Oliver at Five

I asked Oliver last night about how he felt about turning five.

"Awesome!" he said.

I asked why.  "Because it sounds exciting," he replied.  Oh, to be a five-year-old again.  Too cute.  I predict five will be an exciting year for Oliver. 

Oliver still likes building with blocks, but is moving on up to one of my favorite childhood toys, Legos.  Our neighbors' daughter recently got into Legos and Oliver has spent many summer afternoons and evenings playing on her porch with her.  Not surprisingly he asked for Legos for his birthday and Chris and I spent an evening (gleefully) looking over all the options on the internet. 

Oliver may finally be mature enough for Legos not just because he has developed the dexterity to manipulate such small pieces, but because his attention span is increasing.  If he's interested in something, he can actually stick with one task for a reasonable amount of time.  For instance, he'll sit at the dining room table and color for a whole half an hour.  And his pictures are becoming more recognizable and more detailed. 

His increased maturity and attention span is becoming useful.  For those who know Thomas the Train, he's becoming Really Useful.  My husband the engineer calls him a "value add."  Oliver may never like helping to pick up his toys, but gosh, he loves being a helper with everything else.  Chris put him to work helping to paint our master bedroom and not only did he love it, but he actually painted a lot of the wall and really well too.  Since Chris gets home from work earlier than I do, he usually starts dinner and Oliver loves to help.  Chris set out the ingredients for guacamole and coached Oliver through the steps, but otherwise, Oliver made it all by himself. 

Oliver can't talk quietly.  No matter how insignificant what he has to tell you is, it always seems like he's yelling.  I'm actually going to talk to the doctor to confirm he doesn't have a hearing problem.  Chris thinks I'm being ridiculous.  He thinks there's nothing wrong with him.  In his opinion, he simply gets his voice from his mom.

As loud as Oliver is when he talks, I'm proud of his seemingly large vocabulary and excellent grammar.  He speaks better English than most adults.  Except that he's picked up one "linguistic filler" overused by the younger generations  - the word "like".  While Oliver can chatter away, I have noticed that when he realizes he has your undivided attention while he tells a story, he suddenly has trouble getting the story out.  He pauses often to think of what he wants to say next and that's where I've recently noticed the word "like" used in ways that make me cringe.  And I cringed even more when I reflected on my own overuse of the word like and realized that as much as he's learning to use good/well and "you and I" versus "you and me" properly, I'm imparting some bad language habits as well. 

Oliver may be turning five and growing up in front of my eyes, but he still likes to sit in my lap to read a book.  I should be thankful that my lap is such a coveted spot and that Oliver and Soren beg to be the one who gets to sit there for the bedtime story.

We're still reading many of the picture books we've been reading for a few years now.  These are books with a couple of lines of text per page and a story line, but also tons of pictures.  We've tried getting him interested in chapter books, but for the most part, he's not interested.  Most of the time when we read books together, Soren is with us, and he quickly loses interest in stories without pictures and once he gets squirrely, Oliver follows suit.  We've had success with simple chapter books, like from the Penny series by Kevin Henkes, but again, these books focus on the pictures and that's still a big draw. 

Oliver can identify individual letters, but hasn't developed a recognition of words yet.  He "reads" books out loud from memorization.  And what a memory he has.  If I skip a word on the page when I'm reading, or inadvertently modify it, Oliver corrects me, and then will not let the issue drop until I acknowledge that I had read the word incorrectly. 

Before I talk about how much my kid loves the outdoors, I'll mention first that he also loves to sit on the couch in front of the TV.  He totally vegges out.  We used to have a lot of behavior problems after too much TV time, but now he's pretty good about accepting whatever limits we put on how much he can watch and will turn the TV or computer off when we ask him to.  And while I have a love-hate relationship with Oliver's love of TV, I admit it has its place.  It buys us some peace and quiet when we need to actually get something done around the house and for a kid who's otherwise so active and creative, why not let him indulge a little?

Because otherwise, Oliver is super active.  He loves being outside.  He likes fishing, tubing and riding on the boat.  He even likes collecting the black walnuts that fall in our yard from the neighbor's tree. His favorite days are when he gets to go to the beach and park and play outside with his neighbor buddy, Paloma, all in one day.  He's usually begging to go to "Shoots and Ladders," the beach at Lebanon Hills Regional Park or the Tamarack Nature Center.  He's finally figured out how to pump his legs on the swing, so lately, he wants to hit up the swings first before anything else at the playground.  The chillier fall weather isn't deterring him.  Even though the lake is now freezing cold, he'll still wade around in it until it's time to go home.  And then he checks to see if Paloma is outside and they play Legos or run around the front sidewalk and neighbors' yards playing the "hot lava game" (still haven't figured out what that is!) and whatever else their imaginations come up with. 

If he isn't playing pretend with Paloma, he's making up stories. Oliver's latest thing at bedtime is to tell make-believe stories.  He wants everyone to tell a story, even Soren, who obliges. 

Oliver's 5th birthday is shaping up to be a good one.  On the docket for the day is spending time with one of his favorite babysitters and Grandma (they're tag-teaming filling in while our au pair is out of town), handing out homemade cookies to his classmates at preschool and then going to ECFE where he'll get to wear a birthday crown.  Again, wouldn't it be great to be five again?