Caleb and Ethan will have a joint birthday party on Saturday, since their birthdays are so close together, but we are doing a few family things today to make Caleb's day special. Yesterday, Caleb and I made cupcakes together, so he could take cupcakes to share with his class at school today. He is also getting "birthday boy" privileges today, meaning he gets (within reason) what he wants to eat at each meal and gets to make all the little choices throughout the day. After naptime, I'll take the boys to the mall and let them ride the carousal, something Caleb has only done twice and Ethan has never done. Then we will all go out to dinner at a restaurant of Caleb's choice, after his swimming lesson tonight. We'll top the day off with cupcakes and a Happy Birthday song after we get home from dinner.
Today's post marks the final monthly update for Caleb. I figure that four years old is as good a cut-off as any. From here on out, he'll have to earn his "face" time on the blog :) But, for today, here is one final update:
The biggest thing this month was learning to swim, which both he and I are very excited about. Yesterday I took the boys swimming and Caleb took the step of jumping in the pool and swimming to the side independently. Before, I would wait in the water after he jumped in and pull him back up to the surface. Now he surfaces himself and swims to the side. He's also gotten good at flipping over to his back when he's out in the middle of the pool and getting too tired to swim.
Another big interest for Caleb this month is numbers. He counts EVERYTHING...his cereal, shoes in a row, markers, signs, how many times he has done things, and on and on and on. He can count to twenty consistently, and tries to count through the twenties and thirties, but it kind of falls apart after twenty. He loves playing the number games on the PBS website, and can even do some basic adding (adding numbers 1-4 to each other). His favorite number is five thousand, which he says in different contexts about 20 times a day. He told me today that he is going to die on his 5,000th birthday.
Caleb is definitely in a "showing-off" phase. He is always saying "Watch this trick! Is that cool?" He loves an audience for all of the gymnastics and athletic moves that he comes up with. He is also very concerned with getting bigger and stronger, and with how big and strong and fast and smart he is compared to his peers. I discourage him from focusing on himself in comparison to others, but he definitely does it anyway.
This past Sunday morning, when I picked Caleb up from his class at church, he was the proud bearer of a very big twisted-marshmellow treat. His teacher told me that he was the first one in his class to correctly recite all of the Books of the New Testament, something they have been working on since January. In true Caleb-form, he took two bites of his treat and then shared the rest with Ethan, Daddy and me. When Caleb was about 20-months-old, my friend Lauren told me that she thought that Caleb had the gift of sharing, and I think she was right about that. He is a beautiful little boy who is all-too-quickly becoming a beautiful big boy. As I tell him every day and every night, I am so grateful that God sent him to live with me, and I am thankful for every day we have together.
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