Growth & Appearance: Your rat tail is going strong. You asked to cut it but that ship seems to have sailed and we don’t bring it up. Your concern being that ‘only girls have long hair’. You also complained that it bothers you when the wind is blowing. But then we offer to cut it and you say no. And you love the compliments you get on it because they always come from the most awesome characters.

You had your 5 year checkup and are in the 90-something percentile for height and 70’s for weight, I think. You weigh 43lbs and feel denser than a rock to me. It’s harder to lift you up these days.

Eating: You ask for snacks constantly. As soon as you wake up in the morning, you want a snack. It’s easy to see why considering you do nothing more than play with your food at mealtime.

Bribery goes a long way. The other night I told you you could have a piece of chewing gum if you finished your dinner and not but 3 minutes later, your plate was practically licked clean. It doesn’t always work, in fact other times we have to deal with you pushing your food around only to additionally have to deal with you whining because you didn’t eat enough to earn dessert. In general mealtime is painful.

You love macaroni, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, peaches, and all the junk your future-diabetic self will have regretted loving.

Sleeping: You sleep on the bottom bunk and won’t let me leave the room until I’ve given you a kiss. You also insist on picking out your own book to ready before bedtime and generally will hate whatever book I pick out based solely on the fact you weren’t the one to chose it.

You’re no longer needing your pull-up at night, which really has been a long time coming but you held on it for longer than we thought you’d care to (cuz only babies wear diapers — your words, not mine). You’ve done just fine wearing big boy undies to bed, as we suspected. 

Development & Personality:

You started riding your bike without training wheels a few weeks ago, as well as riding a skateboard in peddle-peddle-glide-peddle fashion.

You’re determined to blow a bubble with your gum. You’re almost there.

You can throw a ball with force and accuracy and are all-around super coordinated. You ask to play basketball.

You can write your name in all capitol letters and can count to 30 or 40.

You follow whatever Hooper does or tells you to do and we’re having to remind you often that you need to think for yourself.

You’re stubborn and hard-headed and sometimes it feels like you can’t get out of your own way. You like things a certain way and so often it feels like in ways that aren’t possible. Like you’re particular about how close your laces come to touching the floor; point being, we’ve vowed only to buy you slip ons and velcro-strap shoes to alleviate that problem. Though you’re particular about how tight the velcro is as well, so that’s not necessarily the solution.

You’re wicked smart and catch on to things really fast. I don’t worry at all about how you’ll perform in kindergarten.

Your better behaved and more easy going for others than you are for your Papa and I. We get great reports from your teachers and other parents but your fourth year was kinda a rough one for us here at home; a lot of change, too, with a new baby.

You have the most infectious laugh and are easily amused and well-liked by your peers.

You speak with the cutest New York accent, which is really a speech impediment. We’re fine with it never correcting itself. You say “Hooper” like “Hoopa”.

You attempt to putting legos together yourself but usually need assistance throughout the process, making us all hate legos.
Favorites: You tend to claim Hooper’s interests as your own but when given the choice between legos and a remote controlled car, you most always chose the car. You love playing mindless games on my phone but your opportunities to do so are few and far between. You love sports and say that basketball is your favorite.