Joshua is Five!

Joshua turned five two days ago and this is the 5th anniversary of the day we met. He has grown so much this year and I feel like he is really entering into being a real kid as opposed to being a preschooler. This is mostly good. He is learning so much and can have conversations and make connections. Three was really tough with him and 4 was better, largely because he can respond to reason and consequences and logic now (not that he always makes logical choices). He has grown a lot in the past six months, not just mentally and socially, but also physically. Like Hannah, he grew two inches in the past six months. That's not as unprecedented for him as it is for her, but still a lot. He is 42.5 inches tall and 37 lbs. I didn't really buy him many clothes for the fall because I thought he was going to be able to wear his 4s, but he had other ideas and I think I will soon have to buy 5s. Almost all boys get to a point where they only want to wear athletic apparel and we are at that point now. He has gotten much more social and really likes his friends at school (and he is totally the kid who doesn't listen and is always messing around with his friends). This is probably my least favorite thing about him getting bigger. He absolutely latches onto the least common denominator of behavior in any group. If there are 10 well-behaved kids and 1 kid in the back doing something bad, he is totally going to to join that one kid. This has been the biggest change in him from last year. We have had to have several talks about "bad words" (luckily not too bad at this age) and just because you see things at school doesn't mean we do that. However, he overall is super giving and loving and generous and my sweet cuddler. His favorite things are being outside and bugs and dirt. He likes soccer and is really interested in learning how to be a big kid. He doesn't play with toys a whole lot. He does like Duplos a lot and is starting to like Legos. His favorite show is Miles From Tomorrowland and his favorite book is probably "Those Darn Squirrels". He likes playing his Kindle Fire and Rooftop Run featuring the Ninja Turtles is his favorite game. He is getting bigger all the time, but we hope he will stay little awhile longer. We love our big boy so much!