Owen at age 4 1/2

Last week we celebrated Owen's half birthday!  For months now he has claimed to be "four and a half" and "almost five" but now it is the truth!  He now wears mostly size 4 clothes, size 11 shoes and weighs approximately 40 lbs.  He constantly asks questions and is very curious about the world around him.  {Some of his most recent questions:  How does a car run?  What are trees made of?  How does a baby get in a mommy's tummy?  Will I be cute in high school?}

Since turning four we have had two routine conferences with his teacher.  Ms. Anitra has been such a blessing to us!  She says that he is doing great!  He has two best buddies, Keaton and JK.  They are all among the oldest in the class and also have older siblings, which she thinks might have something to do with the way they get along so well.  She commented on how comical Owen is and how much he enjoys making others laugh.  She tested him on alphabet letter identification and he got almost all of them correct!  She agreed that he has mastered all tasks and expectations for the year, which has contributed to our decision to go ahead and promote him to the Pre K class at the same school for this fall {Mrs. A will be moving up to Pre K, too!}.  We still plan to hold him back a year but will most likely have him spend a year in Pre K at the elementary school as well.

He loves to count, dance, do crafts, vacuum, play sports (especially baseball, soccer, football & golf), play Wii, play on the ipad, and do exercise videos with us at home.  He loves to play at the Sonic playground after school, which we have done quite often recently with the beautiful weather!  Each child in his class gets a turn to take home the homework backpack.  Owen was thrilled to take it home.  I've never seen anyone so excited about doing homework!  He prefers not to play alone, tidy his room, run errands or try new foods.  His diet primarily consists of Boston cream pie breakfast strudels, pumpkin muffins, biscuits with gravy, bacon, Ramen noodles, fettuccine alfredo, weenies, garlic bread, pop corn, chips and queso, peanut butter sandwiches, tortillas, yogurt, rice and hard boiled eggs (without the "olk" - yolk).  Very rarely will he deviate from this list.  Pediasure is a thing of the past!

His speech has improved recently.  Over Spring Break he randomly started sounding out his 's' and 'f' sounds perfectly and consistently!  There are still occasions when we simply cannot understand him.  He tends to get irritated but has figured out how to use context clues to better communicate what he is talking about.  We followed through with Dr Knight's referral and he was evaluated for speech last month.  As we suspected, he is just a little behind the curve in articulation.  He will start meeting with a speech therapist once a week and then will be re evaluated every 90 days.

Lately we have noticed that Owen has taken interest in math.  When we give him two different single digit numbers he can put them together in his head and tell us the double digit {4, 6 =46}.  He has recently made several different number associations.  He called attention to the fact that there are four members in our immediate family and that his age is four.  He also made reference to the fact that both he and his daddy both have the number eight in their ipad passwords.  He is also great at 20+ piece puzzles!  He focuses and completes them in record speed!

Our boy is a very light sleeper.  He almost never stays put in one place during the night.  He still starts in Emma's bed but transfers to our bed during the night.  He often falls asleep on the way home from school.  He definitely still needs that daily nap and will do so in Pre K!

His favorite days are t ball days!  He doesn't seem to understand the difference between practices and games but has the time of his life out there!  The first thing he asks each morning is "Do I have a game today?"  On game days he constantly asks "How many minutes 'til my game?"  His coach let him play pitcher which was hilarious!  He had the biggest grin on his face and proceeded to tag the opponent without  the ball.

Things I never want to forget about 4 1/2 year old Owen:

• He is very shy and it often takes him quite some time to warm up to new adults.  
• He is extremely cuddly first thing in the morning and last thing at night.  
• He still adores his big sister but doesn't allow her to push him around as much as he used to.  
• While she is at school he sneaks into her room to play Barbies.  
• He has all of the Frozen song lyrics memorized.  
• He has an amazing memory ("one time you said...").  
• He is scared silly of bugs.
• He often holds my hand on the way to school.  
• He furrows his brow and grunts when he doesn't get his way.  
• He loves his little school friends with all his heart.  
• He can easily be bribed with McDonalds happy meals and electronic privileges :)

We love him to pieces.  He is growing up faster than we wish he would but we are enjoying every minute - temper tantrums and all!  :)