He is still very much into super heroes and bad guys versus good guys. He now pretends his fingers are a gun and makes noises like "bew beww" for shooting.
Andrew's favorite shows are Super Hero Squad and Curious George. Though, he has started watching Clifford and Fireman Sam videos again. He has also started to watch more super hero cartoons, such as Batman the Animated series, Green Lantern and Transformer Rescue Bots.
Drew enjoys playing his Wii games especially Batman Brave and the Bold. He even acts it out some of the characters and says some of the lines. His ability to work the controller is still improving.
He loves to come into our room in the morning and asks "Can I watch channel 8?" Either that or he will ask to play the iPad. He still plays a lot of same apps such as Smurfs Village, Angry Birds, and his educational apps. He also now plays a Jake and the Neverland Pirates app and Where's My Water. Moreover, he has learned to turn on and off the wifi (needed for Smurfs because of a bug in the app) and initiate a video call with Papa.
His reading is definitely improving. He can read more of the BOB books and pretty much has the first four (red) books down pat. We like to alternate between him reading to us and then us reading to him. And when we are reading to him, we still try to get him to read some of the words in those books as well. If he hasn't memorized the word yet, he does a much better job of sounding it out. Some of his favorite books that he likes to read lately are any of the super hero books, Curious George, and Berenstein Bears.
We are also playing an educational game called Beginning Sounds Bingo. Andrew has moved up from playing one board at a time to three or four. He also likes to hand out the cards as well.
One of new favorite things to play is Junior Monopoly. We play it all the time. My mom got it at garage sale for $1 and it was the best dollar she has spent!! After he got it, I think we played every day for like two weeks! At first, he only wanted to be green, but now he switches between all the colors.
There are these Chance cards where you get a free ticket booth for a certain color space. If there isn't a monopoly on that color, you can knock any other ticket booth off. So if James got one and Andrew and I were both on that color, Andrew would immediately knock (and I mean literally knock) of my ticket booth so that he would stay. We originally agreed that we would knock out parents first before him. But now, he is okay with having his booth removed because we explained the strategy of how you want to take off the person who has the most booths.
We have also played our own version of "a long game" where we start with a little more money but also put an extra $2 in the middle that you get if you land on Free Time. We also put any of the "fines" in that pot too. If Andrew is on the side of the board where Free Time is, he will count how many spaces so he hits on it.
Andrew's lucky streak with board games continues with Monopoly. He beats me probably 70% of the time. But he does feel bad and a few times, has said "maybe you win this time". And there have been a few times too where he offers me some of the pot after he hits it to keep me in the game.
Our little fish still loves the water and going swimming. He is also getting better about putting his head underwater to retrieve his toys.
Speaking of swimming, Andrew has gotten Olympic fever like the rest of us. We watch the swimming, gymnastics, and track mainly. But we have also showed Andrew sports like sailing and kayaking. He asks us who are the Americans or look for the American flag and then will root for them.
And our little student has been having a good time at school so far. He is so proud to be in Pre K and upstairs with all the big kids.
Andrew wants to wear t-shirts all the time especially his super hero ones. But I still tell him that he has to wear nicer shirts like polo knits to church or on special occasions to which he is agreeable. He does like to match his Superman shirt with his Superman underwear and his Batman ones too.
Ms. Gretchen completed his latest speech evaluation. As I mentioned early, Andrew is above average in auditory comprehension and language (at an equivalent of kids who are 5 years and 9 months old). As for his speech, it has improved to 89% in speech and articulation. We are very happy with the results, but Ms. Gretchen does believe that Andrew has a mild case of apraxia so we will need to continue to work with Andrew, but Ms. Gretchen has no doubt that Andrew's speech will be just fine in the future.
He still talks quite a bit about turning five and what kind of party he wants. And he loves to talk about what presents he wants for Christmas and his birthday.
Drew is eating the same foods such as grilled cheese, pizza, Pei Wei, Chick Fil A chicken sandwiches. He has been really good about eating his fruits including blueberries, grapes, and apples. We introduced him to Thai fried rice and sesame beef and he loved it!
He is taking less and less naps, maybe about 50% of the time. But if he goes down between 2pm and 3pm, he is more likely to fall asleep. Andrew is much improved about laying down and going to sleep. He still yells and comes out, but sometimes, he doesn't do either. There have been some nights that he is out in less than fifteen minutes.
We laugh at some of the things that come out Andrew's mouth. Sometimes, his logic and thought process surprises us sometimes. One night he asked me if he could watch TV before bedtime and said "I give you five dollars!" When I asked him if he had $5, he then responded "how about $1?" Later in the conversation, I told him that maybe he hadn't gotten in trouble at the restaurant that maybe he could have earned TV time. He then said that he only got into "a little bit of trouble...this much" and held his thumb and pointer finger about an inch apart.
When we tell him he say an "x" amount of time to play or do something, he will now ask for "x+1". He has told me that "I'm tired because I had a long day" or that he's "relaxing" sometimes when he's just chilling on the couch or on the floor.
He says that he didn't want to take swim lessons because he was scare he will sink. Which I think stems from the YMCA class he took last summer. But I told him that taking lessons will help him learn not to sink. He is coming around to the idea so we'll see.
I had been talking to him about going to watch the movie Brave over this summer and he kept changing his mind. But finally, I asked him why he didn't want to go see it and he said "it is too girly". I tried to explain that it wasn't, but we didn't end up watching it at the theater. Maybe when it comes out on DVD.
There was this time that he told me that he is going to stay at home with the kids with me while Daddy goes to work. Then, there was another time that he said he is going to stay with our kids and his kids and his dogs.
Some other things he has said lately include "I love you so much!", "I hug you so tight", and "I am so sorry". He also called James "the best Daddy ever!" which makes me chump change I suppose. Our favorite is "Mom!?/Dad!? I loovvveee you!"
We hear a lot of "hmm ummm", but we try to remind him to say either "yes, ma'am/sir" or "yes, Mommy/Daddy". It's coming along, but we will work on it some more.
One time, we were in the car and I think Andrew dropped something. Then, I hear him say "damnit". So, I told him it's an adult word, but Mommy shouldn't be saying it either and that I would try not to say it and he should try not to too.
He sometimes tell us that he wants us to have two more kids. One time, he said he wanted three more kids. I told him we just need to see about having one to start out with. I have talked to him about adopting and I don't think I explained it well enough because he asked if we could adopt our friend, Shane. I told him that I didn't think Mrs. Andi, Mr. Brian, or Gavin would like that, but it was sweet of him to ask for Shane. There was one time we were driving through Med Center and Andrew said that he missed Matthew. I guess he associates that place with Matthew just like I do.
Here is another picture of 54 month old from his classroom visit today as well as some of his recent drawings.
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