Matteo is Four!

Matteo had a special birthday buddy to celebrate with this year. Our au pair, Nina, turned 21 on the same day Matteo turned four. Nina was kind enough to let Matteo pick what we would have for dinner on their big day and they also graciously shared a birthday cake. After dinner and presents, Matteo hit the sack, while Nina made the most of her 21st birthday falling on a Friday and went out to the Wild Onion with friends.

Matteo is still winning hearts with his rosy-cheeked smile, stylish glasses and Pillsbury dough boy laugh. He's so ticklish and it's easy to get him going with a few pokes to his belly. No matter how hard he's laughing, he always wants to come back for more. 

Even though Matteo is the youngest, he's the most empathetic of our children, and overall wise beyond his years at the tender age of four. One afternoon the kids were building Legos when Soren stole Kiera's chair, which caused her to scream and cry as she unsuccessfully tried pulling the chair back out from underneath Soren. Matteo assessed the situation and then pulled a chair from the other side of the room over to where Kiera was standing, tapped her to get her attention, and then very enthusiastically patted the seat to encourage her to sit down.  

Matteo likes everything to be in order and have its place. When Matteo was up at the cabin with his dad and brother, he disappeared into the bedroom they were all sharing. When Chris checked on him, he found Matteo had lined up all the water bottles and snack cups neatly on the nightstand and he was in the process of making the beds. Chris said  he was working so hard he was sweating!

Speaking of the cabin, Matteo loved being up there this summer. Anytime Chris took the kids to the cabin, Matteo and his siblings were giddy with excitement anticipating the opportunity to pack their bags and load up the minivan. Matteo loved spending time on the boat, tubing, roasting marshmellows, having sleepovers with his brothers, pedaling the paddle boat, fishing with his Ironman fishing rod...and well, everything about the cabin and being Up North.  

Being the youngest, Matteo uses a lot of energy to keep up with the rest of the family. He also doesn't nap anymore, except for catnaps in the car. This probably explains why he often falls asleep within seconds of kissing him goodnight and is the last to wake up. Kiera is not the most considerate roommate and often turns on the lights or just causes a ruckus while Matteo is sleeping, but amazingly, he doesn't wake up. 

At four years old, Matteo is approximately 39 inches tall and 33 pounds. He has been in 3T bottoms for awhile, but with the change in the weather, we moved him up to 4T pants. His speech is still very unintelligible, but we're hearing a little bit of progress. As always, everyone says what a joy it is to work with him.

Matteo is so brave when it comes to medical appointments. Granted, this is a kid who's used to having people look in his mouth, but the dentist was still surprised at how compliant a child of Matteo's age was when having x-rays taken. He finished has last cleaning with no tears, happily picked out a toothbrush and stickers, walked out the door of the waiting room and then ran smack into a wall. And that's when he burst into tears. 

My faithful readers who have long known about Matteo's intense fear of dogs will be surprised to read that Matteo is not only no longer afraid of dogs, he now LOVES dogs. Our former au pair spent a lot of time with Matteo (as well as Kiera and Soren) "puppy-training" him by having him spend time with the Great Pyrenees puppy her au pair friend's host family had gotten. Even as he slowly got used to Gustav, his aunt and uncle's large and hyper-active Golden Doodle, Watson, was a little too much for him. And then seemingly overnight, Matteo not just tolerated dogs, he sought them out. Watson spent some weekends at the cabin and when the others grew bored with petting the dog, Matteo made sure he continued to get some attention. He loves throwing the ball to him and doesn't even flinch as Watson tries to grab the ball out of Matteo's hand before he gets a chance to throw it. 

Matteo loves his family. He adores his brothers, is an awesome brother and partner-in-crime to Kiera and lives to be his daddy's little sidekick, whether it's fixing something around the house or making a Home Depot run. And at the of the day, he wants his mommy to put him to bed and kiss him goodnight.

Oliver is Seven!

The boy who made me a mother turned seven. When I snuggle with him at bedtime, I tease him about how I once was able to bath him in the bathroom sink. And now he's an artistically-talented, intelligent, social, Lego and Star Wars-loving little boy.

Oliver devours chapter books...as fast as we can read them to him. He's read every book in the Clementine series, is waiting for the upcoming release of a new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book and he just discovered Geronimo Stilton, which he received as a birthday present.  Oliver hasn't learned to read yet and I keep having to take deep breaths and remind myself that students in immersion programs read later and when they do, they can read in both languages. More importantly, he loves books and he loves being read to, something I hope continues even after he can read to himself.

At least the reading balances out the Minecraft.  I only vaguely knew what Minecraft was (I could tell you a video game, but nothing more) and didn't think Oliver knew anything about it, so I was taken aback when Chris returned from a trip to the cabin with the boys with a new Playstation and Minecraft.  It doesn't matter if Oliver had been unfamiliar with Minecraft or not, because he's obsessed with it now. There's part of me that admittedly enjoys a bit of piece and quiet when he disappears to the basement to play, but when I have to cut him off, oh my oh my.  He's a textbook example of the addicting qualities of screen time.

And oh my gosh, the Legos. That's another obsession of his, but one I consider much healthier, at least for his development.  It's not necessarily healthier for my sanity. I'm engaged in a never-ending battle to contain the Legos.  I can't vacuum without doing a detailed survey of the floor and when I try to clear out what look like piles of partially-built, unidentifiable creations from Oliver's room, I'm met with cries of "That's my [term I've never heard of and probably comes from Start Wars]!"

As happens every fall, I push Oliver into the next size of clothing even though they're a tad too big for him.  Last week I swapped out his 5T shorts and size 6 t-shirts for size 6 pants and size 7 long-sleeve shirts.  He's short and skinny, so his shirts hang a little long on him and we have to cinch the elastic bands on the inside of his jeans as tight as they can go.

Oliver continues to flash a smile full of baby teeth. I think he's starting to wish he would lose some teeth like all his friends.  I know it will happen soon enough though. Until then, he's my big boy with a smile full of baby teeth.

We signed Oliver up for a parks and rec league soccer program because he enjoyed playing during recess at school last year and we wanted to have him in an outdoor activity before starting on indoor activities for the winter. Not surprisingly, it took him awhile to warm up to it and even while he eventually had fun, he never loved it. Because of his birthday, he was in a group with older kids and he didn't know any of them. He's an active kid, but I think he likes to enjoy activities on his own terms.

An activity Oliver is loving more and more, despite his humble beginnings, is swimming. He is so much more comfortable in the water and takes every opportunity to go swimming. Even though his last formal lesson was this past spring, he has since learned to swim short distances. He can also now jump in the water, even if it's well over his head, like when he jumps off the dock or the back of the boat into the lake (with his life jacket on of course). For a kid who was once terrified of getting his face wet, (and who still isn't thrilled about having to wash his hair) this is a huge!

Oliver  got up on water skis for the first time this summer, although he still needs to develop more balance and strength before he'll be able to cover any sort of distance. Chris was Oliver's age when he first learned to ski, so this milestone made him one proud dad.

And he's (just about) up!

The picky eating and power struggles over food continue with Oliver.  Intellectually, I know not to engage in power struggles with my children, but it's hard not to when your child truly enjoys so few foods and there's little room for compromise. Dinnertime with four little ones is admittedly not often a very enjoyable experience at our house, but I do take comfort in the fact that we still eat dinner together most nights of the week and hopefully that's the memory that prevails.

These dinnertime power struggles are a few of many examples of the little disappointments or problems that can send Oliver into a spiral of emotions and negative talk. My psychologist friend calls them "automatic negative thoughts." It's hard as a parent to watch my child melt down over something so trivial and talk negatively because even though I know he'll eventually calm down and be back to his happy-go-lucky self, in the moment, he really feels those feelings.

I'm believe strongly that children (and adults!) need proper sleep at night and that children need more hours of sleep than we think. We've always had early bedtimes for our children because they, especially Oliver, need it. As a young child, Oliver was not the kid who could skip a nap or stay up past his bedtime because he melted down. Although I still think his bedtime needs to be 7:00 p.m., it's so difficult to eat dinner at 5:30 p.m. and still have enough time for the kids to wind down, go through the bedtime routine and be in bed an hour and a half later. On the rare nights we achieve that, Oliver still has trouble falling asleep. 

Oliver Kelley Farm

Ever since I've known Chris and have been traveling north on Highway 10 to his parents' cabin, I've driven past signs for the Oliver Kelley Farm. It seemed unbelievable that a working 1860s farmstead was hidden somewhere behind exurban sprawl and a nondescript landscape. Yet I was curious. But on these drives to the cabin, I was anxious to continue on north and with the farm located 45 minutes northwest of St. Paul, I never found the time to make a separate trip to visit.

Friends who are members of the Minnesota Historical Society, which operates the Oliver Kelley Farm, invited the kids and me to join them for an afternoon at the farm and I finally got to see this hidden gem. Other friends had raved about how they were encouraged to participate in farm life during their visit, but I assumed this was because they had visited during the off season when few others were around. I discovered that this is simply how the Oliver Kelley Farm operates. The Historical Society advertises it as a working farm, but it's truly more than that. The farm combined aspects of Philadelphia's Please Touch Museum and Colonial Williamsburg to create an open-air history classroom. Visitors young and old are encouraged by the costumed staff to participate in farm life. My children helped collect eggs from the chicken coop, peel vegetables in the kitchen, pump water from the well for the animals, feed the sheep, drive the oxen to the fields, harvest crops - and learned a bit about history in the process. I also appreciated how knowledgeable the staff was and how patient they were to my many, many questions.

Oliver loved pumping water from the well. It might have been his favorite activity. They brought the buckets over to a trough for the horses.

The oxen were brought out so we could bring a cart to the fields to harvest crops.

I thought helping to harvest crops would teach our kids about hard work, but instead, it was a parenting fail. And not because they didn't love manual labor (they really did!), but because of mosquitoes! They emerged from the fields covered in bug bites.

The side of the Oliver Kelley farmhouse

My attempt at a group shot of our kiddos

Preschool for Matteo

Matteo started preschool over a week ago and I'm only now posting his back-to-school photos. The truth is, by the time I had gotten my last child off to what is just one of the three schools my four children are attending this school year, back-to-school fatigue had already set in. It felt like a win just to get some pictures taken. Such is the life for a fourth child.

This fourth child had longingly watched his siblings start school and knew what he was due and walked into preschool like he owned the place. Because of his September birthday, he couldn't start Pre-K with Kiera and Soren through the St. Paul School District, so he's back for another year at the preschool he attended last year and with the same teacher. She adores him and eagerly accepted him into the Pre-K class.

When I arrived home from work after his first day, he was excited to show me his "All About Me" poster, which he and Nina had almost finished. 

Pre-K

My "twins" started Pre-K today.  Don't they look so ready and full of promise?

We opted to send Kiera and Soren to Pre-K at the school down the street from our house to not only take advantage of free tuition, but also the routine of going five afternoons a week and extra support and services for Kiera.  There are 20 students in the class and four teachers, one of whom is an early childhood special education teacher. A speech therapist working exclusively at the school will provide Kiera's speech services in the classroom. 

I came home at lunchtime so I could walk with them to their first day of school.  Soren told me he was both nervous and excited.

The students and their parents gathered outside, but when the teachers asked the kids to line up, Soren started to cry. Just as it is for his older brother, new places and new people are tough for Soren. As I comforted him, I was surprised at how teary-eyed I became, even though I knew that with time, Soren is going to love school. He settled down, and when the line of children started to file into the building, he sought out comfort from his sister by grasping her hand and walked semi-confidently side-by-side with her into the building.

Despite a couple of emotional moments during the rest of his afternoon at preschool, Soren gave the experience a thumbs up. He reported that he probably won't cry tomorrow, or maybe just a little.

Kiera was also excited to start Pre-K and if she was nervous, she didn't show it. She generally goes with the flow in new situations. Her teacher reported that she didn't communicate more than with some nodding of her head, which I wasn't surprised by given it's a new environment, but she was otherwise engaged in the activities and happy to be there.  When I asked her what she did at school, the most I got out of her was "played".

From these quiet and nervous beginnings, I can't wait to see what this year as in store for Kiera and Soren.