Reido, Month 51

Gosh, fifty-one months doesn't sound as old as 4-years and 3 months. But I can't deny he's a growing boy. His body just looks so big to me lately. I stare at it, sprawled across our couch, and just ahh in amazement. My little boy is a full blown preschooler. Here's twelve quick looks at life for Reid, life at 51-months-old.

• He is putting puzzles together all by himself. He'll occasionally ask me to help "look for clues," but he insists neither Nell nor I help him. 
  
• He is taking a gymnastics class at the YMCA. He's really disappointed it isn't at the gymnastics center (or as he calls it, the trampoline place), but I'm not willing to pay that price just yet. 
• He is such a fabulous big brother. He and Ben went out for a few hours earlier this week and Ben said Reid kept asking about Nell the whole time they were gone. "What do you think Nell's doing right now? I wonder what Nell is playing with. I bet Nell misses me," and on and on. When he came back home they both ran to the other and exchanged a big hug. Then they walked into the front room hand in hand to build some treasure with the Legos. 
• He still stutters a bit, but mostly when he gets really excited or when Nell speaks over him. 
• He is so curious. Too curious for me. I find myself tuning out his long list of questions at least once a day. "I don't know Reid. I don't know. Wait! I do know what order the colors of the rainbow are." I wasn't really listening. 
• Some of his latest curiosities have been about natural disasters, especially volcanoes. He loves learning about volcanoes, and he can tell you the distinct difference between magma and lava and dormant volcanoes vs active ones. He will rattle your ear off if you ask about mud flows. He talks about becoming a Volcanologist some day (which is a welcomed relief from his usual "army truck guy"). 

Aunt Lauren gave him a volcano kit for Christmas,

 and he was kind enough to share the painting responsibilities with Nell. 

• He has been missing our preschool time, and asks for it nearly everyday after I put Nell down for a nap. Thankfully, I'm able to "trick" him into thinking our quiet time, busy bag activities are preschool. His favorite one right now is this cupcake activity. He loves to play cupcake store! I just sit on the couch with Coraline and pretend to buy things. Easiest preschool ever. 
• He loves Legos. He has played with them everyday since Christmas (and the week or two before). It's starting to annoy me, but I know they are a developmentally rich toy -- so I let them liter my front room floor every day. Spaceships, boats, weapons, museums, airplanes, and airports are his favorite items to build. 
• He loves the snow. I've already blogged plenty about that.
  
• He loves being in the kitchen with me when I cook. I let him help out a lot, but when there isn't something for him to do, he finds his own fun. Mostly, he plays in the sink and bakes cakes (ie measures water in and out of cups and bowls) or fills fish tanks (ie a dirty snack jar with un-popped corn kernels -- the kernels were his baby fish and he proudly carried them around the house for two days). 
  
  My poor, pet-less children. 
• His imagination is soaring (thus the baby popcorn fish), and he is constantly coming up with make believe games for us to play. "Mommy, mommy! I have a game for us to play. I'll leave the room and then you say 'I think this is a house.'" Then he quickly vanishes down the hallway and I duteously repeat my line "I think this is a house," at which point he marches in the room and says "No, this is a gold mine." Then, breaking character, he tells me, "Mommy, ask what that is over there." So I look over at the giant, beat up amazon box sitting near out door and ask "What's that over there?" And before you know it, he's climbing in the beaten box old mine shaft (the mine is 50-years-old by the way) and riding down the elevator to the deep, deep, deep, deep, underground of the mine. Yes, his games are always dictated and always very detailed. And we've gotten a lot of mileage out of that old beat up box (Ben shut him in it one night and laid Nell on top, a fun moment that took longer than I'd expected to turn sour). 
• (in that vein) The boy can turn on fake cries better than you'd believe (by the time Nell was off the box they were real, real cries). I've started calling him out on it before he gets real mopey and lately that causes a big smile and little giggle. But sometimes he puts so much energy into his fake cries that he actually works himself up into an inconsolable (and unreasonable) sob. But we love him anyway!