Coleman the Five Year Old.

Now that Coleman is FIVE, I wanted to talk about this little man.

At his 5 year doctor’s checkup appointment, Coleman weighed 42 pounds and was 44.5 inches tall.  That is right around 50% for weight and 75% for height.  Tall and lean like his daddy.  (Lucky boys!!)  Just like his sister, he eats whatever we put on his plate…lots of vegetables, fruit, rice, meat, and even things like tomatoes and onions.  We have never had a separate “kids” meal when we eat and it has proven to be a huge success.  When he asks for a snack, it is usually carrots, grapes, a banana, or an apple.  I am proud of our kids’ palates.  At the doctor, Coleman was thrilled that there were no 5 year old shots, but they did take some blood (2 vials!) from his finger and he was awesome with that.  That was a good 6-8 straight minutes of a nurse squeezing drips of blood out of his finger and he was patient and tolerated it well.  Once he said, “Ow, you’re hurting my hand!” and the nurse and I laughed when we realized he was talking to ME because I was squeezing his other hand too hard as I held him and watched.

Coleman the Five Year Old is much more mature than Coleman the Four Year Old…  And if he starts to act “like a four year old,” he is quick to correct himself when we remind him that he is five now.    Since the birthday, it’s like a magical switch has flipped.  Where he used to get frustrated easily and “freak out” when he was upset, he now handles frustration very well.  He listens.  He corrects his behavior with one little reminder.  I know this didn’t all just change on January 21st, but I am glad that that “birthday anticipation” is over.  These things are something we all, as human beings, work on all the time… learning to make good choices, not only with our actions but our REactions to upsetting and frustrating things in our every day lives.  We are so proud of how Buddy has listened, learned, applied himself, and worked hard to work things out and remain calm in those tough situations.  When his teachers have a comment on his behavior from the day and we talk about it at home, they always make sure to tell me how impressed they are at how he corrects it after we bring it to his attention and talk about better choices.  They say they can see the gears turning in his head when he is faced with a similar situation later.  This tells me that he listens to us and is thinking about the choices we talk about.  Amazing!  They really do listen sometimes!

He has started drawing- I mean really drawing great things.  His class has homework on Wednesday nights.  They are filling up an Alphabet book, and have 2 letters per week.  His homework bag is full of Inspector Gear, including his own “Inspector Coleman” badge.  The instructions are to solve the clue on the page, and then represent that answer on the page, either by cutting things out of a magazine or drawing them.  He always chooses to draw the object, and his Giraffe this week was pretty amazing.  I need to start taking some pictures of his art work.

We began a new “family schedule” for after school days last week, and Coleman has hopped right in to assume responsibility of his daily chores.  He whined the first day, and since then I haven’t heard a negative word.  He hops right in at “work time” and quickly completes his daily chores of straightening his room, the play room, and emptying all the house trash cans into the kitchen trash.  On Saturdays he helps with cleaning windows and mirrors, and that’s his favorite.  With this schedule I have realized that Coleman is not a messy dude.  His room is mostly clean every day before he even starts, and his chores are done very quickly (as opposed to his messy-cluttery-by-nature sissy, who spends the full 30 minutes cleaning up her messy room and bathroom every day!  She does not gripe though, but I am hoping this makes her realize that if she picks up after herself as she goes, she won’t have to spend this long time cleaning up every day!)  Now that Coleman is five, he took his first shower by himself last night.

As Daddy pointed out to me this morning, Buddy starts off many of his sentences with “Lemme tell ya somethin’.”  We say he is very serious, but he is also very silly.  When he’s serious, he’s very serious, and when he’s silly, nothin’ can stop the silliness.  I love his contagious giggles.

He loves to be outside.  He loves his sister.  We have been watching a lot less tv lately but his newest favorite show is Wild Kratts.  It seems to me like a “Go Diego Go” for older kids.  It is on PBS and is very educational, mostly about wildlife.  Coleman also loves his new Nintendo 3DS and all the awesome games from his grandparents such as Star Wars, Sonic the Hedgehog, Let’s Draw!, Diggin’ up Dinosaurs (that one was from mommy & daddy), Cars, and more.

Coleman had his first soccer practice on Tuesday and will have his first game tomorrow (Brrrr!  Gametime temp is supposed to be 29 degrees!)  I was very impressed with his mad skillz at soccer practice, but saw that he is going to have to work hard at sharing the ball and not using his hands to hold other players off (especially his own teammates!)  We have talked about this all week so hopefully he’ll remember.  I told him I’m going to tie his hands behind his back if he is touching the other players!  I also saw a side of Coleman that I haven’t seen often- really it is something we see in Shelby all the time.  It’s the “I want everyone to follow the rules and I will take it upon myself to make sure they do” attitude.  At practice, if any of his teammates were doing something the coach has said not to do, Coleman stopped play by picking up the ball and telling them what they were doing wrong.  This mama has always been a rule-follower, so we’ll have to remind him that right now, he’s only in charge of Coleman and how Coleman acts.   That will be a life-long lesson to remember if he’s like me!  haha

We just love our boy so much, and cannot wait to see what his 5-year-old year has in store for him!