Oliver Update: 6.5 Years

We recently met with Oliver's teachers for the spring parent-teacher conferences and every teacher had nothing but glowing compliments. His drama teacher even referred to him as his rock in a class that's gotten a reputation for being quite rambunctious. But that's his personality - he likes structure and rules and he thrives in environments where there are rules. His kindergarten teacher talked about how well he's doing academically, but also about how well he behaves.  He's the calm child who helps his classmates and participates.  She was shocked when I shared some stories of the Oliver we see at home.

Because at home we see a kid with energy to burn.  It's a continual challenge to help Oliver constructively channel that energy and with a good attitude while he's at it. I'm glad he's super well-behaved in school, but I wish Chris and I could experience more of the inquisitive, friendly, excited-about-life, curious, artistic and helpful boy his teachers get to see for hours every school day. 

Luckily, since he's always over at our neighbor Paloma's house, we don't actually have to parent him that often.  Just kidding! But he does spend a lot of time over there.  Whenever we get home after being out, I haven't even turned the ignition off in the car before he's asking if he can go play with Paloma.  If it's right after school, Oliver wants to meet Paloma at her bus stop, so I joke that Paloma's mom could outsource bus stop pick-up to Oliver.  Paloma just might be the first person he thinks of when he wakes up because he immediately wants to run next door.  Unfortunately, our family wakes up early and Paloma's does not, so we make Oliver wait until what we consider a reasonable hour. A couple of times he's been turned away.

Anyway, those two get along so well and share a similar sense of humor.  They love to play Legos, Star Wars and video games, like Lego Dimensions. They're very creative together and come up with elaborate games of super heroes. 

For all the energy Oliver has, one quiet activity he can partake in is drawing.  Chris finally bought him his own set of markers and crayons and a sketch pad that he doesn't  have to share with his siblings.  I had hoped the sketch pad would cut down on the pieces of paper with various states of completed artwork that are lying around his room. Every couple of days I do a clean sweep and recycle most of it, but I'm waiting for the day I accidentally recycle something he considered a masterpiece. 

Oliver recently re-learned to ride his bike without training wheels.  He had barely mastered this new skill at the end of last summer, so by this spring rolled around, he had forgotten. So he wanted nothing to do with his training-wheel-less bike and instead tried riding his siblings' bikes, including Kiera's balance bike that is really too small for him. This of course caused lots of fights, most of which Celina was left trying to mediate since they occurred right after school as the kids took advantage of a last chance to play outside before dinner.  

Chris, the parent in this duo with the most patience, took Oliver out to reteach him how to ride without training wheels and surprising to us all, it took Oliver all of 10 minutes to get the hang of it and feel confident enough to bike a couple of laps around the block.  Later on Oliver, Soren and I took their bikes to the path down by the river where they biked and I jogged.  Oliver was happy as could be to pedal on ahead as I plodded along at my own pace. 

Oliver shows no signs yet of losing any teeth.  His baby teeth were late to come in (he had only a half a tooth by his first birthday) and I didn't lose my first tooth until I was in first grade, so maybe he's just destined to lose that first tooth late. Honestly, that's fine with me. He's got such a cute smile I've been admiring for a few years now and I'm not quite ready to have that change with the loss of teeth.  

Oliver weights not much more than 40 pounds and he's currently in 6T tops and 5T pants. However, just the other day I looked over at him and noticed that his pants are suddenly looking a little short on him.