Blogging Backlog

I haven’t blogged a lot lately.  Partly, it is because we are busy.  The other part is that I’m working on getting ready for the baby.  It involves a lot more than just buying things.  I had some research to do on a few areas.  I also want to make sure that we notify the right people.  I’ve tried to make lists of all the things we are doing in the next month.  You never know if J will deliver early.  So, I’m a little preoccupied.

I do want to document a few things though about Nicholas.  First, he is continuing to do so well in swimming.  On Thursday he told his teacher to watch him.  Then he proceeded to do a back flip and a front flip underwater.  This wasn’t something she was teaching him, but something he did all on his own.  I couldn’t be more proud.

At his violin lesson, he has been working on several variations so he can play the entire song of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”.  Some are easier than others, so his teacher wanted him to listen to her play it on the piano.  He asked if he could try it on the piano and he played it really well!  I asked him if he was going to be my musical boy and he said he will.  I never played an instrument growing up, so I’m a little excited that he enjoys it.

I was happy to have Evan with me at soccer this past week.  He was on the youth retreat during the first game.  These games are just not that full of action, so it helps to have someone to talk to during it.  It was really cold though.  I was happy to find a pair of gloves in my coat.  Even Nicholas was cold and he doesn’t say that very much.  Nicholas did great though.  He’s one of the bigger kids, so he can really get in there and get the ball.  None of the kids care about teams though.  Anyone who has the ball will get it stolen from him/her. 

We have about four weeks of Pre-K left!  I don’t talk about school too much anymore because we don’t do too many activities out of the norm,  I do have to say that All About Reading (by the publisher of All About Spelling) is a great program too.  The beginning of the book is a lot of review for him, but I can see it is really going to help the more we move through it.  He is able to sound out a lot of words now.    

He and Evan are almost done learning about the 50 states.  We print out a couple of states from Crayola.com each week.  They talk about them, color the paper, and try to find them on the map.  They both enjoy it.  We don’t expect Nicholas to memorize all 50, but to become familiar with many of the states’ names.

Math is going well.  We started a new book recently and he is disappointed that we only do one lesson a week.  I love my little student.  Like I’ve said, it is easier to have my first child be the same kind of student that I was. 

I would say that Handwriting is his least favorite subject, but he has done less complaining about it lately.  He knows how to write all his letters, but is working hard to stay within the lines.  He writes out a lot of his spelling words, so I think that has helped him improve as well.

Being five is hard sometimes, but he is a joy more than anything else (I’m saying this after a really rough week).   I enjoy talking to him too.  Saturday morning we had almost an hour conversation about different questions he had.  We talked about Russia, the plane ride, the airport, and when certain people became my family (not his). 

He asked some questions about his birthmother, which prompted some more questions about J and C.  We talked about how everyone is born and what size they are when they’re born.  They were very thoughtful questions and I could see his little mind just trying to process it all. 

I know one thing though - Nicholas can’t wait to be a big brother.  He’s got his shirt ready with his official title.  Now, we wait . . .  We have about a month to go (maybe less, maybe more)!