4 year old Gavin!

I'm a tad belated in this post but better late then never :)

I've been trying to update on the happenings of Gavin a couple times a year, so without further ado, here's all about 4 year old Gavin!

Gavin turned 4 on September 20th. This year we celebrated with separate family and friend gatherings which made the planning a lot less hectic for me as his friend gathering was not at our house this year, and thus, I didn't have to clean my house, ha!  His friend party was at Pump It Up which is a big indoor inflatable playground area with bounce houses and slides for the kids to play on. We invited several of his friends including several of his preschool friends. The kids jumped their hearts out and got sufficiently tired then ended the evening with pizza and cake. We went with a super original (cue the sarcasm) theme of Frozen for the cake which the birthday boy picked out himself (chocolate cake with chocolate filling, that's my boy!).  He even got his own inflatable birthday "king" crown and had a huge smile on his face the whole evening. I call that a success :)  Now if I can just wrap my head around the fact that I have a FOUR year old...

**Gavin's normal daily routine (I think it's fun to look back and see how his normal day to day patterns have changed over the years so here's his normal day....):
-He sleeps with his "sheep clock" which we as his parents LOVE. We set it to change to "awake" sheep at a certain time and then can set it to show "sleeping sheep" when it's time for him to be sleeping. He really understands the system and MOST of the time it helps him stay in his bed and not wake up at outrageously early times. So normally he's up between 6:00 and 6:30am (he is and has always been an early bird).
-He is fully independent with going potty by himself and then we all try to sit down for breakfast together (even on weekdays, which is one luxury of me working from home in that we don't have to rush as much).
-During the week I normally bring him to preschool for the day while I work from home. On weekends we usually use the morning time for family time (our favorite spots continue to be the Minnesota Zoo, the Children's Museum, and in the summer we love to go to the beach, swimming, or for bike rides).

-He still gets a morning snack and then lunch before nap time. He's still a fantastic eater and not picky at all. I feel like I hit the major lucky mama button here with this little guy, he exclusively eats what we eat for dinner so there's never making him separate food, and he'll happily eat his veggies, etc.

-He is still taking a nap (about 95% of the time at least). He normally falls asleep between 12-1pm and then will sleep for 1.5 to 2 hours depending on the day. We struggle a bit more to get him to nap on the weekends as he's just having too much fun to calm down and want to sleep. I tend to put him to nap on the weekends as I seem to (at least for now, fingers crossed) have the magic touch to have more luck getting him to sleep then Tom.

-After nap he's typically hungry again for another snack (growing boy, yup!) and then we have play time. We'll often also use this time to do baking together. He's become quite the great baking helper and can measure out things by himself, operate our stand mixer by himself (with supervision of course) and even scoop batter into mini muffin tins by himself. It's so fun to share these sorts of memories with him.
-We typically do bath time every other night at this point (except in the summer when he tends to get grubbier). We've tried showers a couple times and he's not really a fan, and doesn't really like when water gets near his eyes.
-We try to stick to a 7pm bed time as any later than that and he gets pretty squirrelly.  He can get himself dressed in his jammies all by himself now and gets so proud of himself, especially when he's able to button his shirt all by himself. He also loves brushing his teeth as we recently got him his own fancy toothpaste (it's the little things that still excite him!).  We read several books together, choose several "buddies" as we can them (stuffed animals), tuck in the stuffed animals into his bed, and tuck in Gavin. He loves when we lay with him in bed, sing songs, and rub his back to help him fall to sleep. When we say night, night, we also turn on an angel that used to be his great-grandmother's that sings "Jesus Loves Me".  Most nights there's minimum bed-time revolt/battle to look forward to, but other nights he harnesses his inner rebel and fights us a bit on the whole "you need to go to sleep" thing that's just no fun for a 4 year old.  While Mommy reigns for nap time, he loves Daddy to put him to bed at night time best.

Whew, that part got long, but I am a detail lover :)

**Other random Gavin-isms as of late:
-He continues to be lover-of-all-transportation-things.  He loves to park his cars, makes an impressively realistic engine revving sound, and on any given day we trip over many of them which can be found in nearly every room of our house.
-This last year we've taken more initiative to get him into sports-related activities. It's so good for Gavin in particular who has tons of energy and does much better when he has healthy outlets to get it out. This summer we signed him up for a soccer camp which he LOVED and did so well following his coaches' guidance. Unfortunately he ended up breaking his arm at preschool after the first day so wasn't able to finish the whole week's camp. He also did a basketball class through the local rec center and again, loved it. He made so much progress in just a couple classes, learning how to dribble, pass the ball, and start to make baskets. I'm already that crazy soccer mom, because I had just as much fun as him, being able to watch him have a great time. Tom and I like to debate and dream about what sports he'll choose to love as he gets older. Of course Tom is rooting for golf and I'm hoping he'll be a runner. I have a feeling he'll like both.

-I recently asked him his "favorites". He told me his favorite vegetable are pea-pods, favorite fruit is apples, favorite color is purple (I think he was trying to butter me up), and that he wants to be a "firefighter" when he grows up. We drive by the fire station every day on the way home from preschool and every day he asks me to drive up close to the fire engines so he can take a good look.
-He's recently taken a bigger interest in drawing, coloring, and writing. He loves to write his name and he's gotten quite good at it!
-His eye sight has been gradually improving. We see the eye doctor several times a year to check on his amblyopia and strabismus (fancy terms for his lazy eye). His vision (corrected) is now officially 20-20 which is progress and we've been able to reduce his eye patching we've been doing since he was just under 2 years old to just 2 hours a day. This is way easier than way back in the day when we had to do up to 6 hours a day. Gavin sure is a trooper to tolerate it all, we're super proud of him for that fact.
-Speaking of his health, he hasn't had an ear infection in a LONG time. I never thought I'd say those words a few years ago when ear infections were just part of normal life. He got his 2nd set of ear tubes in November 2013 and they are still in and doing their job. I'm hoping they (1) stay in as long as possible and (2) when they do fall out, hope that we've made it over the ear infection hump and don't need a further set of tubes. Furthermore, I'm so excited for him to be able to take swimming lessons once they fall out as he's not allowed under water while the tubes are in.
-As far as his growth, he's continued to be on the top of the charts. At his 4 year well child check up he was 43 inches tall and 43 pounds. He's ranking in the 97th percentile but has always been and his pediatrician assured us that he's looking perfectly healthy and there's nothing more we could hope for there! Of course thinking of how tall he's going to be some day boggles my mind!
-He's got some pretty definite "favorite friends" as well.  At preschool this is David and William.  It's pretty cute because every day when I pick up Gavin, he and David give each other the cutest little hugs.  David also happens to be in his Sunday School class as well so he loves that fact. His other favorite friends are Linnea and Kane but he does so well (most of the time) playing with whoever is around him.

**Some of mine and Tom's favorite things about Gavin:
-We both marvel and love how chatty this kiddo is. He seriously talks ALL day long. He's very much extroverted in the sense that he processes things out loud and with other people. He chats about what he sees, what he thinks, what he remembers, and is not shy to tell you what you think about everything going on around him. His therapist/mama is pretty darn proud of the fact that he can name his feelings and this has significantly helped us minimize tantrums by giving him tools to talk about it.

-His giggle. He cracks himself up and finds humor and joy in many things in his little world. We just love how he throws his head back when he laughs and lets those cute little dimples show; it's definitely infectious. THE BEST.

-How smart he is. I am so proud of how much he knows and how much he's learning. He knows all his letters and numbers and can count up to 30. He likes to spell "S-T-O-P" when we're driving around and knows it spells stop. He memorizes all the books we read to him and if we get a word wrong, he knows how it should go and isn't shy to remind us of the "right word", ha.

-His kindness.  Yes, he's definitely a rough and tumble kind of kid. He has LOTS of energy, is very physical, and very boy. But he also has a tender, gentle side. If anyone is sad or crying, he is concerned and knows that hugs help people feel better. He loves to cover up our dog Marty with blankets, read him books, and give him hugs. He gives THE BEST hugs, full on huge squeezes, THE BEST.  It's routine at night for him to tell us he needs to give us ONE MORE HUG! And how can you say no to that?!  He's also gotten into a habit of opening my car door up for me, what a gentleman :)

I could write a novel about Gavin and all of the fun things that make him HIM at this age, but I think this is a really great summary. I just love that he's given me the best job in the world: being his Mommy. He brings me joy I couldn't have imagined, love I didn't know was possible, and challenges me to be the best person and the best example to him that I possibly can be. I can't wait to see what the next year has in store!