Our baby boy is five-years-old and no longer a baby at all! Five has been an age I've been nervous about for a while. It symbolizes a new place for him as a kid, no longer a "toddler"; a new place for us as parents, praying and working hard to do everything we can with the time at home we have to help him become a happy and kind person, to make a positive influence and change in this world. There isn't much that's easy when it comes to parenting our Barrett. We struggle daily with his behavior and mood, and I end up in tears a lot. As difficult as it is I surprisingly wouldn't change him at all. He's challenging for sure, but loving him is the easiest thing I've ever done. Since the day he was born my love was instant and strong, much like his personality. I feel like I've known him for a thousand years, and we both completely get each other. His quirkiness fits right in with our little family and we truly feel lucky to have this detail obsessed, overly passionate, and over the top social little human as our son.
Barrett as a brand new five year old:
Barrett is usually up and awake before anyone else in the house. He comes straight into our room to wake us up and he is non-stop the entire day until bedtime. Since starting pre-k, we've actually had to wake him up a few times and he's usually pretty good about getting up. I lay out his outfit the night before and he will dress himself once we get him up. He will grab a hat or some kind of toy for the car ride and he always eats something on the way. He's only been upset one time when I dropped him off at school, but I think he was tired and he got over it quickly. He loves his new class and talks about every detail of the day when he gets home. I know every person he talks to or that talks to him, and he will tell me what each person says and what they look like. A few weeks after his first day of the Summer program I asked him what his good friend Olive looked like after he described a few of his other friends that were boys. He said to me with no hesitation "She has brown hair, light skin, brown eyes, a gray shirt (I already forgot what he told me was on it), pink pants, purple shoes, and a peppa pig watch."He was very precise with all of the details, so I asked if that was what she was wearing that day. He said "No, that's what she was wearing the first day of school, when I met her!" This was three weeks before and he had seen her multiple times since that day. This boy's memory continues to amaze me every single day!
His favorite foods are still pretty much the same. His favorite vegetable is still cucumbers. He still loves blueberries and avocados, but will request watermelon, cantaloupe, and pineapple if I ask him to pick something at the store. He would eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every single day if he could. His school is peanut-free, so we do almond butter and jelly sandwiches for his school lunches and he loves it. For snacking, he loves his Chobani yogurts, scoops of almond butter, Larabar granola bars, pickles, popcorn, and marshmallows. We don't drink cow milk at all anymore which has been a very gradual change I've wanted for a few years now. I never thought it was possible, but we don't miss it at all! Barrett even asks for a glass of chocolate cashew milk or almond milk now. Overall, he's still a great eater and I'm grateful that he has one thing that is easy throughout the day.
Dancing and music are still big for Barrett. We have dance parties quite often and watching him dance and sing are some of my favorite moments with him. When he catches me staring he will make this face like he's embarrassed, but I can tell he actually likes it. He's very good at acting and pretending. He has a whole list of imaginary friends and will argue until he's blue in the face that they aren't pretend, but in fact, real people. Jason is my least favorite of his "friends" because he is apparently the one to blame for any and every bad behavior Barrett has. Jason obviously gets brought up the most. His other imaginary friends are Illian (female), Roywrer (female), Snowcone (female), Chase (male), and Gap (male). Four-year-old Barrett talked about these friends all the time, but their existence is slowly fading. His new thing is actually turning himself into different people. "Awesome" is his alter ego and he shows up at least once a week. He will go into full character and even go as far as saying that he heard that Barrett had a marshmallow earlier in the day, so he would like to try one now as "Awesome". His voice is a little different and even his mannerisms. He slipped up too many times the first time he was Awesome by calling me Mommy, so he said that even though I wasn't his Mommy, that is just what he wants to call me while he is at our house. Usually when Awesome is present it's because Barrett is away at basketball practice.
This is just a tiny part of Barrett, so you can imagine the depth of entertainment around our house these days, and this is just on top of our sassy little 18 month old Zoey. I fully understand the meaning of "The days are long, but the years are short". We are trying so hard to soak up these years of our babies still being babies, because we are certainly not ready for the days of pretending and family dance parties to fade away.
To our Barrett, Binka, Bear, Bubby, and Bubba...we hope you dance!
