Garrett: Four Years!

Very excited about his "sour gummy worm" cake

 

Quite possibly my favorite picture of Garrett to date--and one that I'm sure will continue to be a favorite years from now

Height/Weight: Assuming current trends continue, it seems likely that Garrett--my biggest baby--will be my smallest child. He weighed in at exactly 33 pounds, nearly three pounds fewer than my sister's son Jonathan who is almost a year and a half younger (and 2.5 pounds lighter than William was at four). And at 39 inches he is just shorter than William was at this age. While it is still a little early to tell exactly what trend Connor will follow, Connor was over a pound heavier than Garrett was at fifteen months--and slightly taller as well. And in a few short weeks we'll see how Connor compares at eighteen months (spoiler--he's almost certainly going to be bigger than Garrett was at eighteen months).

 

Wearing: Despite being on the low end of the percentages for height and weight, I have (very slowly) started pulling some 4T clothes out for him (and we just moved up to a size 3T/4T pull up for bedtime and naps). The majority of his wardrobe is 3T though, and I imagine it will stay that way until I reorganize his closet for summer clothes (which seems like an eternity away with this crazy winter we've been having). And even then I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of his shorts this summer are still 3T because my boys always seem to outgrow their tops before their bottoms.

Caught lotion-handed

 

Someone got a little creative about how to open the bag by himself while Mommy was putting little brother to bed. He wasn't supposed to be eating them, but it was hard to punish such creative problem solving

Eating: I seriously feel like this section is completely unnecessary for Garrett. The kid loves to eat, and honestly, he loves to eat healthy food. Sure, he's a kid and loves a good treat every once in a while, but we never have to battle with him to eat his fruits and vegetables. He still doesn't seem to be terribly fond of most meats, but for the most part he'll eat just about anything without much complaint. If I had to think of a few things to note just for the sake of documenting them, it would be that he has a few weird eating habits (and not just "eating raw onion" and "drinking pickle juice" weird). He picks around cheese (especially string cheese) when it is served as a snack, but if we're having pasta or something you had better believe that he insists on having a (generous) helping of cheese on top. Additionally, when he has his yogurt for breakfast, rather than alternating between whatever boxes of cereal we have open, he generally prefers to have all of them at once. So there are some mornings that he'll have Reese's Puffs, Lucky Charms, and Yellow Cheerios all in the same bowl of yogurt. I've gotten to the point where I'm no longer grossed out to serve it, but don't you dare ask me to try it. Oh, and when we have leftover Brussels sprouts (which we cook in a balsamic/honey sauce), he will drink the sauce out of the leftover container (gag). I pretty much let him do whatever he wants with mixing/eating his food (so long as it isn't something potentially harmful like raw meat) and I do my best not to show any visible signs of disgust.

 

Sleep: Honestly, I don't really know why I put this category on here. It's always a frustrating thing to talk about, especially after a generally easy discussion about eating habits. Oh well. Sleep has been an interesting beast with Garrett this past year. He and William have hit a groove with sharing a room, especially once we installed reading lights for both boys and implemented a period of quiet reading time before lights out to help them settle down. However, there are nights--and probably more than we actually know about--where Garrett doesn't actually go to sleep until well after lights out. The only reason we know some nights that he is still up is that he'll come out of his room an hour or so after lights out to go potty or look for a rogue stuffed animal or something. And with William being in school he doesn't get to sleep in in the morning, so we've had plenty of whiny, tired days. Which--logically--should make naps more of a given, but that hasn't been true. More often than not he won't actually fall asleep at nap time (as of the past four months or so), but he goes back to his room willing and (usually) stays there for almost ninety minutes, so I'm a little reluctant to force the sleeping thing. And on the days he does fall asleep, it's almost a guarantee that I have to wake him up to go get William from school, and he can be quite a bear when he is woken up, which makes me even more unwilling to force him to nap. Aside from his sleeping habits creating some pretty comical "fall asleep in the middle of whatever I'm doing" pictures, they aren't really outside the realm of "normal" (although they definitely do put him on the low end of the recommended number of hours of sleep), and our pediatrician isn't terribly concerned, so I'm not going to be either. Besides, with Daylight Savings Time lurking right around the corner, it really wouldn't be worth getting concerned about his current sleeping habits anyway because they will inevitably change in a few short weeks.

No nap means not making it through snack time awake

Just a typical night in bed for Garrett and his menagerie

New Stuff: As I was reading through Garrett's three-year post, I found myself say "yep, he still does that" or "yes, that's still true" about almost every one of the "new" things I blogged about in that post. Honestly, I can only think of a small handful of things that are truly "new"; everything else is pretty much just continued growth and development on the things he was already doing last year.

Tubing for the first time this summer! He's still a little wary of the ocean, but he's definitely warming up to swimming at my parent's lake cabin

The first thing that comes to mind is his nurturing and caring and general sweetness with babies (and animals, but especially dogs). My sister had another boy in July, and Garrett always has to hold Harrison when we are together. And he'll be more than content to sit and hold him even if the other kids are running around and playing. Somewhat unfortunately, though, Harrison is a pretty sizable kid, and Garrett is not. So they make kind of an awkward pair. It's a good thing my sister-in-law is due in May; I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Harrison outgrew Garrett's lap by then. Garrett still tries to dote on Connor sometimes too, but their relationship has taken a little bit of an odd turn since William started school. Garrett and William play pretty darn rough with each other (we're talking full-on tackle football), and Garrett has had a hard time adjusting his play to a level that is appropriate for Connor, and as a result they don't always play very well together (and I'd even be a little inclined to say that Connor is slightly wary of Garrett and tries to avoid him at times). It's taken quite a bit of coaching, and Garrett is starting to get it figured out, but becoming the "big" man at the house while William is at school was definitely a rough new thing for Garrett.

Loving on my cousin's puppy Lucas

Lake life sure is tough sometimes

He still does a lot of story-telling reading, but we've noticed in the past few weeks that he's starting to pick up a few words here and there. Mo Willems "Elephant and Piggie" books have been great for his word recognition because they are super easy for him to "read" from memory, and we've seen him identify some of those words in other stories as well. And I think he could probably read more words than he currently does if he gave it more of an effort, but he enjoys making up the stories (with the token words or phrases that he remembers from when we've read it) and doesn't seem motivated to slow down and try to figure out what the actual words on the page are. Definitely not an issue at this age, and certainly a necessary stepping stone toward independent reading, but I would like to see him outgrow this habit in the next year or so. Especially since he has pretty well mastered all his letter sounds (and even some of the blended sounds).

Reading with his eyes shut! Or something like that...

For whatever "lack" of effort there may be in his reading, though, he makes up for in his ability to write. He has very precise fine motor skills, and really enjoys coloring the small spaces on his coloring pages (and very rarely goes outside the lines). He can write the whole alphabet, and while his spacing and letter sizes are still inconsistent, his letter formations are excellent, even when he is trying to write in small spaces. As an "activity" he will occasionally take books and copy the titles onto different pieces of paper, and a month or so ago he figured out (on his own) how to spell the name of his puppy "Spot" (which he was very proud of--and rightfully so).

Foreshadowing a future profession, perhaps?

The biggest official "new" thing I can think of is that he started Sunday School in the fall. We weren't too concerned about his adjusting to that change, and after slight reservations the first few weeks (most of which were probably just him imitating his brother's nervousness), he's been loving it. He frequently wants to know how many more days until Sunday, and in his excitement of counting down those days he's managed to do a pretty good job of learning the days of the week. He hasn't been quite as animated as we would have thought during their performances, but I'm sure that will come sooner than later (and any amount of actions and singing at this stage of the game is more than William was doing!).

 

Can we really count it as his first Twins game when he slept through half of it?

I alluded to my final point in the previous paragraph--the last "new" thing I can think of for Garrett is his habit of mimicking things. Verbally, this has caused some issues because he has a tendency to say and repeat things that he doesn't really understand, so we've been having to work through that. His mimicry really shines in athletics, though. He copies pitchers pitching from the stretch, he copies batters tapping the plate before they swing, he copies football players lining up on the line of scrimmage before the ball is hiked--and he does all this without us being intentional about pointing out those motions to him. He also starting copying a jump shot in basketball after going to one basketball game this fall, and I'm no expert, but he does a pretty decent job with it. He definitely seems to have a fair amount of natural sport ability--which is good, because with his size he'll need all the help he can get if he wants to be competitive!

Not quite how the pros carry their bags, but "A" for effort!

I know parents aren't supposed to pick favorites, but Garrett is definitely my new favorite four-year old! He makes our lives so full--full of personality, full of excitement, full of frustration, full of laughter, full of attitude, full of disobedience, full of spunk, full of sass, full of crazy--and I can't wait to see what he will fill our lives up with next. Cheers to another great year!