Connor: Six Years!

 Hi 2024. Let's get caught up on 2023, shall we? I'm going to do my best to pretend like Connor is still newly six years old, and not nearly six and a half as I add commentary to his birthday interview questions, but I make no promises. Welcome to Connor the (not so newly) kindergartener!

How handsome is my favorite kindergartener?

Age: 6

Height: 3 ft, 9 in (taller than both his brothers at six by almost a full inch!)

Weight: 44 lbs, 12.8 oz 

What is your favorite color? Blue

What is your favorite animal? Cat and dog

You know it's true love when he shares his bedtime blanket and a stuffed animal with the puppy we are dog sitting

What is your favorite book? Dragon Girls (shortly after his fifth birthday he really started to pick up on the ins and outs of reading and began to very intentionally look at words and figure out letter sounds. By five and a half he was reading EVERYTHING, literally whatever he could get his hands on. Dragon Girls is actually an early chapter book series that he was hooked on for awhile, but he's pretty indiscriminate when it comes to reading. I finally had to get him his own library card because he was wanting to check out so many books that I didn't have room on my card for all of them. He's also fantastic at decoding unfamiliar words; "explorer" is one I noted that we were surprised he figured out all on his own)

I know the photo is a little dark, but this picture of him reading a chapter book (graphic novel, but still) was taken in May, literally six months after he first starting combining letter sounds to make words. His explosion with reading was unreal and just so much fun to watch 

What is your favorite song? Love (no lie, I think from five to six we sang this song as his bedtime song every.single.night. I don't know what it is about it, but he was fixated on it. It's an old camp song that Darrell and I actually both learned in our camp days (despite being in different parts of the country); the ending of the song is slightly different, but the melody and lyrics are basically the same!

What is your favorite sport? Baseball

What is your favorite thing to do with Mom? Play games

I'm a little more partial to puzzles than games, but hey, I'll take whatever fun times I get with this kiddo

What is your favorite thing to do with Dad? Play Ring Around the Rosy (it should be noted that Ring Around the Rosy with Dad is not "real" Ring Around the Rosy. It's more like Tackle and Chase and Last Man Standing Wins Around the Rosy)

What is your favorite thing to do outside? Ride my bike

Where is your favorite place to go? Great Wolf Lodge (we went the weekend before his birthday as part of William's belated tenth birthday outing, and needless to say it was a big hit)

What is your favorite fruit? Raspberries

They may not be raspberries, but he definitely enjoyed trying pomegranate arils for the first time!  

What is your favorite vegetable? Sweet Potatoes

What is your favorite cereal? Cocoa Crunchies

What is your favorite treat? Cake

What is your favorite meal? Italian Spaghetti (also know as pasta carbonara--so good!)

What makes you happy? Going outside to play

What makes you sad? When I get hurt

Who are your best friends? Garrett (this isn't as sweet as it sounds; Garrett is a classmate of his, not his brother. Although ironically, his classmate Garrett has a brother the same age as our Garrett, and the two of them are friends... It's all very confusing)

What do you want to be when you grow up? Artist

I bet I printed five pictures a week off the computer for him to paint/color, and that doesn't include all the ones that were in coloring books he got or "creations" that he made on blank pieces of paper

What was your favorite part about last year? Going to gyms

What is one thing you want to do this year? Learn to draw dinosaurs (I'm pretty sure this answer was influenced by the fact that he got a "Learn to Draw Dinosaurs" book for his birthday, although spoiler--he's not really touched it)

It's really hard to separate the "just started kindergarten" Connor from the "nearly halfway through kindergarten" Connor, but really, all I really need to say is that this kid is killing it at school and we are just so proud of him. He's had some bumps along the way figuring out friends and playing together, especially at recess, but everything we hear about him at school or have seen in his interactions with classmates show that he is just the sweetest kid and that the "problems" are really just instances when he wants to have independent play time and his classmates have a hard time understanding that (which, honestly, is one hundred percent a consistent trait of his. It drives my dad crazy that his brothers and cousins will be playing a football game in their backyard and Connor doesn't want to play with them because he's doing something else. We've had to tell my dad to drop it and stop cajoling Connor to play with them--he'll join in the game if and when he wants to--so I can see how other kindergarteners would have a hard time understanding someone wanting to do something by themselves instead of the "fun" activity they are doing). And as always, I'll use this opportunity to fill in a few of the things I've forgotten over the past year with a bit of a photo dump!

Our school does a really great job getting kids excited to start kindergarten with fun events and grad year shirts, and Connor was super excited to practice for kindergarten with the dry erase sheets he got at his kindergarten registration in March. He called them his "homework" and for like a month straight he made a point to do them every day to make sure he'd be ready for kindergarten. Needless to say I think all his hard work paid off!

Lost his first tooth in May! (Yes, I promise, there's a missing tooth there. The adult tooth shark-toothed the baby tooth, just like his brothers, so there really isn't much of a gap to see)

As I kind of alluded to before, Connor is one hundred percent fine with marching to the beat of his own drum. Sometimes that means he wants to play independently, sometimes that means he wants to step up and be a helper, sometimes that means he wants to be the silly one, and sometimes he just wants to copy what his brothers are doing, whether that's fishing at the lake or riding the boogie board at the beach. We've definitely hit our fair share of bumps as he's trying to figure out who exactly "Connor" is and what kinds of behavior are acceptable, but most of the time, it's so much fun watching him grow into his own unique personality. 

I don't remember why this picture was taken, but I'll use it to remind myself that at six, Connor still sleeps with his Lambie every night, as well as basically any stuffed animal under the sun he can get his hands on. And I've lost track of how many blankets he has, but the one he's had since he was born is somewhere in the mix!

Happy (very belated) birthday Connor! I'm sorry this post is so late, but I'm not sorry for all the fun moments we've soaked up this past year plus!