five

It's funny, each year I'm blown away that another year has passed and my boy is a year older.  Now we're heading into year SIX...boy is there a lot that is going to happen in the next year.  The past year has been eventful.  Here are the highlights.

School

The Lutheran school has been a great place for Riley.  He's made some good friends and has had an absolutely wonderful teacher.  Mrs. Blake could not have been more sweet and supportive to Riley.

He's also been going to the public preschool four days a week.  Previously he was getting therapy for a speech delay, but he is tracking with his age group now.  He's still been getting OT however, since it has been determined that he needs help with sensory integration.  This makes it hard for him to screen out sensory input (like a noisy classroom or another student brushing up against him) and can lead to overwhelm.  Overwhelm initially was causing behavior problems until he started to work with the OT and they helped to come up with some ways to deal with it, like giving him "weighted activities" like carrying things.  He seems to do best in small groups.

Socially Riley is doing better although he is still a young five.  The speech delay put him behind in this aspect.  Preschool has been good for his social development, but he still struggles in social situations at times, especially when there is a lot of commotion.  In those situations you'll frequently see him go off by himself.  I can understand how he'd need to do that if he's in sensory overload though.

This year he's learned to write his letters and he is starting to sound out words and write them down on his own.  He's writing "books" with increasingly elaborate story lines.  He's even started reading BOB books himself before we read to him at bedtime.  It's so cool to listen to him while he reads.

Riley will be starting kindergarten in August.  He'll be going to a classical school that sounds really great and has a great reputation.  If you're not familiar with classical schools go here and you can learn more. 
Overall Riley likes school.  Hopefully that will continue once the school work gets more challenging...

Brotherhood
Riley has taken to being a big brother very well.  He truly seems to love his sister and will very happily play with her.  Well, at least until she starts tearing apart whatever it is that he's making.  He's generally good to Kendall and at times is very sweet.

There has been much less of, "No Kendall!"  Actually, Riley frequently wants to copy what his sister is doing or what she has.  Last night this even meant putting on nail polish (much to my dismay.)  He will frequently want something that she has (normal) and will also play with toys he knows that she likes before she can get them (also normal, if irritating.)  It's interesting that he seems unaffected by his sister's crying and whining (which she does a lot more of than Riley ever has.)  The only thing we've heard is him commenting on how she is noisy or that she cries a lot.

I know that he pays attention to what's going on with his sister though.  For instance, the other night they were eating dinner and Riley commented that Kendall was, "going to be a girl soon."  He meant rather than a baby.  His way of observing that his sister is growing up.

Overall the kids get along very well.  I hope this continues...

Homebody
Here's something that hasn't changed at all.  To quote last year's birthday blog, "Our boy loves his home (especially when Mommy is there...)  Given a choice he would never leave."  He looks forward to coming home and playing with the new Lego Apple Tree House that he got for his birthday.  Different from last year though is that he does want to go for play dates at friend's houses.  Oh, and he still loves Chick-Fil-A.  Still, there are times where I think he would never leave the house if we didn't make him.

He is also his Mom's boy.  He loves his Daddy, but he LOVES his Mom.  I don't blame him.  'Nuf said.

But he still loves the outdoors
Riley has recently started to ride a bike with training wheels.  It's usually the first thing he does when he gets home.  He'll ride around the driveway and into the garage over and over.  He also loves to go out for a ride on the street.  We'll go out with him and let him ride around the streets in the neighborhood.  He loves the bike (that's Daddy's boy!)

We've also gone out for a few rides with him on the trail-a-bike.  This is fun for both Dad and boy.  We've been on the roads around the house as well as on the bike path that goes through downtown.  We did a family ride once this spring as well.  Riley loves it and he even PEDALS, something I wasn't quite sure that he'd do.  I caught him on video though so I know that he does.

Helpful boy
Riley is still a heplful kid.  He loves to get involved with things that we're doing and help in any way that he can.  He's wanting to do more independently which is cool, even if he at times moves at a snail's pace.  Most of the time that's not an issue though and it is really fun to have him doing things with us.  And it's nice to see him starting to take responsibility for things around the house.

Play
Playtime is very similar to last year.  Riley made the transition to regular Legos with this birthday.  He got the Apple Tree House set and a motor home.  He plays with them every day and he and I will sit down and go through the instructions to build these very elaborate structures.  The pieces can be very difficult to get apart (there is a special tool we bought which is made to do so) and it's a struggle to get Riley to keep the parts out of his mouth (teeth are an effective, if destructive, tool also.)  He LOVES his Legos though and is turning into a formidable builder.  An interesting difference from the days of speech delay is that he nearly constantly sings to himself while building with Legos.  He sometimes sings songs he knows and other times will make up silly lyrics to go with tunes he knows.  It's cool to listen to.

Other favorite things have been drawing and coloring, and frequently cutting out doors and house shapes from his pictures with scissors, spinning in a big box we got a chair in and building with blocks.  We think we may have a future architect or builder on our hands here, since Riley has loved houses in any way shape or form possible for a long time.  We'll see...

He also loves playgrounds whether outside or at the aformentioned Chick-Fil-A.  Part of  our bike ride on the path downtown was stopping at a playground that has a merry-go-round.  I haven't seen one of those since I was a kid and you couldn't get Riley off the thing.  Well, except for the one time he let go and got pitched off...lesson learned though.

During "rest" times Riley likes to watch videos.  His favorites still include Curious George, and he also loves Alvin and the Chipmunks, Beethoven and UP.

Birthday
Riley's fifth birthday was a lot different than his fourth.  This time around he had a bunch of friends since he wasn't the new kid any more and the kids were able to come to the party.  So we had a houseful.  The theme was Curious George again as George is still a fave.  Here's a slide show:

Five.  Wow.  We love our boy and it continues to be such a joy to watch him grow and develop.  This is going to be a big year with school starting.  He's going to be learning so much and growing bigger (well, at least if he eats...)  We continue to be thankful for our son and are grateful that the Lord has allowed us to be his parents.  We love our Riley-Boy!  Happy five my boy!

Jonathan