Will at 4 Years and 3 Months Old

September 8th marked one quarter of the way through Will's 5th year and I'm still aiming to keep up with quarterly updates... so here's what's new with Will!

Will had a 4 year well check with the pediatrician on June 22nd, so technically these stats are 3 months old already, but here they are:

weight = 35#3oz (50%)

height = 39 1/2" (40%)

I'm not about to say my kid has perfect behavior, because that is far from the truth. But one of the main changes I've seen in him in the last three months is that he has just been SO GOOD! He has his moments when he's tired and he still whines a lot when he doesn't get his way, but we're working on that and, for the most part, Will is SUCH a good little boy. He's very mature and can easily be reasoned with. He strives to do good and to make people happy. Praise for his good behavior is reward enough for him. He basks in it and you can just see the pleasure he finds in making people smile. Lately, when I get home from work, he's taken to asking me "How was your day, mommy?" (Mommy or mama - he's kind of interchangeable with that now and Sophie has followed suit).

One of the peculiar things that has happened at least three times since his 4th birthday is his reaction to spider bites. At least, we think they're spider bites. This summer is not the first time it's happened. I can think of two times last summer that he reacted too. There are a TON of spiders outside our house at night time: all along the deck rails, around the windows and doors, on the garage, etc. They're pretty harmless and don't really get in our way. I also almost never see spiders inside the house. But two of the times we've seen a reaction, we took him to the doctor just to be sure and they confirmed he was probably just sensitive to spider bites. The affected area gets very swollen and hot with a hard spot under the bite. He's gotten them on his arms and legs and one this past July on his forehead! That was very scary because his forehead and bridge of his nose swelled up terribly and he looked like a completely different kid. All we were told to do about them is give him a double dose of children's Benadryl every 8 hours and watch it carefully. Creepy. No one else in our house has had this, so if there are spiders, he must just be very sensitive.

{Lovely - he's chewing a green bean from the garden.}

The kids love our garden. I never know what to call it when things are ready to pull from the garden. I usually say just that: "pulling from the garden". But occasionally, I've said "harvest", and Will apparently likes that better. He frequently asks if we can "harvest tomatoes (or beans) from the garden today". Haha.

Let's see. Some new things he's learned...

Awhile back, I think I mentioned in a Will-isms post that Will had memorized our phone number and completely caught us by surprise with knowing it. Well, now we have taught him our address too. He can say it front to back and he can tell us specific parts upon request, i.e. "What's our street name? Zip code? House number? etc."

He's getting a little better at writing, though I want to keep practicing with sending letters/cards to family/friends as a means of motivating him. He mostly needs to learn to write in a straighter line and more consistently with sizes.

Craig has invented a dice game with a set of large, foam dice that we own. Will can recognize and write numbers and count 1:1 up to probably 12 or 13 now. But Craig was beginning to teach him simple addition with the dice. They see who can roll larger totals by adding up the dots on the dice. He can recognize the number of dots by sight and learning what combinations of numbers equal the same thing. For example, he proudly told me "Mommy! 5+2=7 and 2+5=7 and 3+4=7 and 4+3=7 and 6+1=7 and 1+6=7! It doesn't matter what order they're in!" (like 5+2 and 2+5 equal the same thing). Haha. :)

Thanks to Craig, Will has also learned the difference between a regular (flathead) screwdriver and a Phillips screwdriver, as well as the difference between a wood, an iron and a putter (golf clubs) in his play set. Craig has taught him names and numbers of Ohio State players (football and basketball) and Craig is still the far more patient parent with Will's request to Google various things (i.e. "let's look up a wildebeest!")

Reading continues to improve. He's REALLY good with sight words now and we keep working on "word families" and blending. He's completely solid with the "silent e" at the end of words and also with digraphs such as "th", "ch" and "sh". Most of our reading is still me reading to him, but we do select some library books that he can attempt himself. I took this picture just this week when he finished reading his first entire book to me without my help. I almost cried. I actually did get teary and told him over and over how proud I was of him. Craig came and listened too and reinforced my praise. And he has since sat Sophie down and read the book to her as well. There's a bit of humor in the book and it's so funny and rewarding to see him read, realize and laugh about it completely on his own. He doesn't really even read very choppy either. He can make it sound pretty smooth and often repeats the sentence quicker after reading each word. If he really struggles with a word, he'll sound it out letter-by-letter, but often I can see him just doing it in his head... looking at the word, glancing at the picture to infer what the word might be and then just saying what he thinks it is. This past week, we've begun to discuss contractions a little bit because they pop up even in easy readers on occasion. Oh, and just this week, we've gotten back into our Magic Tree House chapter book series. We just jumped back in where we left off.

Okay, how about things he loves?

Will's favorite things are pretty much the same as always: books, dinosaurs, planets & outer space, ALL kinds of animals, the color red (& also orange), cars & trucks, eating fruit and riding his bike.

Will's been dressing himself since before he turned four, but it's been even more independent and especially helpful now that the school year has resumed. He's usually not particular about what he wears. I just pick something out the night before and lay it out for him and then he can do it himself.

And I'm sure this comes with being the oldest sibling in any family, because I know I was the same, but Will is forever trying to be an extra parent to Sophie. He talks to her the way we do, he disciplines her the way we do, and he praises her the way we do. They do fight and bicker - she can be a real stinker and loves to push his buttons and he is definitely an instigator - but they also adore each other... and I hold tight to those moments.

Will is still napping well and still definitely needs his naps. He often falls asleep better/faster than Sophie at nap time. But at this age, naps are also more flexible and not completely the end of the world if missed... so long as that's not on a regular basis. I mentioned you can reason with him... so usually I can convince him to "fall asleep quickly" so we can wake up sooner and do fun stuff. Naps typically last about two hours. Occasionally only an hour and a half, occasionally more like three if he's really tired. But two is pretty average.

If I'm being honest, it's rare for Will to be in bed for the night before 8 p.m. anymore. Only when he misses a nap and we're super diligent about speeding along the dinner/bath/bedtime process, does he get to bed before that. Usually, it's between 8-8:30 and he falls asleep anywhere from immediately until sometimes after 10 p.m.

I guess that's all for now.

Will is just my favorite little boy on the planet and I love him to pieces. He is such a little lover himself and is always so willing to share that with his family. How lucky we are.