John is 5!

John is five years old...how is that possible? Weren't we just living in Floyd Light Apartments (loved that apartment...such sweet memories) with little chubby John learning to crawl around? No? Maybe he's zooming up and down the sloped sidewalks on his Razor (muttering "Whoah, that's awesome. Yeah, that's amazing" to himself), growing taller every day, and sometimes giving me a glimpse of what he'll be like at fifteen. And when I'm blogging about his fifteenth birthday...that will be the day.

Here's a story that illustrates a paradox with John: last week, we went to the doctor's office for Billy and the office is next door to the hospital. It was raining that afternoon and we had to park at the far end of the parking lot. John was thrilled to see that an elderly gentleman was driving a little shuttle cart around, taking folks to the front door. John said, "Mom, can I ask him for a ride?" I said yes so he ran toward the man yelling, "Can we get on? Can we ride?" The man was good humored and we climbed on for a ride. John commented on everything: the rain, the ride, the hospital.... Finally, the man asked John, "Are you a chatterbox?" to which John said "no" (and probably thought "a whatbox?"). The elderly man grinned and said "could have fooled me!"

My boy was accused of being a chatterbox! His speech disorder is still present, it's still obvious to anyone who talks to him for more than three minutes...but he's beating it. That kid loves to talk! He and Hava chatter all day. And though our mother/son conversations are limited by his vocabulary, we are starting to be able to talk together about his thoughts and ideas.

John loves to be active, spend time with his dad, cuddle, hear stories, ride his Razor and new bicycle, play with his siblings, help me cook, and go to library story time. And yes, Jenny is still loved. What a sweet (big!) boy!