He's A Kid!

Yes, this post is 20 days late and I already wrote part of it once and then lost it when I tried to put the pictures on.  Have I mentioned lately that computers can really make me mad, but without further delay - Tanner's birthday post!  Warning - to anyone reading this, it's a long post, I blog to remember life and have it written down because my memory already stinks and typing is a lot faster for me than writing in a journal and today I have a lot to say about my favorite new 5 year old!

Well Tanner is five years old.  He is not a baby, a toddler or preschooler anymore, he is now just a kid, but a really, really, really great kid!  

For Tanner's fifth birthday we kept it low key and had just a family barbeque at our house.  I thought Tanner would be upset about not inviting friends for his party, but he only asked about it once, accepted my explanation and moved on.   Wow - I think I'm going to like the age of 5!   Tanner got to pick out his birthday cake and surprise, surprise he choose a fire truck birthday cake.  He was very excited about his cake and of course it had the wonderful red frosting on top that stains everything!  Tanner got a little swipe of the frosting before I took the picture so he has red teeth in the picture - lovely!

We were hoping to set up the slip'n'slide outside for Tanner and his cousins to play on, but it was a little overcast, so to keep the kids (and adults) occupied they had a water balloon fight instead and when we ran out of balloons we ate!

Tanner got a lot of wonderful presents for his birthday, including  many transformers and power rangers, a fishing pole and tackle box, a volcano sprinkler, new scooter, puzzles, a scuba set with fins  and the Thomas fire station.   On his real birthday we took Tanner out to Red Robin to eat and get a birthday sundae and gave him his big present, a new bike! 

 

So Tanner some day when you wonder what you were like when you were five, here's what you are up to.

Sleep fighter - You are a terrible sleeper!  You fight going to sleep a night, often wanting to sit up to read books because you know  you will fall asleep if you lie down.  You need to nap, but refuse to and you get very  mad when we make you come in from playing outside to go to bed at 8:00 when all the other kids get to stay up.  We tell you that if you didn't wake up at 5:30-6:00 AM EVERY morning then you could stay up later.  Yes you wake up VERY early and it drives us crazy.  You need more sleep and I can tell about 4:00 every afternoon when you become very unreasonable.    I know about 10 years from now I will be reading this and laughing because then I am going to be trying to get you out of bed before noon.

Picky eater - You don't like to eat - seriously.  If we could somehow clone this not eating gene and sell it we would be millionaires!  You rarely say that you are hungry and if it wasn't for us constantly shoving food in your mouth you wouldn't eat.  I must say that you are actually improving a bit, but I am worried about lunch at school in the Fall without someone watching you I doubt you will eat more than two bites!  You are a picky eater which doesn't help and we are currently bribing you to try new foods and amazingly enough you are finding you actually like some of these foods!  Your current fav foods are apples, strawberries, watermelon, pancakes, hot dogs, goldfish, mac n' cheese and grilled cheese and we can't forget your favorite breakfast foods that you eat every morning - Cheerios and a yogurt.  Luckily you are not a junk food kid, but then maybe you would fatten up if you were!

The outdoors - You still love to be outside and every time that you go out I expect you to come in covered in dirt or wet or both.  You love to dig in the dirt with your trucks and play with the hose.  I do feel bad that we have never gotten you a sand box (we don't have room), you love sandboxes and have been asking for that and a play set forever.  Thank goodness that we have 3 parks very close by that we go to very often so I don't feel so bad about not having a play set for you.

Bike rider - You learned to ride your bike this year without training wheels and you suddenly grew up a lot in just the one afternoon you learned to ride.  You are much more independent and for the first time are off doing something without mom or dad right beside you.   You LOVE to ride your bike and are very good at it.  It just makes my heart stop to see you riding so fast and trying to do tricks on your bike but you have amazing control and balance.  I sometimes wonder if you understand the seriousness of riding in the street,  you get so involved in your trick riding that I don't think you are always watching for cars.  It makes me very nervous and I talk to you about it everyday which drives you crazy.  But you are just so happy on your bike and would ride it all day long if you could.  You also have gotten more scraps, bumps and bruises in the last few months than you've had your whole life!

 Trains and fire trucks - You have loved all transportation related toys since you were a baby, but your favorites are definitely trains and fire trucks.  You still get so excited when see a fire truck, ambulance or train when we are in the car and tell us exactly what kind of truck or train it is.  You used to love to just push the cars and trains around but now you are more into building the train tracks and pretending you are a fire fighter and acting out a daring rescue.  You have just recently begun playing with action figures which is a whole new phase for you.  You love Power Rangers and Transformers and have just started these TV shows.  You now call any of your former cartoon shows baby shows. 

Snorkeling and Sharks - A recent craze of yours is sharks and other ocean animals!  You love learning about sharks and have checked out every book in the library on the subject.  You also have really gotten into snorkeling and are really good at it.  You snorkel in the bathtub and at the pool.  The other people at the pool are always commenting on your snorkeling and it just makes me laugh. 

Life Changes - This has been a big year of changes for you.  The biggest being that you are no longer an only child.  We weren't sure how you were going to feel about this big brother role, but you have taken it on amazingly well.  You are really very sweet with your sister (rough at times) but you really do love her.  You also have started soccer this last year which at first you didn't like, but now you are really getting into it.  In just a few short weeks you are going off to kindergarten.  Academically you are more than ready for kindergarten, you have cracked the code (that is teacher talk for learned how to read) although I teach kids to read for a living there is something just amazing about watching your own child learn to read.  You used to fight reading to us at night, but just recently you have really gotten into reading and writing and figuring out how to spell words.  Reading your writing is one of my favorite things to do, if you would put spaces between the words it would make it a lot easier!  Unfortunately you will not write for us when we ask you to,  like birthday thank you notes were a nightmare to get you to write just a couple of words, but if you are writing for yourself you have no problem.  Your kindergarten teacher will have to work on the neatness factor!

So if you have read this far you must be really bored or a grandparent!  I could go on and on about you Tanner, but I've been at this for more than an hour and Brynn just woke up.  So Tanner here is wishing you a great 5th year of life!