12/7/08

As some of our family members already know, Miles has been working (a bit obsessively) on doing a craft project for Christmas.  We can't say much more, because it really is supposed to be a surprise, but we'll eventually be able to post some pictures.  He started out intending to make three of this item, and to date he has made 16, and he's still going.  We just hope a few of our relatives find a use for what he's created!  He's having a lot of fun doing them, that's for sure.

Miles is continuing to enjoy school (mostly) and he talks a lot about all of his friends.  We signed him up for soccer again along with some of the other kids in his kindergarten class.  Interestingly, on the way to the first practice, he told Molly he didn't feel well - he was tired and his legs were sore.  This surprised her (it's unlike him) but she figured he was nervous about doing something new, so they talked about the sports arena they were going to which he's been to for soccer classes before, and about which friends would be there.  That seemed to help, and he admitted that he was nervous and a little unsure about what to expect.  He was happy when they got there, and he remembered the place, and immediately saw Nev getting ready to head out onto the field.  He ended up loving the lesson that day.

Miles also went to the allergist again recently, where they did a prick test for egg (still positive) and for the flu shot which contains egg (that was negative this year, so he got a flu shot, much to his dismay).  Although there is still some indication that his allergy may be decreasing, the prick tests are not quantitative, so we really don't have any new information.  We'll do a blood test again in May and we'll have more information then.  We're keeping our fingers crossed that he will grow out of this still.  Something like 75% of kids do between the ages of 4 and 7, and we're just about at the halfway mark for that age range. 

11/24/08

We had a conference with Miles's kindergarten teacher this week and learned more about how things are going for him at school.  We were really proud when she told us how well he's doing academically, socially, and just generally following the rules and being a "dream" to have in the classroom.  It's so good to hear all these nice things about him.

Miles has a new rhythm to his weeks now that Nana and Grandad are here.  Because he gets out of school a little early every Wednesday, Nana has been picking him up and spending the afternoon with him so Molly can have a somewhat more normal work day on those days.  Miles is loving his extra time with Nana, and we think Nana is loving her extra time with Miles!  They've done some fun projects together, and Miles apparently tells anyone who listen at school on Wednesdays that his Nana is coming for him that day.

Miles is also in a new kind of extra curricular class.  He's taking it with his friend Fiona from preschool who we haven't seen much of since kindergarten started, and he's thrilled for some extra time with her.  The classes are also pretty interesting.  They're just 8 week sessions, and each sessions covers 2 different sports.  They draw parallels between the skills you learn for each of the sports, and they walk the kids through basic things like passing, dribbling, and scoring.  The sports for this session are basketball and hockey.  Miles really enjoys basketball, but despite all of the coaching he's receiving, he's still quite sure that launching the ball as high as possible from between his legs is the best way to make a basket.  With hockey, though, he seems to have a little more skill and is quite good at controlling the ball with his hockey stick and working his way through and around obstacles.  It's fun to watch him try these sports, and he seems to really love these classes.

Miles is also still talking about learning to play the violin, and since the piano classes we tried weren't working out very well, Molly is going to try to teach him piano at home for a while.  It's only been a couple of weeks, but it seems to be going ok so far!

11/1/08

Miles is really doing great these days.  We often hear from other parents at his school that their kids talk about Miles at home and it sounds like they really like him.  And closer to home, he is doing a terrific job with Micah.  They still fight, but Miles is way more likely to try to work through a solution that will help Micah.  As an example, Miles got a magic wand at a birthday party he attended, and he didn't want to have to share it with Micah.  After fighting over it, and Micah ending up in tears (that part didn't go as well as we'd hoped), Miles offered to make Micah his own wand.  At first Micah refused, so Miles said Micah could help him, and that got Micah's attention.  He stopped crying and followed Miles into the office where they proceeded to make a magic wand out of paper with a little help from Molly (you can see the result in the Halloween Part 2 photo page below).  Miles is showing us more and more that he can creatively work through issues he's having with Micah, which is just great.

Along those same lines, they decided to play board games together this morning.  It was a bit hairy, but funny to watch.  First they played Uncle Wiggly, which is a game that requires reading and the ability to count to 150.  Clearly not a game for Micah, but Miles tried desperately to coach him through it and get him to follow the rules. He tried to teach him out to count out his spaces, he read Micah's cards for him and told him what to do, etc., all the while stopping Micah from randomly moving the pieces to new spaces, going out of turn, upending the stack of cards, etc.  Micah lost interest pretty quickly, so they switched to Candy Land Bingo, a game that is within Micah's ability.  Miles thought he should simplify the rules for Micah, though.  Interesting choice.  The simplification made the game last about 2 minutes.  Then they tried playing Chinese Checkers.  When it was Micah's turn to go, having no idea how the game is supposed to be played, Micah dug in an swiped his balls all over the place sending them flying around the room (he thought this was a great game).  Miles cried out in exasperation - "Micah, you're making me lose my marbles!".  If only he knew how funny he sounded just then.

10/27/08

Knock on wood, we may have finally hit a real turning point with Miles.  It's been about a month now, and Miles is continuing to listen well, interact nicely with Micah, and just generally be a lot more fun to be around.  He will always have his moments, but we're seeing way more happy, positive behavior from him these days.  It's such a breath of fresh air.  We're also getting good reports about him from school - we'll have official conference in Nov, but Miles comes home from school telling us that the teacher pointed out to everyone what a good listener he was, and that he created a pattern in math that she was so impressed by that she showed it to the other kindergarten teacher.  Ms. Lailey also told Molly that he is a real pleasure to have in the classroom, that he listens well, follows instructions, gets along with the other kids, and does well academically to boot.  We're really glad that he seems to be settling into kindergarten so happily.

One change that we're seeing in Miles at home is his excitement about writing.  Although he has been typing letters and email for a while now, school has helped him get a lot better at actually writing things on paper, and he's been making more notes and pictures with words on them.  This past weekend he made his very first book.  It was titled "Trane Book bi Miles".  Each page of the book had a train car on it which he labeled, including a coal car, a garbage car, a dining car, and a caboose, among others.  He took the book to school to show Ms. Lailey - we're hoping that we will get it back at some point!

One of our issues with Miles right now is that he is constantly asking for new toys, or new experiences.  From the second Molly picks him up from school, she hears a string of questions that goes something like this:  "Can we go to the lego store?  Can we go to the water slide?  Can we go to the museum?  Can we to go to Starbucks?  Can we go to the toy store?  Will you buy me a toy at the grocery store?  Can we go to the lego store?" (this last one is the most common one).  We've been talking about starting Miles on an allowance so that he will begin to learn how to save and what the value is of some of the things he's constantly asking for.

10/13/08

It finally feels like we're settling into a routine now, and Miles is showing signs of relaxing a bit into the new rhythm.  Although we still have bumpy days, he's been much more patient with Micah, and generally more reasonable with us these last few weeks.  With the exception of meal times, when he has a ton of trouble sitting still and not spilling his food everywhere, we're enjoying a bit of a respite from behavior we'd been seeing from him.  He continues to love to help us around the house, and he prefers any activity that involves one of us to any solitary activity, with the notable exception of watching TV.  He's getting very good, though, at identifying games he can play with Micah when one of us isn't available, and of course Micah loves this.  They have dress up games, games of catch, and a chase game that are especially popular with both of them.

As for school, we occasionally hear from him that he doesn't want to go, but usually that's not an issue in the mornings.  He likes running into some of his friends on the walk to school, and most days of the week there's something to look forward to in his day: Molly volunteers in the classroom on Mondays and sometimes stays to have lunch with him; Matt volunteers on Tuesdays, and Tuesday is also Miles's sharing day; Wednesday is "Wacky Wednesday" - it's a short day; Thursdays he just has to get through; and Fridays are popcorn Fridays - the lunchroom sells popcorn for $.50 that the kids can take onto the playground for their after lunch recess.  Miles loves getting his quarters ready in the morning, and it sounds like popcorn Fridays is a huge highlight of the week.  He's also very animated whenever he talks about recess.  Although he played exclusively with Gunnar the first few weeks (Gunnar was at the same preschool as Miles), he now talks about playing with a wide range of friends, and even lamented the other day that it's so hard to pick which of his friends to play with each day.  The games they play all have names - helicopter, ship, strongest girl in the west, and one that is unnamed, but we're guessing would be called "John is Dead" if it had a name.  Most of these games are rescue games, some are chase games.  Miles's descriptions of them are very involved, and different kids play each of the different games.  It all sounds very complicated to us, but it's clearly a big deal to Miles.

And speaking of friends, Miles tells us which of his friends are "up here", meaning at the top of his list.  Fiona is still on that list, but now Gunnar and Ari (two kids from his preschool who are also at his kindergarten) are on that list, as is Nev, a little girl who lives quite close to us that we've started having playdates with fairly often.  Miles asks to play with Nev after school almost every day, and we hear from Nev's parents that it's the same from her.  They like to play soccer, ride their bikes, go to the park and pretend Micah is chasing them, and make up elaborate stories to act out.  They've also had fun using our train tracks and legos, and playing board games and tic-tac-toe on the rare occasion they settle down inside to play.  And they have both discovered the wonder of Starbucks, and are good at convincing both sets of parents to take them for a Starbucks treat.

9/26/08

Well, the bloom is off the kindergarten rose.  Not for Miles - he still loves it.  But for us!  For whatever reason (probably because it's hard to hold himself together all day every day at school), Miles has been letting loose at home.  He isn't listening very well to us, and he's antagonizing and hurting Micah more than usual.  This isn't to say he's always causing problems.  At times, he is as sweet and polite as ever.  But we're not seeing that side of him as much as we'd like!  We hope that his new schedule will soon settle into a routine for him, and he will settle down along with it. 

That said, there are some fun new things going on with Miles.  We enrolled him in the local soccer league, which has practice and then skirmishes once a week.  It turns out that lots and lots of kids from his kindergarten are in the same league, and it's nice to have another chance to get to know some of the other families from the school.  Miles seems to really love the chance to play soccer with his friends.  One of these days we'll remember to bring a camera to document the occasion.

Miles shows lots of signs of enjoying learning and trying new things.  He likes to make his own breakfast whenever possible, and sometimes he'll make Micah's as well.  Often he makes cereal, but he recently learned how to make toast, so he makes that sometimes too.  We've also discovered that Miles really likes thinking about numbers.  The other day he told Molly that 10+10=20.  She figured he'd memorized that, so she asked him what 20+20 was.  He thought about it, said 22, then said No, wait! and told her it's 40.  She asked him why, and he said because 2+2 is 4, nad 0+0 is 0.  At that point he was able to easily extrapolate to 40+40=80 and 30+30=60.  He also likes to "Count 10s".  He said Harrison taught him this, and it means that if you count to 10 ten times, it makes 100. 

Molly had the opportunity this past week to see Miles in action at school when she volunteered for an hour in his classroom.  Whatever problems we're seeing at home don't seem to be happening for him at school.  Miles did a great job listening to the teacher and following her instructions, and staying focused on his task even with Molly in the room.  Ms. Lailey also told Molly that Miles is very independent (something she pointed out as she and Molly watched Miles buy his own milk for lunch that day without any guidance).  It's great to hear about and see his successes in school.  Now if only we could duplicate that at home!

9/4/08

Miles is now officially a kindergartener.  We walked him to school on his first day (in his spiderman shoes and wearing his spiderman backpack), and dropped him off in his classroom.  He was very excited to finally be going to kindergarten, and after 2 days the excitement hasn't waned any.  Today when Molly picked him up, Miles had a 2nd bag over his shoulder, and inside was a teddy bear and a 3 ring binder.  Miles informed Molly that this was the Listening Bear, and at the end of each day the teacher will send the bear home with the child who was the best listener that day, and before the bear goes back to school the next day Miles can use a page in the binder to tell others about what the Listening Bear did while he visited with us.  We're very excited that Miles was the first one in the class to get to bring the Listening Bear home.  It was also pretty funny that Miles made sure we knew that even though the teacher pretended the listening bear was listening all day to decide who to go home with, it was really the teacher (not the bear) who decided.

It's been very fun to see how excited Miles is about kindergarten these last few days.  It's a little hard to believe that he's really old enough to be in school already.  But he's clearly ready to be starting down this road.  And yes, both of us cried after we dropped him off (though we managed to wait until we'd left the classroom so Miles wouldn't wonder what the heck was wrong with us - how could anyone cry on such an exciting day?).

8/29/08

Not surprisingly, the biggest thing in Miles's life right now is the start of kindergarten next week.  This past week we went to a parent orientation where we had a chance to meet Miles's new teacher (Ms. Lailey) and see his new classroom.  The next day there was an open house so Miles got to go and meet his teacher and see his new classroom.  He really enjoyed this, and he wanted to stay and play with some of the toys in the room as long as we were allowed to stay.  Afterwards we went outside and played on the playground a bit along with lots and lots of other kids from different grades who had chosen to do the same thing.  We saw some of the other kindergarten kids we know while we were out there.  Although there are 4 families we know from daycare and our neighborhood who will be at the same school as Miles, it turns out all 4 of them are in the other kindergarten class, so Miles will only see those kids at lunch and at recess.  We're looking at it as a chance for him to make lots of new friends.

We thought that Miles might be concerned about changing schools, or sad to leave his old school, but he's just very excited about the upcoming start of kindergarten.  He had a graduation ceremony from preschool a week ago, and he was very disappointed when he learned that he would have to go back to his daycare for another week before he got to start kindergarten.  He loves his spiderman backpack, and spiderman lunch sack, and spiderman shoes, and all of his school supplies.  He can't wait for that first day to come.

One other new thing in Miles's world is his attachment to his teddy bear, Beary.  Miles has never had a particular stuffed animal that he's connected with for any length of time, but now, at age 5, he has suddenly decided that Beary needs to come everywhere with us, sit with us at meals, ride in the car, go to school, etc.  Luckily for him, the first day of kindergarten is 'bring your teddy bear to school" day, so at least for the first day he'll get to have his trusted friend with him at school.

8/12/08

It's hard to believe all of the new things Miles is doing.  He has started reading books (very simple ones) to himself, he is continuing to practice the piano on his own and learn new songs, he is riding his bike quite well now, he's swimming a bunch, and even started trying to do a backstroke and side-breathing on his own the other day, he learned to dive for things in the pool while we were in Chelan, and he practices his whistling way more often than we'd like!  It's incredible to watch this burst of new skills all happen at once, and see his pride as he conquers each new challenge he sets for himself.

We went shopping for Miles's school supplies the other day, adding to the general excitement in the air about the upcoming start of kindergarten.  Molly and Miles also attended a "kindergarten playdate" at a local park where they had a chance to meet other families with kids who would be in kindergarten at the same school.  Miles is excited about using his new spiderman backpack and going to a new school, but he seemed somewhat overwhelmed by all of the new faces at the playdate.  He was relieved to eventually recognize a girl who lives a block over from us that we've occasionally seen at the park. 

7/28/08

Miles had a ton of fun playing with Etienne and Gaby while they were visiting us this past week.  He liked doing puzzles, making airplanes, and playing games with Gaby, though he showed some of the same tendencies with Gaby that he has with Micah - when he found out certain things would bother her (like not quite following the rules) he seemed more inclined to do those things.  But generally they played pretty well together with some encouragement from the adults.  Etienne is just a hero in Miles's mind since he seemed to have endless energy for all the games Miles wanted to play.  Matt and Molly were both thrilled with the break they got thanks to Etienne!

Miles continues to tell us that he wants to be a pilot (sometimes he clarifies that he'll be a violin playing pilot) when he grows up, but when he's pretending, he's almost always a superhero.  He used to switch around what kind of superhero he was, but now he is always the same one.  He's "Changing Man".  His super power is that he can change into any super hero he wants to depending on what's required.  When he's on his scooter, he's "Scooter Man", and he can go really fast to catch bad guys.  When it's hot out, he's "Ice Man".  Sometimes he's Spider Man, etc.  We thought his Meta-Superhero choice was very inventive.  Oh, and he asked us the other day how many years he has left to choose what he's going to be when he's grown up.  He seemed relieved (and somewhat surprised - maybe even a little daunted) when we told him he still has 16 or 17 years (at least) to figure that out. 

7-28-08 Update:  Miles learned to ride a bike without training wheels tonight!  Check it out!

7/14/08

Apparently turning five really agreed with Miles.  He has been a huge help at home, with Micah, and even at school.  He came home from school with a superstar award the other day because he had done extra work to help clean up, had been nice to his friends, and was a good listener all day.  He pulls out the homemade award his teacher gave him all the time, and he's so proud of himself for getting it.

Miles has had other big accomplishments as well.  He's turned into a little fish in the swimming pool again, which is great to see.  He'll show anyone who will watch that he can do a front float/glide all by himself, as well as a reasonable crawl (without side breathing for now) for a good distance in the pool.  It's great to see him be so comfortable in the water.  He also discovered the other day that he can do the monkey bars at the playground at his new elementary school.  Since then he's been disappointed that other monkey bars still elude him (they're either too high up or the bars are too far apart which makes him nervous) but he's still glad he found some he can master.  He says he's going to like his new school because he can do the monkey bars there.

7/1/08

Miles has had a couple of very busy weeks.  He started swimming lessons, went on a field trip with his preschool class, started the summer session of gymnastics (with Fiona), and had his 5th birthday.  He's been a bundle of excitement - thanks to everyone who sent packages and kept his need for constant presents fulfilled.

Although Miles is loving rotating through all of his new birthday presents, his biggest obsession at the moment is the new Sorry game he received.  Since he opened it on Friday he has asked to play Sorry instead of watch TV every single night, which is unprecedented for him.  He even puts up with Micah joining in on the game.

And while we're on the subject of Micah, Miles is definitely NOT thrilled with having a younger brother right now.  Although he does sometimes do a good job of playing with Micah and helping him, more often than not he spends his time trying to get away from Micah, pushing Micah to his limits (by waving things in his face, or chasing him around while Micah screams), or complaining about how Micah gets things he doesn't.  The other day Molly sat down with him and made a list of all the things he's mad about that Micah gets and he doesn't (as an example, Molly carried Micah home from a walk the other day, but she refused to carry Miles too which Miles thought was totally unfair), and then a list of all the things he gets that Micah doesn't.  It seemed to help (for the moment anyway) to remind him of all the privileges he has as a 5-year-old that Micah doesn't, even though it seems at times like we cater to Micah.  It was all a good reminder to us, too, about how often we have to ask Miles to step up and deal because Micah simply can't yet.  It's a constant balancing act for all of us. 

Swimming lessons have been going well.  Although Miles was in the big pool at the end of last summer, he wasn't ready for it at the beginning of this one, so he's just finishing a class in the wading pool where he's had a chance to get comfortable in the water again, and he's doing really well with it.  He had lots of un and passed the class, and tomorrow we'll ask him if he's ready to try the big pool again next week - it should be an interesting conversation!  We've only had one gymnastics class this summer, but Miles clearly loved taking a class with his best friend Fiona.  They're like two peas in a pod, and the teachers were great about honoring their constant requests to do everything together.  And his self-imposed piano lessons are going great - he practices almost every day so that he can learn enough piano to convince us to get him a violin.  Two weeks and counting - he hasn't forgotten.

7/2 update:  We forgot to mention that Miles had his 5-year-old checkup with the pediatrician on his birthday.  He weighed 40.4 lbs (50%) and was 41.75 inches tall (25%).  He has good eyesight, and was pronounced in good health by the doctor. 

6/22/08

Miles has been writing a lot of notes to us lately.  They have a certain theme to them.  Here are some examples:

NEVR LISIN TO MOMY AND DADY
MICAH IS NOT ALAWD IN MILES IS ROOM
MICAH NO FROW ALAWD

A nicer one he wrote on our recent trip to Texas said "A BUTRFLY LANDED ON MILES".  He wanted to take this last one to school so he'd remember to tell all of his friends about it.

Miles had a great time on our trip to Texas.  He has always loved to travel, and that hasn't changed.  He says his favorite things were swimming in Bill and Janine's river, feeding treats to their dog Bonnie, seeing the bats, and swimming in the hotel pool.  We think he also loved how much extra TV he got to watch on the trip! 

One interesting thing happened while he was watching all that TV - Miles saw a kid playing the violin.  He has since decided he desperately wants a violin of his own.  We told him we want him to try the piano first, so today he spent half an hour showing us how much he learned (and retained!) from the couple of months of piano lessons he had earlier this spring.  He wants to return to those lessons this fall.  We'll see if his energy around this continues to be so strong over the next couple of months.  He's never asked for anything so relentlessly before, though, so this should be interesting.

6/11/08

Miles is very excited about his upcoming 5th birthday.  He's been specific about what he wants at his party, for his cake, for the goody bags we hand out, for activities we do, etc.  We've actually already had his party for his school friends - we had a joint party with Fiona whose birthday was at the end of May.  We'll have another party for our family friends closer to his actual birthday.  He thinks it's pretty cool that he gets TWO parties.

Miles has continued to be interested in crafting things out of paper and tape.  Sometimes his ideas are beyond his abilities, and he gets pretty frustrated when that happens.  Eventually he's able to communicate what he wants, though, and with a little help we've been able to make some interesting things, including birthday crowns (based on his design concept) for him and Fiona, and more recently an astronaut radio (how would YOU make an astronaut radio out of paper and tape??).

Miles has shown more interest in reading lately.  While driving the other day he pointed to a new apartment complex and said "Mommy, see that sign in the window?  It says that one is sold."  He has also picked up a few of Micah's books recently and read them pretty successfully.  He loves telling people that he can read whole books by himself now.

And speaking of apartments, Miles has been working on figuring out how the world works, and he's decided that apartments are where people live before they get married.  This came up when we saw the aforementioned apartment complex, and another time when he was driving in Seattle with Molly.  The conversation went something like this:

Molly: I used to live up there on that hill in an apartment.

Miles: Before, when you were still looking for Matt?

Molly: Yes.

Miles: And then you met daddy and you moved to the blue house which turned pink and I was borned and we moved to the house we live in now when Micah came in our family?

Molly: Yes, that about sums it up.

5/28/08

As always when there's a 4-year-old in the house, there are surprises around every corner.  This week we were talking with Miles about why it's not ok to pretend to shoot people (a rule at our house and at preschool) and he wanted to know why they make pirate costumes if pirates are bad and you shouldn't pretend to be a bad guy.  That one required a deep breath and lots of thought before responding! 

One of the more fun things we've seen him do recently is figure out how to make the props he needs for his role playing games.  It's fascinating to hear him say "I need a ____ but I don't know how to make one."  Brief pause.  "Oh, I know!  I can <insert long, convoluted explanation here>."  More often than not, though, he successfully goes and puts his idea into motion and comes back with a finished product made with a combination of paper, scissors, and tape (lots of tape).  Recently we've seen him make a shield out of paper, a crown that fit his head by taping pieces of paper together, paper dolls that are strung together, and paper fans.  He also wrote a note for us that said "Yoo are grate mommy and daddy and micah."  He asked for help with the spelling of "are", but he managed the rest on his own. 

5/12/08

Some days it seems like Miles is growing up by leaps and bounds.  He's helpful and fun to talk to and interested in so many new things - don't get us wrong, we still hear whining and have other issues at times, but in general he's just a lot of fun right now. 

This past weekend we decided to plant a vegetable garden in our backyard.  A few weeks ago Miles planted an apple seed in our backyard from an apple he ate, and every morning before school he fills a cup with water and takes it out to the backyard to water his apple seed.  Since he planted it underneath an already huge apple tree, and it gets quite wet every day, we don't think it's likely to grow.  But we figured this was a good indication that Miles was ready for a garden that had a better chance at surviving.  Miles worked hard to help us dig out a bed and plant some tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers.  Next weekend we'll see if we can get a few more vegetables to put in the other half of our garden once we finish preparing it.  We're hopeful that Miles is going to enjoy watching the vegetables we planted grow this summer.

We occasionally hear more stories now about things that have happened during his day at school.  Usually the stories he tells us are about a child whose feelings were hurt by someone else saying or doing something mean (purposely excluding someone, knocking over someone else's tower, etc.).  He's quick to point out what the child did that was wrong, and why it wasn't a nice thing to do.   We're surprised that these social interactions are the first thing he regularly tells us about (oh, except for the food - he can now usually give us a very accurate description of every meal and snack he ate during the day).

One other thing we've learned about his days at school is that he loves math.  He told us it's his most favorite thing to do, and he wants to only do math all day at school.  We told him he will learn even more math in kindergarten and he thought that was very cool.

4/28/08

We finally found a new obsession to rival legos.  A friend recommended a book series called "The Magic Treehouse" so we got the first four books in the series. They're chapter books, which is something Miles loved already.  The new books came this past weekend, and three days later we've already read the first 3 books in the series.  Miles asks for us to read another chapter every chance he gets, and has chosen to have us read to him in place of computer time, TV time, and bath time (he didn't get away with the last one).  He really likes these books, and it's fun to see him so excited about these stories.

We continue to be surprised by how grown up Miles is becoming.  More often than not he is helpful around the house, and especially with Micah.  He seems to really understand that Micah can't share as well as he can, and he's very good about giving Micah extra turns, or trading off the short-term win for Micah for the long-term win for himself, which is great because both kids are happy that way.  He's also big enough now to use a booster seat rather than a car seat in the car.  He was unbelievably excited by this milestone, and is proud that he can do the seat belt all by himself. 

We recently had a conference with one of Miles's preschool teachers, and it was a very nice conversation.  It's clear she really likes Miles and enjoys having him in her class.  She said he likes to do all of their activities, that he's very nice to his friends, and that he listens well and is helpful.  The only problems/concerns are that sometimes he gets distracted by his friends during circle time and has to be reminded to pay attention, and for some reason Miles has started to really dislike Spanish.  We're not sure why he doesn't like Spanish, except that he may not be following along very well with what's happening.  We only have a few more Spanish classes before the teacher leaves to take the summer off, but it will be something for us to keep an eye on when he starts school next fall.

4/17/08

Miles continues to show a love for traveling and doing new things.  He loved our trip to Cabo, and he has trouble naming his favorite thing because we did so many fun things.  He was thrilled we got to go swimming so much, even at night one time; he loved the pirate scavenger hunt and piñata at one of the Valve parties; he talks a lot about feeding the dolphin some fish; he liked riding the trolley, especially when we went to get ice cream; and he enjoyed meeting and playing with the other kids on the trip.  He also really loved the lego kit we bought for him.  When we bought it we told him it was just for Mexico, so he had to wait until we got there to open it.  The second the plane landed he asked if it was time to open his legos, and he continued to ask again and again at customs, waiting for our baggage, on the bus to the hotel, while we waited to check in, you get the idea.  We had to drag him away from the legos to go to the pool and eat dinner that night, and at 4am the next morning he was waking us up to ask if he could work on his lego kit.  We expected extra excitement, but we figured it would be for going to swimming, not for sitting in our condo doing legos!  It wasn't until he finished the kit that we got him to focus on doing the fun things we went all the way to Mexico to do.  Next trip we're going to hide the lego kit until we need the diversion!

April Fool's day seems to have made an impression on Miles, because he's been very interested in trying to fool us lately.  Today Matt took the kids on a bus ride to the library (a huge hit with both of them) and Miles wanted to bring some of his own money from the coin jar to help pay his bus fare.  He got out his two quarters and then later came up to us with his fists closed, held them out, and said "I'm ready to go!"  Molly said he must have his quarters in his hands, and he laughed and opened them to show that they were only pennies - he'd fooled us!  He thought this was great fun, and he often finds ways to try to fool us, saying he wish it were April Fool's day today.

He talks a lot about what he's going to be when he grows up.  Often this is focused on what kind of costume he'll get to wear.  It was fire fighter for a long time, and then superhero, but he's worried that adult clothing stores don't seem to carry superhero costumes (he's a little worried it may not be a real job).  Then he decided he wanted to be a police officer, and more recently he's thinking about being a pilot.  At one point he thought about being an astronaut, but he thought that might be a hard job, so he's sticking with pilot.  Or maybe an artist.  But probably a pilot.

4/3/08

Miles's obsession with lego (yes, it's reached obsession level) has only grown since our last update.  We've bought him a couple of kits recently, and he is surprisingly good at following the directions and building the correct thing.  He seems to really love this activity - he even turned down TV the other night in favor of working on his truck! 

Although we haven't mentioned it in a while, Miles's fascination with "why" has never waned.  We're not sure why we thought this would be a passing phase, because it hasn't been.  But we have some very interesting conversations with him as a result of his questions.  Today we talked about what "heck" is (cousin Alex taught him to say "what the heck?" and he wanted to understand what it is that he's saying).  We've had other conversations about car accidents (but accidents are ok, mommy, because it's ok for people to make mistakes), and lots of conversations about what laws there are, and the differences between laws, family rules, and being polite.  It's fun to see him so curious about the world around him, and to be able to help him make sense of it all.

3/23/08

For anyone who has been following the kindergarten saga, we were #9 in the lottery for all day kindergarten, so Miles will have a full day (rather than a half day) schedule starting in September.  This is good new for our work schedules, and probably for Miles too since he's already used to a full day at daycare.

Since there's been a general trend lately with Miles trying new things (gymnastics, piano), we thought we would give him a chance to try skiing as well. We went up to the mountains with Mike and Alexandra, and they taught Miles some of the basics.  He was nervous at first about going too fast, but he eventually started to get more comfortable, and he had a surprising amount of control and ability to slow himself down and stop.  He really loved it, and didn't want to leave until we could assure him we would go back sometime.

Miles's interests have not changed much lately - he likes to play outside, watch TV, play on the computer, and play games.  The biggest change is the addition of doing legos to his list of interests.  We're surprised by how often he chooses to go sit at the table and work on building things.  It's nice to see him find something he can do on his own that holds his attention so well.  We've also noticed that he's getting good at some of his games.  In particular, Matt and Molly have both started to need to pay a lot more attention when they play checkers with him, because if they don't (and sometimes even if they do) he wins.  He's very proud that he's figured out how to finally beat us at this game.  The other interest that's returned is reading.  For a while now he hasn't wanted to read any of the books that he can read on his own, but in the last week or so he has started picking them up again.  He especially likes reading "with" someone, which means we take turns reading alternate pages of a book. 

3/9/08

Our biggest excitement right now is that we registered Miles for kindergarten this past week.  Mostly this was nothing more than filling out a bunch of paperwork, but Miles got a chance to meet one of the kindergarten teachers as well as some other kids who may be in his class, so that was fun.  We should find out next week if he will be in all day or half day kindergarten.  In the process of going through kindergarten tours and registration, we've learned that there are 6 or 7 kids from our daycare who will most likely be attending the same kindergarten.  It's nice to know there will be some familiar faces around the halls (for us and for Miles).

We finished the most recent session of soccer, and in addition to the gymnastics class Miles is taking, we've enrolled him in piano lessons.  The first lesson was yesterday, and Miles seemed to really enjoy it.  There were about 8 kids in the class, and they all play on electric keyboards.  They did things like learn what middle C looks like on the keyboard, and in written form, learn where their thumb should go, what rests are, and what a quarter note looks like.  Miles participated in the singing and note counting questions, but what he liked the most was when she showed them how to play a rhythm with just a few notes in it on the keyboard, and then all of the kids played their notes along with a pre-recorded song.  At the end he asked if we could take that music class again, and later in the afternoon he wanted to get his CD and his piano book out and show Matt what he'd learned. 

Miles loved our recent trip to Sycamore.  Although he said he was homesick at the end of the trip, he also said that at the same time he really, really didn't want to go home.  He wished he could stay there forever, and he had so much fun playing with Katie and Alex we believe that he really would love to stay there forever.  We were surprised how well they all played together, and how much we could leave them on their own to find things to do.

One funny thing that came out of the trip was right at the end when we were waiting at the lost baggage counter (ugh) and we asked Miles to stop banging his feet repetitively on his chair, because our nerves were shot from the long day of travel and we just couldn't take it.  We reminded him that grown-ups don't like repetitive noises.  He told us it's not fair that grownups make all of the rules because they don't like repetitive noises and that means he never gets to make them and it's just not fair.  After laughing a bit at this 4-year-old frustration with not being in charge, we told him that maybe we could agree on having 5 minutes each day when it was ok to make as many repetitive noises as you like.  So far he hasn't remembered this promise, but we'll stand by it when he does (and maybe don some ear protection too)!

2/27/08

Miles is so busy these days it's hard to know where to start.  He is taking a gymnastics class that he loves - in particular, he likes doing handstands against the wall, and wants to learn to walk on his hands, so he practices this trick a lot.  He still loves to play games with us.  Right now he's especially enjoying a new Uno game that Nana sent with the characters from the movie "Cars" on the deck.  This is a huge improvement over hours of Candy Land, so we're thrilled.  Mostly, though, he wants to play with his legos.  He likes to build helicopters, rescue vehicles, and anything that needs a drawbridge.  When he's not doing these things he's either asking to watch TV, or using the computer.

We've been impressed lately with Miles's ability to deal with and help with Micah.  In the past couple of weeks we've seen them really play together for the first time, and it's heavenly.  We got the kids a new big rubber ball that Micah can handle quite well, and when they started fighting over it, Miles quickly discovered that he could get Micah to actually share it by offering to play catch.  They've done this together without any parental intervention for 15-20 minutes straight, with lots of giggling in the middle - music to our ears!  Miles is really starting to internalize acceptable ways to get Micah to do what he wants.  He's remembering not to grab things out of Micah's hand, but instead ask him if he can have a turn.  Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't, but even when it doesn't, Miles does ok with figuring out how to work things out with Micah.  Miles has also noticed our trick of figuring out what the next thing is that Micah will like and trying to entice him with it.  The other day we were headed to a restaurant for lunch, and Micah was getting distracted by every single thing we passed on the sidewalk.  Miles tried to grab his hand and pull him towards the restaurant, which caused Micah to stop in his tracks and start yelling "no!  no!".  So Miles bent down to Micah's level, and said "Micah, do you want to go eat?".  Eating is Micah's favorite activity in the world, so he said yes, grabbed Miles's hand, and off we went.  Unbelievable!

With all these grownup behaviors appearing, we find ourselves thinking more and more about the start of kindergarten in the fall.  We've had a chance to tour the local school and visit the kindergarten rooms during the school day.  In early March we will register Miles for kindergarten and shortly after that we'll find out if he will be in an all day or a half day class (we'll ask for all day, but we may not get it if there aren't enough slots - it's a lottery system).  He's excited about starting kindergarten, though he's still getting his head around the fact that some but not all of the kids from his current daycare class will be going to the same school.  We're not sure that he's really realized that he won't get to see Fiona every day once kindergarten starts.  They have continued to be very fast friends, and Miles is very clear that she is his favorite friend at school, and everyone else pales in comparison. 

2/11/08

Miles recently caught one of the stomach bugs that Micah picked up.  He had been complaining all day that his stomach hurt, but we couldn't figure out why, and when we asked if he wanted to skip the playdate we had scheduled for that afternoon, he assured us he felt up to it.  Unfortunately, within moments of arriving at the pladyate Miles threw up and we had to turn around and go home.  He was much (much) more upset that he had to miss the playdate than that he had thrown up.  He continued to be sick a few more times that day, but by the next day his worst symptom was fatigue, and after just one more day he went happily to soccer class and ran around crazily with all the other kids.  Most grownups wish they could bounce back so quickly!

Miles continues to be good at negotiating - we're told he does this with his friends at school, and we see it at home quite often.  Most recently he realized that in the mornings, if he gets dressed and lets Micah use the computer first, then Miles can have a much longer turn on the computer when it's Micah's turn to go get dressed.  So he graciously gives up the computer to Micah and runs downstairs to get dressed fast so that he will be supported by us when he kicks Micah off the computer, though he often asks to be reassured that if he goes to get dressed first, he'll get a much longer turn than Micah, right?

Miles also says funny things to us as he tries out phrases he's heard adults say.  The other day we were having a snack at Starbucks, and Matt said something about shenanigans happening.  Miles said "speaking of shebaginans, I love bananas!".  We asked him if he knew what shenanigans were - he didn't, so we explained.  It turns out it can be a tough thing to define for a 4-year-old.

We love to see the things that Miles is doing.  He's gotten much better at catching balls lately, and he really enjoys practicing this new skill.  He's also gotten very interested in legos recently.  The combination of his new lego table and being allowed to play with Matt's old legos from his childhood has been pretty exciting for Miles.  He especially likes building helicopters and rescue vehicles.  The other interesting thing we saw him do lately was create his own dot-to-dot.  He tried 3 or 4 times to put dots in the right places so that connecting them in order (he numbered the dots) would create a bus.  He got it right on the last try and was very excited by that.

1/23/08

Miles had more fun during Sylvan's visit than we even imagined he would.  He was so excited that they were having an extended sleepover, and he really liked having a playmate around all the time.  School days were very tough during her visit because he thought it was so unfair that he had to go to school when he could be home playing with Sylvan instead.  Miles and Sylvan both showed how much they had grown up in the past year as they did a great job sharing toys, taking turns picking things to do, and working out their differences on their own.  Of course we still had occasional issues, but overall they played incredibly well together.

We signed Miles up for soccer lessons again at his request, and he looks forward to Saturday mornings all week long.  It's great to see him get so much exercise, and also have a chance to see how well he does (or doesn't!) listen to his coach in that group setting.  In general he takes direction quite well, and he's very excited about all the drills and scrimmage matches they do.  He especially likes it when he gets a chance to play goalie. 

Our funniest story about Miles is a conversation we had about a free razor that arrived in the mail.  Matt asked Molly if it was ok to throw it away, and Miles looked very concerned.  He asked us to keep it for him for when he starts shaving, because when he gets old enough to shave he'll need to spend his money to buy a car, and he might not have enough left over for a razor too.  Matt told Miles that he would buy a razor for him when he was old enough, so we didn't need to save the freebie razor for the next 12 years!  Miles agreed that was probably ok.

1/3/08

We are having a ton of fun watching Miles learn new things about the world.  It seems like everything around him is interesting to him, and it's fun to hear his questions and his theories about how the world works.  He's continuing to improve with his reading, and he seems to really enjoy doing math problems.  He's also working on figuring out how to tell time.  Before Christmas, he started asking to play our board games (ones for grownups) instead of his.  We didn't have many that he could understand, so we got him a checkers set for Christmas.  He has asked us to play a surprising number of times in the past week - he really loves it (as long as we help him win occasionally).  Playing board games, doing puzzles, and using the computer are the things Miles most loves to do inside.  If we're outside (which he would be all the time if we'd let him) he loves baseball, soccer, and riding his bike and now his new scooter.  He will be starting soccer lessons again this week, and he's happily telling anyone who will listen.

We're also really enjoying Miles's new attitude.  He still has his rough days, but in general we are having fewer and fewer issues with him all the time.  He is even capable (with some gentle reminding) to use his nice voice and words to tell Micah to get away from his stuff. 

Most interesting is listening to his negotiation skills as he tries to get what he wants from us.  He learned to use "but it's a special day" over the holidays, and today he told us that he should get dessert after lunch today because it's a special day since he's starting soccer on Saturday.  He asked for an ice cream cone for dinner tonight which is also a "special day" kind of dessert, and when we pointed out he'd just had one last night, he said "you can just give me a bowl of ice cream today, then".  The most advanced logic we've heard recently is when he wanted to take both music and soccer at the same time (we generally try to stick to one activity at a time).  He argued that when he starts kindergarten he'll be in school 5 days a week and won't have free days to do all of these extra things, so we should take advantage of his 3-days-a-week schedule now while we can.  We're still considering this well-thought-out argument :).

12/20/07

Miles is continuing to work on his reading.  He generally prefers that we read to him, but then he surprises us at times when he chooses to do the reading.  As always, his loves the days he goes to the grocery store with Molly and Micah.  Recently he has been asking to be in charge of the list.  He likes to scan it to find things he can read on it.  One day Molly had a small magna doodle with her to entertain Micah, but when Micah stole the grocery list, she switched tactics and used the magna doodle to spell things out for Miles that he needed to go get.  Among other things, he read milk, red pepper, butter, macaroni and cheese, granola, peas, tater tots, yogurt, and vanilla.  He thought this game was a ton of fun.

Miles seems to really enjoy doing things grownups can do, and being responsible.  In preparation for Nana and Grandad's visit, he asked if he could do the vacuuming.  He spent a very long time vacuuming the cushions on the couch and one of our rugs, and he did it all on his own.  He also asks for more responsibilities all the time when we cook.  He makes cases for himself, explaining how much older and more careful he is than he used to be.  Usually this works out quite well for everyone (he always surprises us by being more capable than we think he is).  The other day, though, he was opening a can by himself (something he's been doing on his own for a few months now) and for the first time he cut himself on the sharp lid.  He was surprised by the blood, and worried he'd have to go to the hospital.  The cut wasn't very deep, though, and like kids seem to do, he healed very quickly.  He hasn't wanted to open another can since then, though!  He also really steps up when we ask him to help with Micah.  This is a very good tactic in a situation where we might not need help exactly, but we need him to behave well and not need taking care of too.  The other day Molly had to take a package to UPS, and wasn't sure how she was going to keep Micah safe walking from the car into the store while carrying the big box.  She put Miles in charge of holding Micah's hand on the sidewalk while she grabbed the package out of the car, and then asked Miles  to walk Micah into the store.  It worked wonders - not only was Micah a bit safer in Miles's firm clutch, but Miles was focused on getting into the store himself, and less likely to do something erratic like try to walk on the curb or do his jump and twists along the way :).

Miles is very interested in secrets right now.  It may be the upcoming holiday, or just the age he's in, but he's fascinated about things that not everyone can know.  The most interesting way this has come out is with his afternoon snack.  Every day that Molly picks him up from school he has a rolled up piece of paper that she isn't allowed to see.  On the paper he has drawn a picture of what he'd like to have as a snack when they get home.  Molly isn't allowed to unroll the paper until they get home.  For anyone who's intrigued, the snacks he draws are peas, oranges, apples, and ants on a log (celery spread with peanut and raisins on top). 

We are very happy to find that Miles is a lot more easygoing these days.  He's ok with Micah playing with his things (within reason), he doesn't throw a fit if he can't have the secret snack he drew, he even understands if we mistakenly start a 1 hour TV show on a night when he only has time for a half hour program, and he has to stop in the middle.   These may seem like minor accomplishments, but around here we feel like a monster that used to live with us has moved out (or at least gone on a little vacation).  It's great to have him be so reasonable, especially when Micah is involved, since Micah can be so UNreasonable right now.  Miles is just plain fun to be with, even if he does continue to ask us to play games with him every time he sees us sitting down to do something on our own for just a second or two, arguing that we haven't played games with him in months if we hesitate.

12/2/07

Miles is starting to try to think about some more difficult concepts, and is asking interesting questions.  In the past, during our numerous conversations about death, he has asked a number of times where the first mommy came from.  More recently he asked how we make seeds.  When we told them they come from trees and plants, he wanted to know how the first seed came to be, if there weren't any trees or plants yet, way back before the dinosaurs.  You can imagine that was an interesting conversation.  He's also started trying to figure out what behaviors are mean.  He loves to point out differences between himself and others, and usually does so in a way that implies what he has, or what he can do, is better.  As an example, he points out that he got more blueberries than Micah, that he can eat faster than Micah, that his coat is warmer than Molly's, that Micah isn't really cooking he's just standing by the counter, etc.  We've begun trying to help him see when the things he's saying might hurt someone else's feelings.  The other day, on the way to a playdate with Ian and Nathan, he found out that he's 1 week older than Nathan.  He said he was going to tell Nathan that when we saw him, but then he said maybe he shouldn't because that would be mean, right Mommy?  It's good to see him thinking through these things, but very hard to explain the difference between stating a fact, and making a value judgment!

A few weeks ago Matt took Miles back to the allergist for a regular appointment (he goes every 6 months or so).  We were very pleased to learn that Miles's egg allergy seems to have lessened.  The prick tests they do is only somewhat accurate, so we can't guarantee this yet, but it's looking good so far.  We will have a blood test done in a few months to verify that his allergy is decreasing, and we may even be able to begin introducing him to baked goods that have egg in them and see how he does.  The allergist did say that his chances of an adverse reaction to egg have decreased now from 90+ % to 50%.  We're hopeful he will completely outgrow this allergy - if nothing else it will make eating out and sending him over to friends' houses much easier!

Miles continues to want to engage with us as much as possible (a favorite phrase is "What can we do together?").  It's hard to get him to play by himself except during quiet time (and even that can be a bit touch and go).  He especially likes to play games with us, and most recently he's been excited about working on our Rudolph puzzle.  It's a 550 piece puzzle so he definitely needs some help, but he's doing surprisingly well with it!

Not surprisingly, Miles is thrilled beyond belief that Christmas is coming.  We're going to be busy the next few weeks keeping up with him and his Christmas energy.

11/18/07

The most interesting thing about hanging out with Miles these days is you just never know what's going to come out of his mouth.  Here are a few of the more interesting things he's told us recently.

Whenever Miles makes a mistake (with reading, or telling us about how something works, etc.) and we correct him, he tells us he knew that, he was just tricking us.  We've had a lot of conversations with him recently about how it's ok to make mistakes, everybody does, and now as a result when we make a mistake he tells us it's ok.  He tells us less often now that he was just tricking us, but the phrase is definitely not gone!

Miles has (ahem) occasionally heard us say words we shouldn't in front of him.  We're impressed by his ability to pick up on these phrases in the midst of all the other things he hears and repeat them.  So far nothing too horrible has come out of his mouth, but it's really only a matter of time at this point.

Miles told us recently about a bad dream he'd had the night before.  We asked him if it scared him, and he said "No, it was just a dream, Austin didn't *really* bite my head off".  This didn't stop him from crawling in bed with Matt last night, though, after another scary dream.

We often have surprising conversations with Miles, usually at surprising times.  The other day he asked Molly out of the blue what happens to people's bodies when they die.  She explained that it depends, but sometimes the body is buried in the ground, and sometimes it's cremated.  He added that sometimes the body is wrapped up to become a mummy.  Yes, said Molly, that's another thing that can happen.  A conversation about cremation ensued, because Miles wanted to know why someone would want to be set on fire.  Molly started to explain that being buried requires a plot of land (with only a vague idea of where she was going with that train of thought), and she was thankfully interrupted by Miles who pointed out that that probably costs money, and dead people couldn't pay money because they were dead.  He started to ask how they could pay, but then decided on his own that maybe their families pay the money for them.  His 4-year-old brain happily moved on from there to less deep topics. 

Miles has become more interested in money lately.  He gets an allowance of sorts in the form of a coin that he can put in his coin jar each night before bed (usually a penny, but when a quarter is all we have on hand, that's what he gets).  He likes to inspect his coin collection and watch it grow.  Recently when we've talked about how much things costs he's told us that we can use some of the money out of his coin jar to help us pay for things.  He's insisted that we take some on a few occasions.  We're starting to think about ways to help him occasionally spend his money so that he can start to understand the value of the coins.  We figure the upcoming Christmas holidays may give us an opportunity - Grandparents, this is your fair warning that you may get some odd presents from Miles this year!

10/28/07

Our biggest news this update is that Miles has started reading.  He has a number of books now with simple words in them that he is able to read (given enough time).  He's getting very good at sounding out words, and we catch him trying to read signs and other things he sees, with moderate success.  It is incredibly fun to watch him figure this all out, and he's clearly very excited by it and proud of his successes.

Miles is also learning to whistle.  He walks around practicing quite a bit, and is able to make a sound more and more often.  No tunes yet, but we suppose that will come with time!

Although past experience tells us it's dangerous to say it here, since that always means he will prove us wrong immediately afterwards, Miles's behavior has been impressively good these last few weeks.  He's listening well, playing well with Micah (including successfully redirecting Micah sometimes when Micah gets into his stuff), and being very helpful around the house.  It's such a pleasure to see him be so positive and helpful, that we don't mind as much when he does act up.  His favorite thing to do is to yell or squeal to get Micah doing it too.  Of course we can get Miles to stop, but once Micah gets going it's very hard to get him to stop, which Miles finds an effective way to bug us.  He can contritely stop screaming, but at least someone gets to keep making all of that good, ear-piercing noise. 

We think Miles may finally be ready to give up his nap.  We tried to stop having them around his 4th birthday, but we still had "quiet time", and 9 times out of 10 Miles would fall asleep during his quiet time.  In the last few weeks he's been staying awake more often during quiet time, which is a good thing in our minds.  When he does nap he is often up until 10 or 10:30, unable to sleep, and calling to us over the monitor for company, help with something or other, or fears about intruders.  It's better for all of us if he doesn't nap and then doesn't have time to mess with us or get scared at night as he waits to fall asleep.

Miles has always been very intent upon learning to do new things, and being independent.  This hasn't changed as he gets older.  As soon as he does something himself once, he doesn't ever (ever) want help with it again.  He was able to snap some of his jeans himself recently, and this morning, after having a meltdown, he chose to change to a different pair of jeans rather than let one of us help him with a particularly tough snap.  He has a new jacket that he refused to wear until he mastered the zipper on his own.  His toothpaste tube is getting low, and it was a disaster when he realized we forgot to buy him a new one and he was actually going to have to get help from us to brush his teeth.  We've always encouraged his desire to be independent and succeed on his own, but sometimes we wonder what we've done!

10/07/07

It's the end of an era here at the Rhoville household.  For years we have been spelling words when we wanted to discuss things without Miles knowing what we were saying.  He recently started asking us what we're spelling, but even worse, twice now he has figured out what we spelled.  We've probably got a little time left (especially if we use long words and spell them really fast!) but our time is clearly limited now.  Sigh.  Along those same lines, Miles has shown a lot of interest in reading and spelling lately.  It's so much fun to watch him start to figure out words.

Miles is continuing to enjoy his new preschool room.  He has started getting homework (called Family Projects) each week that we do together.  He has really loved doing these projects.  They mostly involve finding things at home that he can bring in to share with his classmates.  For example, this week he is supposed to pick 3 of the 5 senses and bring something in that represents each of the 3 senses he chooses.  He likes figuring out what to bring, and also really likes sharing his project with his friends.

He is also very excited about Halloween coming soon.  They've already decorated at his school so he has a constant reminder, and he likes to tell us all about the ghosts and spiders and pumpkins adorning the walls at school.  As a result, we've begun our Halloween decorating at home already.  We have a number of Halloween-related art projects, and Miles has spent a lot of the weekend cutting, pasting, and taping pumpkins on the window.  As for his costume, he wants to be a superhero (this is also what he wants to be when he grows up).  After lots of questions, we've determined that all he requires is a cape and a mask.  We have a cape, and we plan to make a mask since he has a very specific mask in mind.  The funniest part is that he's insisting Micah be a superhero as well.  We have a cape for Micah too, and we will try to get him to wear a mask, though we don't anticipate it will go very well.

9/16/07

Miles had a wonderful time on our recent camping trip with the Bedwells.  He was so excited about this trip that he was telling everyone he saw (whether he knew them or not) that he was going camping with his friend Ashton.  We think the reality of the experience was every bit as good as his imagination led him to believe it would be.  He had fun picking and eating blackberries, playing dust-maker and rocket fight with Ashton, going to the beach and climbing on the rocks, and of course making a campfire and eating s'mores.  When asked what his favorite part was, though, he answered that it was having Ashton there with him.  The two of them were inseparable, and played incredibly well together the whole weekend.  It was great to see Miles having such a good time exploring this new environment.

Other than camping, Miles's new experience was a change in preschool rooms at daycare at the beginning of September.  He moved from the 3-year-old preschool room to the 4-year-old room.  He was excited about this move because he likes anything that lets him be more grown up.  The transition to the new room was very smooth - he knew the teachers and most of the kids already (many moved up with him to the new room), so the biggest change was the room itself, but it came with lots of new toys which is always fun. 

Our funniest daycare story actually happened at home this weekend.  Matt put on some background music while Miles and Molly were playing Candyland, and he happened to choose the soundtrack to the movie Grease.  Within a measure or two of the beginning of the first song on the CD.  Miles got this funny look on his face, and said "I know this!", and he jumped out of his chair saying, "I'll show you how it goes".  And he proceeded to do an elaborate dance that changed as the music changed, and appeared to be rehearsed.  The dance moves included leaps, turns, jiggling his bottom, rolling his eyes up to the top of his head in a somewhat disturbing way, and a "flip" that simply landed him on his back, though we expect he had something else in mind originally.  The song ended, and he sat back down at the table with Molly slightly out of breath, ready to play the game again.  But when the next song came on, his eyes lit up again, and he jumped up saying "I know how this one goes too!", and he proceeded to leap around again, with yet more dance moves we hadn't seen before.  This happened through 4 or 5 songs, before he finally settled down to the game of Candyland.  He says he learned this at school, but he doesn't know which classroom he learned the songs/dances in, or which teacher showed them to him.  We're going to ask around at school this week, because clearly some teacher there really likes this soundtrack, and played it often for the kids to dance to!  The funniest part was the slow section of "Summer Nights" at the end of the song.  Who knew that you were supposed to creep around and pretend to be an animal during that part of the song?

9/4/07

Miles's imagination continues to be a huge source of amusement.  He recently told Matt the following story.  Matt says he only captured about half of what Miles told him, and that Miles was very serious while explaining all of this. This was Miles's description of a "reptile entry bear":

"It’s tiny like a lizard; it’s really small [holds his finger and thumb about 1cm apart] but it’s a bear. It’s a reptile, but it’s a bear. People have them as pets because they’re nice. They help you get air if they see you. You have to watch out because it’s the same color as the rock. It’s just like a spider, except it can dig, because a spider can’t dig because it might twist its ankle. You can tell where it stings you because you’ll see the red spot on its head, that’s where it stings you. That’s how you can tell what kind it is. A lizard told me that; I’m telling the truth."

We also thought we should document that Miles has joined the Sudoku craze.  We found a Dora Sudoku book that uses pictures and stickers instead of numbers.  Miles has really enjoyed working his way through these puzzles, and he's getting quite good at figuring out how to solve them all by himself.

With the end of summer approaching, we've finished up soccer and swimming lessons and are taking a short breather before we take a Family Time music class that both Miles and Micah can attend.  Miles continues to really love soccer.  In his last class they had scrimmage matches between two teams, and as expected, the kids all followed the ball around the field.  All except Miles, that is.  There was one little boy on the other team who was very good at scoring goals, so Miles planted himself in front of the goal to stop that boy from helping their team win every time.  Maybe he's a future goalie.  Miles also really enjoyed his swimming lessons, especially the most recent two weeks in the "big pool".  At the beginning of the summer Miles wouldn't willingly put his face in the water.  This weekend we went for open swim at the pool after dinner one night, and Miles showed us that he can jump into the pool and swim over to the stairs all by himself, all in water that is over his head.  His crawl stroke needs a lot of work, and he has to hold his breath the whole time, but it was still pretty impressive to see him be so confident and capable in the water.   

8/26/07

As expected, we're seeing some of the transition pain from Micah's newfound mobility.  Miles is usually torn between being excited for Micah, and wanting to play with him, to being frustrated that Micah won't leave him and his things alone, and generally being more jealous of Micah.  Our least favorite behavior is when Miles announces he was just about to play with whatever toy Micah has decided he wants to use.  Luckily most of the difficult moments are balanced by very fun moments where we can see how much the boys enjoy playing together.  It's getting harder to get pictures of each of them alone since they both choose more often than not to be wherever the other one is (for better or worse!).

Miles continues to really like helping us with whatever we're doing.  One of the things he especially enjoys is going grocery shopping.  Our grocery store has "little carts" for kids to push, and Miles fills his to overflowing every time we shop.  He often picks out a lot of our fresh produce himself (he asks how to tell if something is ripe if he doesn't already know what to look for -- he's been known to sniff the end of a cantaloupe without being told -- and he's learning to check for visible spots on the fruit).  He knows enough of our brands now, and where things are on the shelves, that we can tell him "go get a loaf of bread and an onion" and he will do it without help and return for his next instruction.  He also really likes to put the 12-packs of soda and the gallons of milk into the big cart all by himself, and bursts with pride when other shoppers see him and comment on how strong he is.  When we're ready to check out, Miles puts all of the things from his cart on the counter all by himself, and returns his cart to its home while he waits for the checkers to finish ringing everything up.  He's so capable and helpful now that we actually finish the shopping *faster* if we bring him along.  It's great to see him be able to do so much on his own, and also know that he likes to help us out with some of our chores.

8/15/07

The most interesting thing to do with Miles right now is to talk to him and hear the amazing stories that he likes to tell.  Did you know that trash dumps grow from trees?  And that Miles can see all the way to Florida?  And that he doesn't go to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays because there are people on his computer who need him to help him on those days?  His imaginative world is fascinating if you take the time to hear what he has to tell you.  His curiosity has grown as well, and it's so much fun to try to answer his more and more complicated questions.  The story about trash dumps growing from trees came when Miles asked what would happen when the dump got filled up with trash and there wasn't room for any more.  He's apparently found his own creative solution to this problem.

Although we almost hate to type it here, since past experience says doing so will jinx it, Miles has made amazing progress in the past few months with controlling his temper.  When he gets angry he doesn't hurt us, but instead is able to use words, or walk away and come back later, to express his anger.  It's great to see him figuring this out, and it makes him much more pleasant to deal with.  Of course he has his good days and his bad days, but at least he's not raging at us in quite the same way on the bad days!  Now his angry words come out as threats - he threatens to not play with us anymore if we don't do what he wants, or threatens to never do <insert thing we're asking him to do> again.  He's very dramatic.

Tonight, Miles watched with glee as Micah took his first steps.  Miles was so excited, and he laughed and bounced up and down with the rest of us, until he suddenly stopped and said "Now Micah is going to get my toys".  Ah.  He has been listening to our warnings of what's to come.  We said yes, he will have to be ready to share his things with Micah more now, and he responded by telling us he would take them away from Micah because they were all his toys.  Sigh - we clearly still have our work cut out for us.

Our happiest story about Miles this update is his new bedtime habit.  The other night Molly had a migraine, and she went to bed at the same time Miles did.  He thought this was wonderful (big surprise) and came to visit within minutes of saying goodnight.  Molly was reading in bed, and Miles wanted to know what she was doing.  She explained she likes to read before bed to help her sleep.  Miles asked why he can't do that to help him sleep.  She told him he could, but he was quite sure it would only worked if he had a lamp next to his bed just like she does.  So Molly found a spare lamp and set it up on the shelf next to his bed.  Every night he now happily reads by himself in bed before going to sleep.  Since both of us are huge bedtime readers, we're thrilled that Miles is showing interest in this habit!  Of course, Matt tells stories about staying up all night reading by flashlight, so in a few years we may regret that we encouraged this habit.

7/26/07

Miles really enjoyed our trip to Lake Chelan and Nana's visit.  He loved all of the swimming and outdoor activities, but more than anything he enjoyed all the time he got to spend with Harrison and Isabella.  It wasn't unusual for us to ask him what he wanted to do, and suggest a bunch of different activities (miniature golf, swimming in the pool, going to the beach, riding his bike, etc.), only to have him respond that he didn't care what we did as long as we did it with Harrison and Isabella.

Along these same lines, Miles's play has changed a lot recently.  He is more and more interested in creating elaborate scenarios to re-enact, and he especially likes having others participate in his drama.  Usually he likes to be a firefighter who rescues people, but the theme varies a bit.  In Chelan, he and Harrison and Isabella had a lot of fun catching "bad guys".  They were good guys, and they would identify where the bad guys were, run over there, and then use potato mashers to flatten them, and a turkey baster to turn them into good guys.  Occasionally they also locked the bad guys up in jail and didn't let them out until they turned into good guys.

Recently Molly had a conference with Miles's teacher from school, and Molly found that the teacher has definitely figured out some of Miles's idiosyncrasies.  She said he behaves very well unless he's hungry or tired, but in general really likes to be helpful, and stays very focused and engaged on their activities.  Interestingly, she said he gravitates towards the quieter kids in the classroom (this surprised us a bit).  When he does get mixed up with some of the more boisterous kids, his instinct is to just walk away.  With his friends, she said he always turns to negotiation (rather than hitting or yelling) to work out his problems.  He's a master negotiator with us, so this didn't surprise us at all.  It was good to hear that he seems to be getting along so well with the other kids at school, and seems to be well-liked by his teachers.

7/3/07

Miles is 4 years old now, and is generally thrilled to be such a big boy.  He loved all the festivities around his birthday, especially all the cake he got to eat.  We took him for a check-up with the pediatrician, and he successfully stood on one foot for 3 seconds, drew a line, and answered their questions.  She said he looked great, though as always we need to continue to monitor his eczema.  He weighs 35 pounds now (25-50%), and is 38 3/4 inches tall (25%). 

In the past week or so we've had our first taste of how Miles will react when Micah is mobile.  Micah can scooch just enough to get into things if we set him too close to where Miles is playing.  Miles is definitely NOT sure he likes this.  On the plus side, his default reaction is to go get a new toy for Micah, which is excellent, and used to work great.  But Micah is a lot more stubborn now, and he is less willing to be distracted by a new toy if what Miles is playing with looks more interesting.  We know in a few months we're going to laugh at how naive we were about how hard all these interactions will be in a very short time.

Miles is in swimming and soccer right now.  He loves both and is thrilled we're letting him take two kinds of classes at the same time.  He has a friend from daycare in his swimming class which makes it even more fun.  He's doing well with his swimming, and is slowly remembering his successes with putting his head in the water from last summer.  We're also seeing him begin to coordinate some arm motions and kicking at the same time which is fun.  The soccer class he's in now is for slightly older kids and he seems to be enjoying the more focused atmosphere.  Miles also got a baseball bat, mitt, and ball for his birthday, and he's been enjoying playing baseball in the backyard, and at the park with his friends Ian and Nathan.  There is some hope that he will get an athletic education!

Miles continues to enjoy practicing reading and spelling.  When writing thank you notes for his birthday gifts, we only asked him to sign his name.  But for Nana's card, he wanted to write her name too since he knows how to spell it.  While he was writing "NANA", Molly needed to go change Micah's diaper, so Miles continued on his own.  He shouted from the other room "is the k sound in thank a c or a k?".  And a bit later, "is the s sound in nice a c or an s?".  After asking only those 2 questions, Molly saw on her return the following:

NANA
DANKYOO
FLP DA  (for the)
NIC

Molly helped him with the E on NICE, and then helped him figure out the AS part of "easel".   He thought it was funny that the "z" sound in easel is actually an "s", just like in Miles.  We were impressed with how much of this he figured out.  Now if only we could help him figure out that TH sound!  Oh, and we don't know how the O in "for" became an L, but it's easier to see how the P must be an R that he didn't write quite right.

6/12/07

Miles has really enjoyed all of our adventures and visitors the past few weeks.  It's hard to say what he's enjoyed the most since he seemed to love everything we did (and will in fact tell us he liked all the things the best).  Our best guess, though, is that fishing, sawing, and playing with Etienne and were the high points. 

We continue to be amazed at how much Miles loves to help us with our "projects" around the house.  Given the choice to play with any of his toys, or help us mop the floor (or take out recycling, or do laundry), he will choose the chore almost every time.  We think this is partly a native interest in how the world works, and partly because Miles seems to have a constant need to talk, and that requires him to be wherever we are so that he has someone to talk to.  The "why" questions have never gone away, though they're often more involved now. 

We've been surprised the last month or so by how much work it can take to manage Miles's social calendar.  His daycare class and our PEPS group were set up by age, and this is officially "birthday season".  We have a birthday party to go to almost every weekend, and sometimes more than one!  Combine this with his playdates, and any classes he's taking, and we're already getting a taste of how much time and energy it will take to keep his commitments organized.  He seems to thrive on all the activity, though.

5/9/07

Miles seems to be growing up by leaps and bounds lately.  We have int