My baby is FIVE! I can’t believe it has gone so fast! This post, and other posts like it, are mostly for my own benefit, so that I can look back on them and read about what Sylas was like when he was little.

Sylas is growing up so fast! He has outgrown almost all of his pants from last spring and I’ve had to buy him several new pair. I’m waiting for Christmas to give him the last of his new ones. Hopefully he can make it another couple weeks without a growth spurt. He is looking more and more like a boy and not a toddler. Gosh, its so crazy that he is a big boy now. He is in 3t tops and 3-4t bottoms depending on the waist and length. Pants vary so much from manufacturer to manufacturer.

Sylas’ favorite thing at the moment is Sonic the Hedgehog. He loves the old cartoons as well as Sonic Boom and the video games. He went through a phase in the spring and summer where he LOVED bugs. I am sure we have seen every single bug related video on YouTube. Since starting school he has somewhat deterred from that, but will still play with his plastic bugs often. He also loves Lego Ninjago shows, but I think that Ivan loves it more. He enjoys playing with kinetic sand, magnatiles, and any type of toy that is a caricature of his tv shows that he watches. He loves to play outside, especially when he is at Papa and Grandma’s. Power-wheels and his toy lawn mower are his favorite outside things. He also loves it when we can find a friend from school at the park. He also really likes to play pretend with me. I wish that I had all the hours in the day to spend with each of my kids doing the things that they wanted to do with me. Pretending would surely be at the top of the list.

Sylas is still a picky eater. Somehow this year he has went full on vegetarian. Though he doesn’t know what vegetarian means, he does not eat a single type of meat. I used to be able to get him to eat “ham” sandwiches – aka turkey that I called ham so that he would eat it. Now he won’t even eat that. His diet is literally grilled cheese, mac ‘n cheese, quesadillas, spaghetti-o’s, applesauce, yogurt with or without granola, bagels and spread, toast, pancakes, veggie chips, most fruits and anything sweet. I’m pretty sure I covered everything he eats right there. I mean, I have to NAG at him to get him to down half a peanut butter sandwich. He gags at the sight of meat. If I am cooking, say tacos for supper, and he sees the raw meat he straight up gags at it. I don’t know what else do do to try and get him to eat more of a variety. I’ve scoured the internet for ideas.

Sylas started preschool this fall. He goes four days a week from 8-11. He has made lots of new friends there and I think that he genuinely likes school a lot. He is learning so much at school too. I think they are on the letter L right now. He can write the alphabet to that point and he knows how to read and write his name. He can count well past twenty in English and up to about thirteen in Spanish consecutively, though he does know up to twenty but the numbers tend to get jumbled up. He has learned lots of songs and how to play nice with others. They do a new section each week where they learn about a new subject, such as outer space and animals or around the holidays they learned about the Thanksgiving and Nativity stories. He had a little Christmas program this month too which was really cute. He has grown so much this year. Sylas is absolutely full to the brim with questions, as every four-year-old should be. Some days they’re exhausting and other days, it makes it interesting. Its fun to hear the things that he is curious about. He has only asked me straight out “where do babies come from” once and it was around the time Amalia came home.

Sylas is such a tender-hearted boy. He is so sweet and caring. He loves his sister to death, often telling me how cute she is. They share a bond that will be so special to both of them one day. He loves his brother, Ivan, too in only a way that a brother could love. They fight often, but they play together a lot too. And if his baby brother ever gets hurt or upset or even scolded by mom and dad, Sylas is the first one to stick up for him or get him a band-aid.

You’re the boy that made me a momma for the very first time. I can’t believe that it has been five years. You’ve grown up before my very eyes. Now cut it out, will ya? I hope that you will always know how much I love you.