Interview with a five-year-old

To keep up the tradition, I did Landon's yearly birthday interview, and it's amazing that some of the responses were the same as last year! I love hearing his answers to some of the questions, he's a quirky kid.  I took his five-year-old pictures on the beach at our hotel in Phuket, Thailand. So the background is real, not a photo back drop!

Favorite colors: black, white and orange "Halloween colors"

Favorite Letter: "B" because it starts BMW

Favorite Animal: I don't have one

Favorite Dinosaur: T-rex

Favorite (home) school subject: Science

Favorite brand: Exercise clothes (He's become obsessed with Nike and Puma the past few months)

Favorite number: 6

Favorite sea creature: Humpback Whale

Favorite food: meat, pork chops (news to me!)

Favorite dessert: Chocolate cake

Favorite toy: cars

Favorite activity: stay home and play

Favorite sport to play: soccer

Favorite sport to watch: frisbee (Austin's co-workers and I played frisbee sometimes after they got home from work in Vietnam)

Favorite fruit: apple

Favorite movie: Cars

Favorite thing to do for fun: play catch

Favorite place we've been: Korea- "Koreans are so nice"

Favorite thing to do in Chicago: See friends

Favorite Book of Mormon hero: Alma

Favorite show: Octonauts

What can I say about my first born turning five. It seems like he's always been around, but also like he was born yesterday. He has taught me so much about parenting, life, patience, psychology, conflict resolution, and love. This kid was a pretty good baby, but always very "on the go" and energetic. Now that he has a younger brother, I see the difference in Landon's energy level vs. Owen's. Well, Landon still has seemingly boundless energy that requires an outlet, but he also has matured in his ability to focus and stay still for long periods of time to color, draw, build with Legos or magnets, look at books, etc. Only when he is truly bored does he do impulsive/destructive things, and those times are fewer and farther between. He is also doing better interacting with other kids. He is fully cognitively aware of how he is supposed to behave, and tries his best to engage and play with other kids if they speak English. He is at an age where he wants to pretend play everything, so it's really hard when the kids don't speak his language.

Landon loves to learn! His specific interests right now include space, sea creatures, and dinosaurs. He prefers Discovery Channel documentaries for adult audiences to learn about these things vs. kiddy cartoons, although he loves the BBC show Octonauts. He can read simple sentences and books, write all of his letters and numbers, and is learning addition and subtraction. He is not a fan of reading on his own yet, but I'm surprised by some of the words that he reads just from the English text around us. We recently started reading chapter books aloud, and I'm amazed at his interest in the story and his comprehension. So far, we've read some Roald Dahl books, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Boxcar Children, My Father's Dragon and Magic Treehouse. Right now, we're reading an adaptation for children of Homer's Odyssey, and he loves it! His brain is always going, and sometimes he will randomly blurt out an addition problem or tell me some rhyming words that he's been thinking about in his head. It's a challenge to keep his yearning for knowledge fed, but it's also inspiring and I'm learning so much more than I ever thought possible about sea creatures and dinosaurs!

Landon is really maturing in his ability to voice and properly handle his feelings. We're going through a big transition time right now- so that Landon can attend school in America- and though he has been asking us to stop traveling for awhile now, it all became real when we left our last ever road assignment. Instead of expressing pure excitement at coming back to Chicago and doing all the mundane daily life sort of things, Landon started saying things like, "I'm going to miss traveling!" and asking about our next steps of buying a house and cars. He said he's going to miss traveling because we can't explore new cities and places.  Since he can remember, we have lived in hotels and just picked up a car from National Car rental when we're back in the area. When we told him about house hunting, he asked when we were checking into our new house. He's facing these new
"challenges" with a courage and maturity I did not think  he had. 

Owen loves and adores Landon, and Landon is being a better big brother all the time. He will give Owen advice and keep him safe. During our vacation in Thailand, Landon found Owen's shoes and socks and put them on for him, while coaching him through it much like I used to do for Landon. It was the sweetest for my mommy heart to see Landon serving his brother and Owen just sitting there letting him do it!

Physically, Landon has sprouted up in the past year! He's very tall and solidly in size 6 clothes. Sometimes I just take a step back and look at what a big boy he is and wonder where the time has gone.  His hair has darkened to a dirty blonde and his eyes have lightened to brown instead of very dark brown/black. People in Asia think that he looks like me and Owen looks like Austin. I'm not sure I see it, but I'll take it. I love this boy of mine! I have high hopes for him the next few years as we transition into a home and stable life. He's so looking forward to going to school, doing sports and making friends.