Almost 5

Lukas is almost 5 now so I always try and remind him that almost 5-year olds don't act the way he does at times. He hates it. Here are a few things he does:

• He rarely wakes up happy. How sad is that? He tends to whine a whole lot. I keep thinking he'll grow out of it.
• He likes exercise. He'll put on his Batman tennis shoes and say, "Mom, can we run for exercise?" Or he'll move the ottoman to do his forward rolls.
• He does not eat. The kid won't eat anything of any color. It has to be bland, boring, blah. He'll eat plain chicken, pasta, bread, rice, or corn. Nothing else. UNLESS it has sugar in it. He loves sweet things. Sour patch kids, muddy buddies, ice cream, cake, cookies.
• He will ask me something in his whiney voice and then decide he'd better try it in a nice voice and HATES it when the answer is the same...NO.
  
• He dresses himself and it's past the point of me trying to correct it. He is mismatched, but independent. As long as everyone knows that it's HIM.
  
• He will squish any bug with is finger. ANY bug. Gross.
• Every day he asks to play at Tommy or Holden's house. And if I say no to them, he'll say, "Can I go to Carter's house then? What about Carson?" He doesn't give up.
• This kid doesn't sleep. He likes to sleep in, but he won't go to bed. He would stay up 'til midnight every night if I let him. And he NEVER naps.
  
• He is a pretty good helper. I can ask him to do something and 9 times out of 10 he'll do it and do a good job. Hmmm, I like this...
• He has learned to say things like, "I'll get dressed if you let me have a doughnut for breakfast." He likes to bargain with me. It never works though.
• He hates it when I make him practice swimming. He will wear floaties in the pool, but is too afraid to jump in and get his head under the water.
  
• I love that I can start the car and not worry about buckling him. He does it by himself.
• He is a computer junkie. He sits at the computer and plays PBSkids or Noggin or Nick Jr. He is really good at navigating and figuring things out. I found him once trying to google his own name. (Which he spells Lukpas. For some reason he adds in the p b/c it's like an a to him. I better correct that.)
• He talks in this throaty, yucky, growly voice. When I hear that voice something inside me wants to scream. It's my "nail on the chalkboard" voice.
• He likes all the potty words.
  
• He is a big tattletale. He tells on Max and tries to tell me what to do about it. "Max hit me. Put him in timeout."

Pat wrote some things down that he's observed about Lukas:

• Anytime he is trying to think of a big number he'll say "fifty five fifty hundred sixty eight twenty".
• He's good at saying the prayer and will always keep it short (bless the food, bless papa)
• He loves to play pictionary with Pat and is pretty good at it.
  
• He helps Pat adjust the sprinklers and knows how to do all the different stations. He'll lay on his belly and reach his hands in the sprinkler box and spring up as soon as they come on.
• When Pat doesn't let him do something, he'll say, "You're not my friend anymore. You're a mean dad." Then forget 5 minutes later.
• He'll say "You're my bestest friend. I like being around you."
• He is in the "What if" and question mode. "Where does grass come from? How does it grow? Who grows it?"