Jack @ 4 Years, 3 Months

Jack has learned a lot this month. He can write his name pretty well and is slowly working on mastering letters, numbers, coloring in the lines, etc. He has a chalk board that has been helpful to practice on, and sometimes he gets in David’s crib to write on his chalk board, so he can do it without being attacked!

We have a US state puzzle that I have avoided getting out because I knew Jack would want to open it and I didn’t want to deal with all the pieces, but recently we were talking about where different states were and I ended showing him the puzzle. He was dying to open it, so I told him we could open it when he learned all 50 states, thinking this would buy me months of time in which I didn’t have to worry about David choking on Idaho. Well, it took him about a week, but he can now name all 50 states so I had to open the puzzle after all! If only I could get that kind of persistence from him in putting his clothes on every day. (I neeeeeeeeed help!!)

We have had some success in using a sticker chart with him lately. He gets a sticker as a reward for doing something extra good and when the chart of 20 fills up then he gets something special he’s chosen when we start a new one. We’re on our second chart now, but for filling up the first one, he earned a giant gummy bear he had seen at World Market. That thing was so disgusting – but Jack enjoyed mutilating the giant orange gelatinous sugar bomb.

We went to the Texas State Fair several weeks ago and had a GREAT time. There was lots to see and do (and eat) and we only got rained on a little. There was a Midway area for the kids with rides that were way too expensive ($4 each!!??), so Jack only got to ride a couple. When he asked to ride one of those fast little roller coasters we were surprised, since he has always been really cautious and not a fan of things that feel out of control to him (he still won’t go on the swings at the playground). But he insisted he wanted to, and we want to encourage him to become more comfortable taking a risk here and there. Mark rode with him and explained to him before it got started that there was no way to get off once it got going, but turned out it didn’t bother Jack a bit. He enjoyed it.