Half a decade...

So Coulson turned 5 a little over a week ago.  It's so cliche to say that I can't believe he's that old already, but it's true.  As you can tell from all the goofy expressions in the photos, he's an amusing kid with typical 5-year-old silliness all over.

I don't have any superheroes flying around the house these days; currently I am protected by the watchful eye of a Jedi Knight.  Jedi Luke Skywalker to be precise.  Everyday.  I got him a black hooded sweatshirt and black pants so he could dress up as Luke (circa Episode VI: Return of the Jedi) during playtime, but that wasn't enough.  Every single morning he wants to dress like Luke.  When his black clothes were dirty, he would ask of every outfit we picked out, "Is this what Luke Skywalker wears?" 

Jedi Jump

At first I looked for orange and told him that it was like Luke's orange flightsuit, but he wasn't too impressed with his flight suit because there is no light saber involved.  Then I progressed to "earth tones" because it was like something Luke might wear on Tatooine (Episode IV).  And now it's anything comfortable, "because Luke has to wear something comfortable when he's Jedi fighting and this is comfortable, so yes, Luke would totally wear this."  After some persistence on my part, he's finally accepted that almost everything in his closet is something that Luke would wear.  Now he wants to know which color light saber goes with each outfit.  Apparently Luke has a blueish-white light saber in the earlier movies, and a green one later, when he wears the black outfit.  Our big birthday gift to him was a homemade Jedi cape to wear that we are quite proud of - crafted from a real pattern (Butterick B4319) and sewn on my own sewing machine.  I'm not a sewer, so it's a pretty big deal for me.

He had a dinosaur birthday party and everyone had a great time.  The kids made dinosaur masks and then we went on a dinosaur "imagination adventure" (kinda like the animal safari from last year's birthday party) where we went back in time and looked for inflatable dinosaurs and dinosaur eggs in our backyard.  The dinosaur eggs, one of the party favors that each child took home, contained a 3-D dinosaur puzzle which turned out to be a mental exercise that challenged the adults for hours, so now I have to apologize to all the parents for sending such a horrible brain teaser home.  Many of the moms have super-glued the puzzle together so that their children never, ever take them apart again.

Coulson is enjoying getting older and being able to take care of other little ones.  He's the oldest child in our small group from church and he likes his position of helper.  There are two other boys Charlie's age and one a little younger and Coulson especially likes the younger one.  He watches over him at the playground, keeping him away from the edges, directing him to the safer slides and holding his hand on the bouncy bridge.  It's very sweet to see him so caring to a younger child.

Because he's not with his own brother.  A while ago, someone asked me if the boys got along and I absent-mindedly answered "most of the time."  I reflected on that answer later as the boys were screaming at each other and realized I totally lied.  They didn't get along at all.  Charlie is old enough to know how to push Coulson's buttons and Coulson knows how to really get Charlie worked up, so they pretty much pick at each other all day long.  Many many many time outs and confiscated toys later, they continued to be at each others' throats.  But recently I got smart and told them they couldn't watch any TV until they played together nicely.  Miraculous transformation from both of them!  So now sometimes I do find them getting along.  Charlie has started to get into pretend playing, so he can play along with Coulson now.  Usually Coulson tells him what to do or who to be and Charlie goes along with it.  It's a lot of fun watching them become playmates.  And then they watch TV.

He's getting a little bit better about playing on his own, although he still strongly prefers to play with someone else.  Friends are always super important to him and he's learning to branch out and make new friends.  He notices the oddest details about things and asks an amazing amount of questions.  He's starting to get interested in reading and he's learning bits here and there, but he doesn't quite have the attention span to sit down for a short lesson.  He loves books and will drop anything if I want to read to him.  He also loves to hear stories and sometimes will tell some of his own stories.  Unfortunately for my readers, he tells his most interesting stories when I can't record them, like when I'm driving in the car, and when I sit down with him to type up a story, they are still amusing (to me, at least), but lack some of the spontaneity of his original tales.  But he is very creative with his words and I look forward to seeing that develop as he gets older. 

Yeah, I think five is going to be a good age.