My, my how the years are just flying by! Here we are with a SIX-year-old boy. It has truly been a joy watching him grow up
and I can’t wait to continue to watch that journey. I am so proud of the boy he's grown to
be.
Gavin is SO
smart. He just started kindergarten and already he's a pro with his letters and has been able to sound out many words when we
read together. Coincidentally, reading
together is very high on my list of favorite things to do with him. We read every single night together and this
is such a special time where we can snuggle up and explore what’s inside books
together. Gavin's also quickly become a whiz with math and loves to count things. He can count past 100, count by 5's and 10's and add numbers together.
As he's gotten a little older, he's become a little less spastic as far as his energy level goes, and that's given way for more noticeable, sweet tender moments. He is so kind
and loving to our dog, Marty. He is also so gentle and patient around younger kids. Being an only child, I am relieved to see he seems to have an innate sense of how to treat little kiddos and I’m so proud when I see that.
As he's gotten older, he's become more and more attached to his friends. He's really become quite the social little boy, making friends quite easily, both at
school and at church. I love seeing him and his little buddies running around church together after services are
over. Thankfully our church seems to be patient with the "track team" as I call the herd of kids who race around the sanctuary and atrium areas of church. One of his favorite things to do
with his friends is play tag and chase each other, and it sounds like this is the main thing that occupies his time during recess at school. He is quite the lover of running already
and that also is so fun for me to see as it’s something he and I share in
common! He often tells me he wants to go
running with me when he's older and he and I have already done a number of
kid’s half-mile races together. He has such a great joyful attitude about running and playing.
He continues (no surprise here) to love playing with vehicles, especially his small matchbox sized cars. He's also discovered a huge love of playing with and building with legos. He also likes building boats and other buildings out of his magna-tiles and then put his animals and small figures in them. He really loves putting together puzzles and playing board games...some of his favorites are Monopoly Junior, the "grown up" Monopoly, Checkers, and Guess Who.
Another favorite activity he has right now is swimming lessons. At first he wasn't a huge fan of swimming lessons but he's been in them now for about a year and a half consistently and he's grown to absolutely love them. He's caught on to the concepts and now can dive to the bottom of the pool to retrieve objects, swim the back stroke and front stroke, and is learning now how to take side breaths. We swam a ton this summer and I called him my little fishy. We are super blessed with a fantastic neighbor who has a pool and said we could use it anytime we wanted, so we were happy to oblige :)
He also joined our church's Epiphany Choir which is for grades kindergarten through 2nd grade. He loves to sing but is quite shy about doing it in front of others. He's only had two sessions so far so more to come on how he likes this. Additionally, we've signed him up for basketball this Winter as he requested to join basketball. He's my super duper tall kiddo so if he likes basketball, his height should work to his advantage!
We haven't had his 6 year well child check up yet, but last we measured him, he was 4 feet tall and about 52 pounds. He's the tallest kid in his kindergarten class and this has been an ongoing trend. We will see if this tall boy trend continues or not as the years progress.
Speaking of kindergarten, he's been doing so well there. We LOVE his teacher, Mrs. Worm, and he's adjusted quite well to this new routine. I think the biggest adjustment for him is the reduced recess/outside time. They only have a 20 minute recess there but thankfully his teacher is big on adding other forms of movement into the classroom activities which helps. I ended up changing my work schedule as he started kindergarten, which allows me to be done with work when he's out of school. Because of this new schedule, we are able to add in more play time after school. We will often go to a playground after school and run around to get those extra wiggles out after a long day at school. Since we only live 3/4 of a mile away from his school, most mornings we are able to walk to school together which is a lot of fun. I can't wait to see what the rest of the school year has in store for him!
Over the last couple months, we've begun giving Gavin an allowance for doing chores around the house. He gets the number of dollars as how old he is, so now gets $6/week. Half of that goes into a bank savings account we started for him, which he'll be able to use once he's much older. The other half goes into a kids wallet we got for him and this is his spending money. It's been a great way to teach him about money, delaying gratification when he wants to buy something but doesn't have enough money yet, and the value of saving one's money.
I continue to love how full of joy and energy Gavin is. His laughter is just the best sound and
brings smiles to mine and Tom's faces every time he is silly and busts out in giggles. One of the things that
always proves to make me laugh is when he speaks or sings in his made up “country
accent”, it’s quite hilarious!
This last year he's become much more independent in several areas and continues to want to do as many things as possible by himself. He can now go to the bathroom fully independently, takes a shower by himself, get dressed all by himself, and is starting to try to tie his own shoes. He also walks into the school to his classroom by himself. His elementary school is actually two schools in one (the other is a Spanish emersion school) so there are 1500 kids in the school and the school itself is quite huge. He's very proud of himself that he can navigate through the school and find his room by himself.
Though Gavin is growing up more and more everyday, we still
get to share in a similar bedtime routine that we’ve followed since he was very little. Tom and I take turns
putting Gavin to bed every night and I treasure the quiet together time with him when it’s my turn. We sing songs
together and I often scratch his back (what he asks for to help calm down)
while he lies in bed and starts to relax and fall asleep. Favorite songs he has right now include “You
are my sunshine” (especially the part where I sing “how much I love you” and
gently tap his nose as I sing it), “Lord, listen to the children praying”, “Amazing
Grace”, and the list goes on.
I am so lucky to be his Mommy and we love our boy to
the moon and beyond and back.
