Four Years Old!

Ian Alexander turned four years old today! As I reflect on each of our children, it seems that the most challenging experience with Nadia thus far was waiting 5 1/2 years to see a heartbeat on an ultrasound screen, and the most challenging part with Oliver were the last 10 weeks of the pregnancy and the first 10 weeks of his life. The "trying to conceive" part was definitely the easiest with Ian, as it only involved one fresh IVF transfer, and his pregnancy was rather smooth, aside from gestational diabetes and my water breaking 6 weeks before his due date. Unlike his siblings, the most challenging aspects with Ian have been the medical issues after he was born. First there was the retained placenta that put my life in danger. Then he had four surgeries between the ages of 10-21 months of age. He was also diagnosed with eosinophilic esophagitis during that time span and had a very restricted diet for about 18 months. He had OT once a week for two years and also spent 4 weeks in an intensive feeding program. The good news is that we seem to be over the worst of those issues. The first three years of his life he had many, many doctor appointments, but it's been almost 11 months since his last doctor appointment! Praise the Lord!

1. He loves to run. This boy has TONS of energy. Nadia is usually willing to engage in rather physical play with him, but I imagine in time her opinion will change. Hopefully before that happens Oliver will be big enough to chase and tackle with Ian instead.

2. Ian can do 50-100 piece jigsaw puzzles all by himself! He also has begun to build more complicated structures with legos. He has to work hard to resist the urge to knock it down, as that is still a thrill for this boy!

3. He loves to wear costumes. Even when he's not wearing a costume, he and Nadia take on various roles in their dramatic play every day. I love to watch them play together!

4. He is usually the first one up in the morning, but thankfully he has been waking up closer to 7am these days! He usually sleeps for almost 11 hours at night and takes a nap that is usually about 45-60 minutes long. Every time he crawls in bed he selects one stuffed animal to sleep with. He rotates through a wide variety of them although I would say Tweety is probably his favorite at the moment. He sleeps with a sheet pulled completely over his head. Just recently we broke him of the habit of also pulling the comforter over his head. His clothes and sheets used to be SO sweaty. This is a definite improvement!

5. He is almost 100% independent with dressing, undressing, and going to the bathroom. If he goes #2 I check him before he pulls his clothes back on to make sure he did a good job wiping.

6. He's doing a great job learning his Bible verses for Cubbies. He also has been learning the books of the New Testament because he's overheard Nadia working on them.

7. He learned some new skills in gymnastics, but we are waiting until he's more mature before we sign him up for another class because he definitely wasn't getting our money's worth. He did a better job of following instructions in the t-ball class and swimming lessons.

8. He had been doing better with not crying when I took him to Sunday School, but switching back and forth between two churches the past few months has been hard on him. He cried at our church the last time I took him to Sunday School. We're done going to the other church, and I think he'll do better once we are more consistent. Nadia is in the children's choir in between SS and church, and Oliver is in the nursery. I've been reading books to Ian in the children's library at the church during that time span, but in January I'll be in choir rehearsal then. I'll need to find someone to watch Ian. He sits with Nadia and I in the sanctuary for the first part of the worship service, and then he goes to Children's Church during the offertory.

9. On Thursdays while Nadia is in gymnastics, I've been taking the boys to the library. Ian loves to use their computers. He hasn't figured out how to use a mouse; so I put the headphones on him and select the programs which read stories to him.

10. Over the past year he has made a lot of improvements with feeding himself. Dinner is still the toughest meal. He wants me to feed him or to at least get the food on his fork or spoon for him. This summer he learned how to feed himself a yogurt, and the last few weeks we've been working on him using a spoon to eat his cereal. Previously he had been eating dry cereal with his fingers, but now I've been putting some milk in his bowl of cereal and expecting him to use a spoon. Aside from desserts (he'll eat just about any cake, cookie, brownie, or candy), his favorite foods are pizza, chocolate chip pancakes, grilled cheese sandwiches, chicken nuggets, fish sticks, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, pretzels, yogurt, dry cereal, and crackers. He drinks cold skim milk at every meal. He also likes chocolate milk and will drink most kinds of juice. The main issue we have right now is getting him to finish each meal in one hour or less.

11. Although leans toward being shy (in contrast to his sister who has always been a social butterfly), he does not like to be alone in a room, unless he's sleeping.

12. He has enjoyed most of the chapter books I've read to the kids, especially James and the Giant Peach, the Ramona books, and the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books. He loves for us to read him picture books. Some of his favorites include Froggy books, Little Critter books, LarryBoy books, and Dave Ramsey's Junior books.

13. Ian is starting to read! He can read many of the stories in All About Reading's Level 1 reader (that Nadia couldn't read until she was 5 years old), and he can also read the first few BOB books! He knows how to sound words out, but he is tempted to just guess the words based on the illustrations.

14. The only letter he can write is "I." I'm hoping that he'll make a lot of improvements with his drawing and writing skills over the next year.

15. He still doesn't exercise enough patience or self-control to play a game that lasts longer than tic-tac-toe. Hopefully over the next year he'll learn how to play games with rules (like Candyland, Uno, Chutes and Ladders, Go Fish, etc.).

16. He still plays with his belly button as his soothing technique. That poor belly button becomes bright red at times!

17. He loves to listen to music, play on the iPad, and watch dvds.

It's so much easier to make this boy's day special now that he eats solid food. He didn't eat his dinner on Tuesday night and still wouldn't eat it at breakfast on Wednesday, but he finally ate his chicken at lunch on Wednesday. I was determined last night that he WOULD eat his pasta because I wanted him to have a special day today that included chocolate gem donuts for breakfast. It took 2 1/4 hours last night, and they were a couple of minutes late for AWANA, but we did it. There are days I wish he had a feeding tube because I get SO weary of the battles to get him to eat, but we had a reprieve today. The kids had donuts and milk for breakfast, and then Ian opened his presents. Last year Paul thought I hadn't gotten enough presents for Ian. He is sensitive to the problem of having one's birthday so close to Christmas. I think I got him more than enough this year! He received a new VeggieTales dvd, two Peter Pan plush toys, two 100 piece LarryBoy puzzles, new sheets for his bed, a lego set, Monsters Inc figurines, and some new blocks. The most beloved gift today was definitely the set of figurines, but he insisted that I change his sheets on his bed before his nap, and he was so excited to sleep with Peter Pan and John during his nap that he actually didn't take a nap today. And as seen by the first second picture in this post, he also played with the new cardboard blocks. I had my eye on those for awhile, and Amazon does a 50% off sale on Melissa and Doug items once a year, and those were on that sale this year (very recently). He also opened a gift my mom had mailed him, and he received a phone call from my parents.

He picked a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch (no surprise there!), and for his "dessert" I gave him 3 Hershey kisses. Since Paul was at home today (he interviewed by Skype from 2:00-3:30), the boys didn't have to go with me when I took her to gymnastics. Paul left a bit later and we met at Perkins for Ian's birthday dinner. Ian's meal was free plus they gave us 8 small cookies for the 5 of us to share. On the way to Perkins Paul stopped at the dollar store so that Ian could pick out his birthday balloons. Ian had chocolate chip pancakes, Nadia had rainbow sprinkle pancakes, and I had pumpkin pancakes. Paul had a turkey sandwich and fries. Oliver had a little bit from each of our plates. He liked the breakfast potatoes the best. When we got home, we watched part of the movie Despicable Me. The kids had never seen the movie  before, and Ian had requested I get it at the library. Ian kept wondering where his birthday cake was. I kept reminding him that he'll get his cake at his birthday party on Saturday. Today he had a few small chocolate donuts, 3 Hershey kisses, chocolate chip pancakes, and three small chocolate chip cookies. Nadia also shared part of her HUGE Twizzler with him. She got it last night at AWANA because she passed nine sections of her book last night! I don't think he lacked for any sweets today! I think he enjoyed his special day. We will continue his birthday celebrations on Saturday with Paul's family. Tomorrow he has his 4 year well doctor appointment, and I am also hoping to do his birthday interview video tomorrow. I am so very thankful that the Lord gave us this precious boy four years ago!