Six Years Old!

As of today my baby is six years old! Had he come closer to his October due date he would only be going into Kindergarten this year, but whenever I am signing him up for things (Sunday School, VBS, AWANA, etc.) I consider him to be entering first grade since he technically made the cut-off for Kindergarten last year. Oliver had a challenging start in life - blood transfusions via my belly button during the pregnancy and spending the first month of his life in two different NICUs due to being born nine weeks early. He's ridden in an ambulance twice, had a collapsed lung, concussion, fractured skull, and been hospitalized a few times for RSV and other respiratory type problems. The good news is that is only hospitalization in the past two years was for the sledding accident (skull fracture). Here's to hoping that he won't be hospitalized while he's six years old! He's very good about remembering to put sunscreen on his scar. We are doing everything we can to help that fade as much as possible.

Here are some descriptions of Oliver at the age of six:

1. His favorite color is green.
2. He loves riding big roller coasters that he's tall enough to ride (such as the Twister and Phoenix at Knoebels).
3. He's still using training wheels on his bicycle.
4. He has learned how to travel across monkey bars and how to swing himself on a swing within the past few months.
5. He likes to eat dry cereal with his fingers for breakfast.
6. His three most common choices for lunch are a ham and cheese hot pocket, a hot dog, or a peanut butter and marmalade sandwich.
7. His favorite fruit by far is watermelon. He often eats some at least three times a day in the summer.
8. In general he prefers vegetables to fruit. He LOVES to eat lettuce!
9. He likes to be carried up the stairs to bed each night.
10. He sits on my lap when I'm reading picture books to the kids, and he sometimes sits on my lap while watching television.
    
11. He talks to EVERYONE. It's great that he's friendly, but he says some really random things. He needs to learn what is appropriate conversation with strangers.
12. He can pronounce the "th" sound, but he often substitutes another sound in its place such as "someping" (something), 
13. He whines way too much. We are working on this!
14. He wants to be the one who prays out loud at every single meal.
15. He loves to listen and also dance to music.
16. He has taken tennis lessons, gymnastics, and swimming lessons. He has played on a basketball team, soccer team, and flag football team (albeit he wasn't a help to any of the teams). He was in the homeschool gym class for the last year on Fridays. His favorite part of gym class is glow in the dark dodgeball.
17. He is very generous with sharing food, toys, etc. And also loves to give hugs and high fives! 
18. He loves to open doors for me, and in the case of the car door my little gentleman even likes to
    
    close my door for me! I have no idea where he got that idea, but it's very sweet!
19. He eats just about everything. His table manners are deplorable, and sometimes he takes a very long time to eat his food, but he is willing to try just about anything. Yesterday he tried honeydew for the first time, and he liked it! Yahoo because prior to that I was the only person in the family who liked honeydew. He even ate a tomato last week on his BLT (he usually tries to avoid eating tomatoes on his salads and such). 
20. He plays with kids in the neighborhood more than his siblings. He's our social butterfly!
21. I usually don't have to limit his time on the iPad or how many chips or crackers that he eats. He will be "done" before the 20 minute timer has gone off and desires less than a serving of food (his siblings usually want more than a serving). 

Because tonight is National Night Out, we had his birthday party last night. We had invited Paul's brother, sister-in-law, and his parents. As we got started putting water in the water balloons, we also invited two kids from across the street. They ended up joining us even though it was a very last minute invitation. Grandma and Pop Pop brought hundreds of water balloons. He had promised Oliver 1,000 balloons, and he delivered on that promise. I'm not certain we filled 1,000 balloons (we still have many left over), but they did throw quite a few balloons at each other! Oliver has been talking about these water balloons for months. A lady at Camp Susque asked us on July 28 if Oliver had thrown those water balloons yet because he had told her about the water balloons on June 20, June 23, and July 21. I think the water balloon extravaganza lived up to his expectations! Pop Pop doesn't even like getting wet, but he arrived at our house wearing a bathing suit in preparation for the water balloons. The eleven of us had pizza, watermelon, honeydew, grapes, chips, and pretzels for dinner and a Yoda birthday cake compliments of Aunt Millie and Uncle Al for dessert. The kids played inside and outside. Oliver received many nice presents. We gave him a Yoda water bottle, Star Wars sleeping bag, storage bag for stuffed animals that becomes a bean bag, jump rope, and an Echo dot. Nadia was having a blast with Oliver's Echo dot. I got two of them on Prime Day. She will be getting one at Christmas. This morning we had donuts for breakfast, which is a birthday tradition in our house. Happy 6th birthday, Oliver! We love you very much!