7.5 Years Old!

My baby turned 7 1/2 years old today! I doubt there are many (or any?) adults who celebrate their half birthdays. Adults don't go around saying "I'm xx and 1/2 years old," but children do take pride in adding that 1/2 to their age. Oliver was VERY excited when I told him several days ago that his half-birthday was almost here. Here are a few descriptions of my baby:

1. He still LOVES to hug and cuddle. What a blessing! He sits on my lap on the comfy reclining chair when he reads to me. I soak up every minute.

2. Memorization doesn't come easily for him, but we work on his Bible verses diligently, and he's certainly doing better than he did in previous years. In early December I gave serious consideration to having him take a break from AWANA, but we had a breakthrough and now I have hope that he might be able to finish the third Sparks book in April. It's hard for me to picture him being on a Bible quizzing team in four years, but who knows.....

3. He recently started learning to

type! It was 100% his initiative. Thinking back, I had required his siblings to type in second grade, but I have been much more laid back with Oliver. He's enjoying working through lessons on Typing.com.

4. He usually wakes up sometime between 7:00-7:30. I had to wake him up last Saturday because we had to leave the house at 7:30 for Nadia's basketball game. I really, really don't like to wake my kids up, and since they are homeschooled I try to do it as little as possible. He goes to bed at 8:30 without any objections. If he's tired, sometimes he asks to go to bed early. If he's in a vehicle and its dark outside, he is very prone to falling asleep in the van. For most of his life when he woke up (once the van was in the garage), he would be VERY grumpy when he woke up (meaning lots of crying). Thankfully this doesn't usually happen any longer.

5. Long trips in the van used to involve a LOT of crying. The length of what is considered "too long" for Oliver has lengthened over the years thankfully. The only time I recall a long meltdown in the car over the past six months was on our way back from Virginia in November.

6. Oliver finished the Level 4 All About Reading curriculum. He has been reading Mouse and Mole books as well as a Bible reader. I think we will wait until third grade to start him on chapter books. He enjoys reading and is making progress. That is what is most important to me.

7. Handwriting is a big challenge for him. He finished the second grade textbook, and now I'm having him write in a journal instead. I am planning on introducing cursive in the fall. Maybe that will go more easily for him? He loves to make a big circle when he dots his i's and his periods are also HUGE.

8. If you ask him to say the spelling for a word or use tiles on a spelling app, he does pretty well, but if you ask him to write the words down he generally jumbles up the order of the letters plus writes some letters backwards.

9. Lately Oliver has been having a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast. He drinks a glass of milk at all three meals (only child who did this at this age). He eats a wider variety of foods at lunch - bologna sandwich, egg salad sandwich, peanut butter and jelly sandwich, hot pocket, baked beans, yogurt, or a hot dog. He doesn't like ketchup. He wants mayonnaise on the bologna sandwich and nothing on a hot dog. The sandwiches must use Italian bread. He usually eats half of an apple at lunch, except in the summer when he has watermelon instead. Like Nadia, he loves to eat cheese. For dinner he enjoys a very wide variety of foods. It's easier to list the foods he won't eat as that list is much smaller: tomatoes, bananas, nuts, and strawberries.

10. He enjoys earning one 20 minute turn (on the Wii, Switch, or iPad) on school days, but unlike his siblings he doesn't want to earn a second turn or earn any turns on the weekend. On the other hand, watching tv is a high priority to him. Lately he and Ian have been watching an episode of Duck Tales and an episode of Clone Wars each day on Disney+.

11. His green blanket is still his most beloved possession. For awhile his orange fish was also a lovie, but he hasn't been showing a preference for any specific stuffed animal lately.

12. He still loves to play with other kids whether that means outside with kids in our neighborhood or inside the playland at our church.

13. All three kids are expected to clear their dishes from the table after every meal, make their beds, help clean up the toys, put away their clean laundry, and help me bring in and put away the groceries. His specific chores are to collect the garbage from the individual trash cans once a week and also help Ian with dusting once a week.

14. He's playing on a basketball team for the third year. He's definitely making progress but still definitely the weakest link on his team. Last Saturday he recovered the ball for the first time ever and had a look of utter shock on his face. The woman refereeing the game was laughing. I wish I had a picture or video of that. It was so, so funny! He's also taking ice skating lessons. Last year he had private lessons, and this is his first time in a group class. He's making progress.

15. He's still singing in the Soul Patrol choir at church. He uses our Echo dots a LOT to listen to music. He likes a wider variety of music than I do.

16. Math has been a huge struggle for Oliver. He has learned to look on the page before writing almost every number because otherwise he writes most of them backwards. The good news is that just in the past couple of weeks he's had a big breakthrough with his addition skills. I recently introduced regrouping and rounding to the nearest ten. I need to work with him on learning his addition and subtraction facts over the next six months.

17. He lost three teeth over the past six months. First, he finally lost ONE tooth the normal way, and then the dentist extracted two teeth from his top jaw because his permanent teeth had been in for quite a few months and the baby teeth were showing zero signs that they might come out on their own.

18. Normally Oliver has a very hard time coming up with ideas for a wish list for his birthday or Christmas. This year at Christmas was the first time he came up with several suggestions. Lately he been most interested in Paw Patrol toys. Thankfully he still isn't prone to the "gimme syndrome." If he asks for something it's usually either a food of some sort (such as spending $1 at a basketball game for a large pretzel) or an experience. Many times when we are reading picture books related to our social studies curriculum he will ask questions like, "Can we go there?" (when he saw pictures of Idaho) or "Is there a museum about him?" (after we read books about Jesse Owens). He gets excited at the thought of visiting the house of a former president.

19. He loves to look through our growing collection of photo books. Remembering people's names (even relatives!) is very difficult for him.

20. He shows almost no interest in our pets or the pets of other people, but he does enjoy seeing animals at a zoo or aquarium.