Four!

On August 15th, Zane turned 4!  It was a school day, but we had time to open presents in the morning before school.  He had been asking for a piggy bank with two slots, but got one with four.  A Spirograph set, an awesome Tidmouth Sheds for his Thomas trains, and a personalized apron and chef hat from Grandma with fabric markers to make them even more awesome.  His really big present, though, was his very own pedal bike with matching helmet!

In the afternoon I picked Zane up early from school, and the three of us headed downtown to the waterfront arcade and Ivar's. The arcade was awesome as always! We played tons of games and earned enough tickets to turn in for a flashing spider necklace.  At Ivar's we went to the fancy sit-down portion of the restaurant, and a very nice waiter made sure to get food going right away for a hungry boy.  We had window seats right next to the fire boat station, so we had a lot to look at while we waited.  I let Zane eat some cake and ice cream *first* before dinner! Then he finished his salmon and got the rest of his cake. He hardly left any at all for me.

A few days later on Saturday it was time for his birthday party in an oceanfront park.  He wanted to wear his train engineer outfit (smock), so in the pinata-loot picture it looks like he's wearing a dress. This park (Carkeek) is wonderful because it has a huge grass field to run on, hills and trees to hide in, several bunches of playground equipment, paths and greenery tunnels through bushes, an enormous salmon with a slide inside, and a bridge from the park over some train tracks to the beach.  It's like kid paradise.  Zane and I had gone to Display & Costume a few days before to select Batman cups, plates, dishes and even a Batman pinata.  We had finger food from Costco and pizza delivered at lunch.  After a break for a toy filled pinata, we had plain and chocolate Rice Krispie bars for dessert.  Zane had specially requested those after they were the treat at our neighbor's recent birthday party in the very same park.  We all had a great time!

Last year when Zane turned 3, here is what I guessed was in the year ahead:

In this next year Zane will begin school and I imagine that will cause a lot of changes, along with just growing older!  I can't think of any really big changes like weaning and sleeping in a bed and toilet training from the last several years.  I think there's a good chance that he might be reading just a little bit when he turns four.  Hopefully he will also be better with numbers and counting.  He still zips around on his balance bike, but maybe he will learn to pedal a bike without training wheels, too!  I hope he can form some really good friendships and start to hang out with more kids (I have to make that easier for him).

School definitely brought a lot of changes as he learned independence and has been challenging us a lot in terms of discipline.  I had the librarian's dream of having a reading prodigy, but he really is not interested.  Once or twice he has shown a flash of insight into how reading or writing go, but he just doesn't have the spark to learn quite yet.  He's a wiz with numbers and counting!  And just under the wire he mastered riding a pedal bike by himself.

So, for this year, what do I guess?  Well, I'll have to hope again that he gets the reading bug and really wants to learn when I try to prompt him.  I hope he can improve on his bicycle so that he can ride up small hills by himself, too.  He's grown a lot and gotten much stronger, and I imagine he'll continue to get coordinated in soccer and ballet.  I will love it if he can make it to the end of the day without getting so dang cranky.  But mostly, I hope he continues to be the most wonderful and fun child he already is!