Callum is FIVE

Yesterday Callum turned five. FIVE. Five, which sounds like such a big kid age (and hey, BabyCenter agrees with me... those weekly emails that I've been getting since before Callum was born and that I never bothered unsubscribing to changed, on his birthday, from "My Preschooler This Week" to "My Big Kid This Week"). The age of kindergarten. It's a whole new world up in here.

At five, Callum is spectacular. He is, as much can be expected at this age, incredibly kind and thoughtful. He always wants to help--he loves to hold doors for people, and when Annika can't do something, he's the first to race over to assist. We talk a lot about how we do things in our family, and he is internalizing and repeating it, and as a result we hear a lot about how we are kind and helpful in this family, and we don't say mean things in this family, etc. He offers to share desserts with not just Annika but also Torsten and myself. He's an incredible big brother, and loves Annika so much. We are constantly blown away by how well they play together, and how much he cares about her and thinks about her.

He's incredibly imaginative. He makes up all sorts of games and dialogues that take my breath away with their creativity and complexity. He can happily play independently for hours, crawling around on the floor with his cars and superheroes, acting out scenarios and interactions. He is testing some limits right now, and comes up with explanations and excuses for his behavior that make us hard-pressed not to laugh (for example, he tells us that Superman or Peter Parker are in his head controlling his voice and that it wasn't HIM that was defiant or said the unkind thing, it was just that Peter Parker made him). He still loves Lightning McQueen, but recently has become very into superheroes (particularly Avengers) and Ninja Turtles, too. He loves Legos, particularly the trains.

He LOVES preschool. He adores his 15 classmates, knows them all well, and talks about them frequently. He has a best friend at school, the same one all year, and watching them interact is almost like watching brothers--they know each other so well and they press each other's buttons and argue and then figure it out and move on. He is enthusiastic about everything he does, and even if he doesn't do it with finesse, he always does it wholeheartedly.

He has made some strides with his eating this year, but remains quite picky. However, he will now happily eat hamburgers, hot dogs, and deli meat, and can be convinced sometimes to take bites of chicken and fish, which is a huge step in the right direction after being a de facto vegetarian for about three and a half years. He still prefers carbs and beige food to all else, and would drink as much milk as we would allow. He remains on the bigger side of his age group, but nothing like the incredible off the charts numbers of his infancy. He is very active. He loves to run around, and told me that his favorite activities in gym class are sprints and log rolls, in that order.

He's just at the point where he's starting to try to write words and figure out letter sounds. He knows all his letters and the sounds they make, and he can figure out the first letter and often the second letter of almost any word. He can write his full name. He constantly wants to know how to spell things, and is getting pretty good at making reasonable guesses when we ask him what he thinks (for example, he wrote "bot" for "boat" and "flor" for "flower"). He seems to have a strong number sense, and can count basically indefinitely, and read five-digit numbers.

He remains a sensitive kiddo, with a strong desire to be sure he's good at something before he tries it. He is concerned about other people and worries about how they feel. He is experimenting with defiance, and while that's not so fun for any of us, we can see that it makes him feel sort of scared and out of control when he tries it. He has a goofy sense of humor and loves jokes, especially if they involve farting or anything else toilet-related. He is still snuggly, and loves to curl up with us to chat during his bedtime routine each night. He is deeply caring and affectionate, and surprisingly observant about what other people do and like and want.

He is a pure delight. Happy birthday to our big boy.