My sweet sweet Jaidan is 5 YEARS OLD today. I just cannot… there are no words to describe how much I love this boy. And I can’t believe he is 5. 5 years ago I did one of the most amazing things in my life & gave birth to him! In a pool. In his playroom! A playroom that he has now played in for the past 5 years. The same room that he learned to crawl in, the same room that he spends hours analyzing his MANY hot wheels cars in. His chunky thighs in my arms are now replaced by his little boy figure in my lap. He still looks at me with the same big brown eyes and those squishy cheeks. He has a bit more attitude than he used to but it’s a sign that he is healthy and growing and we are so blessed.
He loves to learn. He loves doing school and experiments and reading. He loves counting and anything to do with numbers. He loves CARS like crazy. He inspects their wheels and the ‘powers’ on them. He pays attention to all these little details that I never would have thought about.
When he was first born we were entering new territory for sure but also another territory that we really knew nothing about. We tended to sway towards the ‘Attachment parenting side’ and the ‘crunchy side’. We really had no idea what all that meant, we just did what felt natural to us. Our natural seemed to be unnatural for others and that was fine, but it was hard finding our groove in this new parenting world. After a few months of trying to figure it out we realized we didn’t want to focus on what we were against but rather what we stood for. We decided we wanted to do what we felt was right, enjoy every step of the way and have no regrets.
Reflecting back on the last 5 years I can honestly say I have no major regrets. Not that we’ve done a perfect job because it’s far from that. But as far as parenting him how we thought we wanted to. With co-sleeping and breast-feeding and the foods we allow him to have and the people we allow him to be around. I’m 110% glad that we breastfed for 3 years. I’m 110% glad that we have co-slept. He’s snuggled up to me right now as I type this (cars in hand) and I cannot imagine our bedtime routine any other way. It doesn’t seem to be as big of a deal now but we got a LOT of comments about co-sleeping and how we should let him ‘cry it out’ and learn to self soothe and a bunch of mumbo jumbo. Once we didn’t focus on what we didn’t do it became a lot easier to focus on what we enjoy doing. (You thought I would say do do, huh??) We’ve lost friends along the way and gained new ones in the process. I guess that’s just part of life.
Jaidan is 39lbs and 40 3/8 inches tall! He’s in 4t clothes and size 11 shoes.
We are starting kindergarten next month! 🙂
Here’s a look back on his life as a 4 year old.
