The Gillespie Family: Luke is FIVE and HALF!

Luke is such a big boy at five and a half! He wears size XS in the big boy sizes now, and 5T or 5 pants. His feet went from not growing much to growing a whole size and he now wears shoe size 13.5. Height is about 46 inches and weight is about 44 lbs.

Though Luke and Lacey fuss with each other much more these days as typical siblings, they also love each other, and Luke continues to be a good big brother most of the time. In fact, Lacey is usually the instigator and he often does not retaliate, much to our surprise.

Luke loves to watch TV, but mostly only if it's his shows. There are some shows I will not allow, and Ninja Turtles has been nixed for a while because he was getting to aggressive with kicks and ninja moves at home and school. His current favorites that still make the mommy list include: Transformers Rescue Bots (not the regular Transformers), Star Wars cartoons (only allowed with Daddy) and Wild Kratts or Curious George. He tolerates some Disney shows like Jake and the Neverland Pirates and Sheriff Callie's Wild West, but he makes it known that he really thinks they are too babyish for him. Funny thing we learned recently is that he loves the old Care Bears cartoons. Not the new ones, but the old ones from the 80s, the ones Allen and I watched. Love it!

Regarding food, he continues to be even pickier than ever. The dinner rule is that I will give him a plate of food and he can choose to eat it or not, but there will be nothing else served, including no snacks later that night. I do always put at least one item on his plate he likes or will eat. Most nights it's something like apple slices as his fail-safe. Packing his lunches is quite a challenge because I refuse to put multiple carb-snacky items in his lunch. He has pretty much limited his fruit choices down to strawberries, apples, bananas and grapes. But the apples turn brown and he doesn't like it when I put lemon juice on them to prevent that, and he refuses to eat applesauce or freeze dried apples, both of which are frequently in Lacey's lunch. Makes.me.crazy. Especially because I hate packing lunches already. I remain resolved to keep at it, though.

It's amazing how he has gone from semi-interested in legos to a full blown obsession. It's all he plays with right now. For a while he just wanted one of us to build something for him so he could play with it, but Allen has played with him enough now that he is starting to build some of his own little structures.

He has also become crazy about Star Wars. Luke and Daddy play Star Wars video games, watch Star Wars cartoons, and play with the action figures/legos. Daddy even let Luke watch the movie, much to my horror upon discovery because I think it is too much for a 5 year old, but Luke LOVED it and talks about it all the time.

Luke has been fishing a couple times, but doesn't seem to have much interest in it. But he and Daddy have camped out in the backyard a couple times and loved it! Allen can't wait to take him camping for real.

Regarding sports, he played t-ball this spring and did seem to like that, but when I signed him up for soccer he told me to cancel it because he was not going to play. He did do a basketball camp over the summer and seemed to like that as well, so maybe we'll try that again. He also did a sports class at the Little Gym over the summer that he really liked because more play was involved. His coach said that when he could listen and follow directions, he really showed himself to be a good little athlete, but at this point he gets in his own way with his attention-seeking behavior. He is still more interested in entertaining people than anything else.

He continues to have little to no interest in music and our drum lessons to help him learn to play the drums that Santa brought last year were a bust.

I've decided that the best approach with Luke and his interests is 1) just relax and let it come naturally to him and 2) realize that neither Allen nor I found sports or interests we really loved until we were 8, so it's perfectly fine to let him run around and just play like a kid for a while.

Back to his behavior--at the end of the last school year his teacher told me she really did not think that he is ADHD but rather that he just really wants to be the class clown and his attention-seeking behavior gets him in trouble. Though I was a little concerned at the beginning of his Junior Kindergarten year that she was too strict, she was fantastic for him last year and he really grew in his ability to decide where it was and was not appropriate to be too silly. This year so far in Senior Kindergarten his progress has continued. So while he remains very social and loves to entertain, he is doing a better job of social appropriateness.

Part of his social nature means that he is not great about playing by himself. I cannot even count the number of times this summer he told me he was bored. I mean he would have just ended a fun and engaging activity or play and it would immediately be followed by "I'm so bored" so we'll be working on that. I haven't heard it much since school has started, thank goodness.

We've been a no-nap kid since about 4 1/2, but I used to be able to get a nap from him here and there. That really changed at about 5, and really in the last 3-4 months there are no naps at all. Bedtime is about 8:00ish. He wakes up about 7:00-7:30.

He can read! But he doesn't like to, so we usually have to make some sort of deal to practice like I read a page, he reads a page. He'll pretend like he can't do it, and then when he finds something he wants to read I am blown away by the words he knows.

He started Senior Kindergarten! There are tests, grades and homework in Senior K and it is killing me! For the first month I kept forgetting about the homework until, like, bedtime. He gets homework on Mon, Tues and Thurs and it's usually one worksheet, sometimes double-sided. In Senior K homework is only supposed to take about 15 minutes, and that has held true so far. On Fridays it is usually sight word flash cards (so far color words, number words one-ten, days of the week and ordinals). He has been tested on his address, phone number (we're still working on that one because I haven't got the best diddy to help remember it) and soon tying his shoes (which means I have to get over myself and buy the kid shoes with laces, even if it means more work). Each Friday he is also tested on the week's Bible verse. But the tests and the grades, oh the grades! I hate it! So far he has actually done very well, but I was totally unprepared to handle a 17/19 from my child. I promise not to be crazy mom, but that caught me off guard!

I officially assigned him a handful of chores to engage him more at home. Unfortunately he does not quite understand that chores are tasks we do whether we feel like it or not, and so we're working on that concept. He does earn money for his chores, but he's lacking a bit of motivation. I've also made it clear that any future toy "wants" must come as something he has earned or from a holiday (birthday, Christmas, etc.) Luke has a serious case of the "I wants" and entitlement and I can't stand it, so we're working on that, too.

Although he is a kid through and through, I am impressed by the glimpses of a more mature kid that I am starting to see. I can't wait to watch him grow! Please, God, grant Allen and I wisdom and grace in parenting that we may allow Luke to be the child he was created to be, but just smooth the edges.

Snow fun in March!