it's probably not).
He likes bubble baths and end-of-day showers with Papa.

(Niall also turned 22 months last week. We took some photos of the boys together. I think you can tell from the first photo which child is the people-pleaser and which one has his own ideas about how/why things are done...)

 

Here's one Disney princess drawing on his doodle pad.

Iver: Guess who it is, Mom!

Me: I don't know. Ariel? Rapunzel?

Iver: NO!!! It's Aurora! 

Me: Aurora? What's that in her hand?

Iver: It's coffee. She was very sleepy.

"Icy crown" of bubbles

Making hot cocoa at school

Sweet treat- date with Papa

me with the birthday boy

Brotherly breakfast love

 

Bedtime reading with Papa

These growing boys are special!

Here's what Iver was doing at 

ONE

TWO

THREE
FOUR

He has opened a few gifts and we'll have a party to celebrate later-- pictures likely to follow.

Local Festivities

Like in most years, December has had lot of local holiday events. 

Kelvin's Clinic had a door-decorating contest and Iver got to take a peek.

(Kelvin also came home with a child-sized Olaf from a white elephant gift exchange which now sleeps next to Iver all night long, giving him "warm hugs").

When I was on call with a laboring patient last weekend, the boys swung by to take a picture with Santa and do some holiday arts and crafts.

Kelvin and the boys at church

Iver's daycare put on their annual "Holiday Performance" on Thursday, and the kids did great!

(he's front and center in the checked button-down shirt, and actually singing this year!)

Smiley Niall-y gave us a post-performance grin!

Next up: birthday celebration!

Merry Impeachmas!

 

Do I think it's good that a minority of our country's citizens thought it to be a reasonable plan to vote a corrupt narcissist into the presidency and whose actions since have warranted his being impeached? No. I've felt enraged, sick, and discouraged for many a day in the last 3+ years. 

But do I think it's good that our (Democratic) legislators took steps to attempt to remove the law-breaking abuser-in-chief from office? Yes! (If only we had non-brainwashed, moral Senate Republicans who would face the facts, put their country over party, and would vote accordingly, it would truly be a delightful Christmas gift.).

 

 (Here's to a much brighter, happier new [election] year in 2020... or maybe even a post-Christmas miracle! One can always hope and pray that people do the right thing. Otherwise I see a lot of lumps of coal in their future...).

Kindergarten on the horizon!

Iver (almost five) is *of age* to start Kindergarten next fall (2020).  It's so exciting to have an almost-"school-aged" kid (I have always loved school and learning and hope my kids do, too!)!  The local schools have started (yes, in DECEMBER!) having their kindergarten information nights and orientations, two of which we've attended in recent weeks. However, the process of school enrollment is seeming a bit more daunting and complicated than we expected it would be.

When living in the states, Kelvin and I attended our local public schools.  They (along with our parents and all the learning at home, of course!) prepared us well for academic and social success in high school, college, medical school, and beyond.  We both feel as though efforts to get our kid(s) into a certain *other* (or non-district-assigned) school reek of privilege which we are aware that we may have, but which doesn't feel particularly fair or good.  We have never wanted to send our kids to private schools, nor would we ever consider home-schooling them. Many families, for reasons of transportation, jobs, or other, don't necessarily have school choice or the resources to send their kids anywhere but the down-the-street public school, and we both feel that diversity-- of ethnicity, economics, and religion-- is important to maintain in schools and communities. We definitely want our local public schools to thrive and want to be supporters (and have buy-in as true participants) of public education all the way, especially in light of how undervalued we feel that teachers are for the incredibly important work they do caring for and teaching our kids.

All of that being said, our town's early elementary school (about 10 minutes north of our house away from our workplaces) goes from TK- second grade, after which kids have to transfer to a different "upper" elementary school (3rd -5th grades), followed by middle school, and then high school. (Potentially) four schools in thirteen years is a lot of school changes for our sensitive and somewhat slow-to-adapt "orchid" oldest child, although one great benefit of the school is the option of Spanish immersion education, which I think would be a great opportunity.  We have been exploring the possibility of an inter-district transfer to a K-8 Arcata public school, which is located right next door to the hospital and prenatal clinic at which I work (and very close to Niall's current childcare center and Kelvin's office), which would probably logistically be the easiest for double drop-offs and also provide a lot of consistency for Iver during these early school years (the school district has to approve the transfer request for this to be an option). The kids would then (potentially) be able to overlap at the same school for several years of their schooling.

There are a couple of other small charter schools in Arcata that operate on an application and lottery system (you have to be "accepted" into Kindergarten!), one of which also has a Spanish language curriculum, but neither Kelvin nor I are particularly keen on expending a lot of energy to go down this road (have you seen the documentary Waiting for "Superman"?). We are somewhat put off by the pressure, intensity, and time commitment of trying to get your kindergartner into a specific school (even if there may actually be a *best* one for their skills and temperament) and sort of feel that it'll all work out in the end... Much of the social, emotional, and academic learning that he's already had in his daycare-preschool years as a great base, and which is reinforced at home, has made us optimistic that our already-reading-and-writing, math-adept observer with the photographic memory will probably do well at any school that'll have him!

 Wish us luck!

Holiday spirit (um, festive stress)

December is hectic around these parts! Between holiday events and the gift planning/acquisition (including for Iver's birthday) and planned travel this year (including a short international destination), it is definitely one of the most stressful times of year for me.  It's hard to get into the holiday spirit (Christmas really was always my favorite holiday and one of the most magical times of year!) when the many obligations and burden of magic-creating with children leaves me feeling on edge and frazzled, rather than being able to sit back and find time to stare at holiday lights, marvel at the Christmas story, and watch "It's a Wonderful Life" on repeat.

(I have a very involved and non-lazy husband, but I still feel the mental load of this:)

(Needless to say, we skipped putting up an *actual* tree this year)

Nevertheless, these things made me smile this week:

(Iver's card to apparently-naughty Papa)

 

This little elf!

 Meeting friends at McKinleyville's tree-lighting/Christmas celebration (Kellie, Karen)

Santa rode in on a fire truck! 

Iver with bud Olivia 

Despite feeling pretty stretched thin (this week included a severe flu-like illness in Kelvin on my very busy call night, even prompting him to miss a day of work [unheard of], an all-nighter for me with three deliveries in the wee hours of Tuesday, some extra-complicated clinic patients, work personnel issues, and some cranky children), I am trying to focus on the JOY of the season (at least for next week) and only the important things. Wish me luck (we still have 20 days until Christmas!)!