How's Patrick?

Patrick is great! (did you expect another response by now?) He continually astounds me with the things he picks up on, so I have to watch myself.  Sometimes I do a really terrible job of watching myself and then we have a little learning moment, like "how to 'read' people when they're really mad, and what to do about it" and "reasons adults are hypocrites sometimes and eat cookies when they just said you couldn't have one." I'm sure he teaches me more than I teach him.

On second thought, I AM teaching him how to play the piano, so he's not teaching me anything but patience there.

We sort of died on reading Harry Potter, there was too much teenage angst and not enough action.  Instead, we checked out "The Red Pyramid" by Rick Riordan, the same guy who wrote "The Lightning Thief" (which was all checked out, we tried to get that one first). It's the same idea as Percy Jackson, but with ancient Egyptian instead of ancient Greek mythology, so I bring the laptop to the couch with us and look up pictures of things it mentions, like pyramids and obelisks and tiger fish in the Nile (look 'em up! Very scary). Again, a learning experience for us both.

He's beginning to be a fantastic reader! By fantastic I mean he reads very beginner books by himself, one syllable at a time, but he doesn't get frustrated and quit.  Hey, that's all I ask!

We promised him rollerblades when he learned to read, so now he has a nice set of rollerblades! He's absolutely terrible at them. We should have promised him an ice cream sundae or something.

He rides his bike without training wheels now, and he IS very good at the bike. He always wants to ride out on the driveway, the side of our house that gets no sun and is cold, so on days when I'm an awesome nice mom I go out and sit and read with my coat on, or ride Joe's bike along with him. Most days, average frazzled mom days, I try to distract him with play-doh inside instead so I can get some housework done or nurse Ethan. SOME days I get lucky and the backyard is exciting, like being full of snow, and then he doesn't mind which yard he's in because it's all fun.

He continues to draw amazing pictures and has branched out from dinosaurs, though they're still his favorite subject. He drew the the spinosaurus he wants on his birthday cake. I'm undecided - do I give the bakery an awesome picture of a fierce spinosaurus to put on the cake, or do I hand over the less-than-terrifying picture he drew and ask them to copy that? (I've decided I'm too lazy to try making a spinosaurus cake myself and I'll pay good money for peace of mind.)  We'll see, I suppose, when he turns FIVE next month!