Life in Texas: Caden is 4!

Last week Caden turned 4. Everyday I wake up and am so thankful to God for my precious son. Since we already had his big birthday party, I kept things pretty low key on his actual birthday. We met one of his good friends, Jacob, in the morning at a playground and they played for about two hours. Then we met Collin, my parents, sister, and grandmother for lunch at Chick-Fil-A. He loved it. Then my sister and I took him swimming. He's putting his head under the water now and I think before summer is over he'll be swimming on his own. He will swim if your hand is under him, doesn't have to touch him, but he wants you right there. He's such a dare devil in so many ways but with water he's not, thank goodness! I love water, love scuba diving, but know it doesn't take much for a child to drown in a pool. Once he gets the hang of things he'll be swimming like a fish.

I'm 4!

Collin and I decorated his room the night before his birthday. Mostly Collin blew up a lot of balloons, I cut out 4 4s, and we hung them from the ceiling, and decorated his door. When he woke up he ran to my room and said, "Mom! Mom! Come see my room, I have so many balloons in my room!" He was so excited!

Caden's 4-year check-up with the doctor went great. The nurse was very impressed with everything he knew and said he's advanced. She said a lot of 4-year olds still don't know their shapes, colors, and letters and many have a difficult time following directions for the hearing and vision tests. He's known his letters, numbers, and shapes since before he turned 2 so not sure why it's a big deal. His eye sight is great, his hearing is perfect, which I'm relieved since when he was born we had to go to an audiologist for his left ear which ended up being fine at the time but he hasn't been tested since. The doctor was impressed that he knew his phone number, parent's name, and answered all her questions correctly. She was impressed he could spell his first and last name. He could spell his first and last name when he was 2 as well, we lived in a foreign country and we wanted him to be as prepared as could be if he got away from us. The main thing I wanted to address was how little he sleeps. He sleeps maybe 9.5 hours - 10 hours per day. He stopped napping at 18 months but used to sleep quite a bit more at night. She said some kids just don't need as much sleep. We'll put him to bed at 8pm and he'll lay there until past 10pm still awake. She said as long as he's not playing that's fine. So I guess I don't need to worry about it. It just makes for one exhausted Mama!!

Here are his stats which makes him in the 80-90% for weight and height:

42 inches tall

38 lbs

Caden's Favorites:

Music: He loves music, we mostly listen to Christian and kids music but he sings all the time and picks up songs very fast. He also loves making up his own songs.

Favorite Color: Blue with green and brown closely behind him

Friends: He has never met a stranger and if someone plays with him for more than 5 minutes they become his best friend. If we go to the park or a restaurant with a playground, he finds one or two kids around his age and they will play and play. From school his favorite friends were Jacob, Quentin, and Dillon. At church he really likes Zachary, Joy, and Gabby. He also enjoys inviting people over to his home to play, including people we just met.

Socially: He's a social butterfly! Everywhere we go he waves to people and says, "hi! Hello!" He is very friendly and kind. I heard his dad did the same thing when he was around Caden's age.

He loved the chocolate cake Julia made for him.

Books/Reading: He has a favorite for a few weeks then it changes. Right now his favorites are The Bravest Fish and Catch that Ball. He's also getting good at reading. He sounds words out and has really picked it up. He can read short books but it's hard to know if he's reading them or just memorized them since he has such a good memory. When he's reading and sounding out words, he reads much slower except for words he knows. When he reads a book he knows, it is faster which makes me think he memorized it. I have slowed down on teaching him to read and he's been asking me to help him read. He's mostly just picked it up on his own. I am, however, planning on teaching him phonograms and really teaching the English language and how to decode words and break them apart. I've been so torn on a the right phonics program and way to do this but have finally decided on one. Having a BA in English I want him to have a good understanding of our language from early on and hopefully by teaching him how our language works he'll be better prepared to learn other languages later on.

Food: Chocolate! He is a chocolate lover but doesn't get it that often. His other favorite foods are all berries, bananas, yogurt, cheese, peanut butter sandwiches, grilled chicken, whole wheat bagels with strawberry cream cheese, hamburgers, peas, broccoli, peaches, cherries, and raisins.

Toys: His favorite things to play with are balloons. Which is one reason he was so excited to see all the balloons in his room. He also loves his trains and building things. Other than that he likes non-toys such as Collin's tools. He prefers "real" tools over his pretend ones. He also enjoys playing outside in the water, jumping from high places, climbing on things, and helping with our garden. He also LOVES making videos of himself. One afternoon he made 61 videos on my phone in about 20 minutes. We have this program where he makes them and sends them to our email. He'll take my phone camera around and talk about what he's doing to making funny noises and recording himself. He's really funny and somewhat obsessed with video making.

Love this cake!

TV: He doesn't watch a lot of TV. At most he watches two 20 minute shows a day. One day when I was really tired I tried to get him to watch another show and he said, "no Mom, only 2 shows per day." His favorite show is Caillou. This year it started off with Clifford the Big Red Dog and Peep and the Big Wide World, then he liked Word World for a while. Now it's mostly Caillou and sometimes The Cat in the Hat.

Travel: He loves the beach. He's been to 22 countries, 3 continents, and lots of beaches. When went on a cruise earlier this year and he enjoyed the beaches in Belize and Honduras the most. He also liked Laguna Beach in California as well. I think he takes after his Mama. I love the beach over the mountains. Although I do like the beach with the mountains in the background.

So many things have changed from 4 years ago. I still think back to that early morning in Germany when he was born. The sun was rising up over the mountain outside my room at the hospital and my sweet baby was placed in my arms. Caden, we love you so much and enjoy all the fun and excitement you bring to our lives.