Leon: “Did you know Mona Lisa doesn’t smile with her mouth because she actually doesn’t have any teeth? And she doesn’t want anyone to know she doesn’t have teeth so she just smiles like this.” *smirks*

Me: “You know bud, there’s a whole bunch of people who debate that exact thing, so you might be on to something.”

Leon: “Why do you draw with pencil and other materials?”

Me: “It just helps me make the picture.”

Leon: *looks at drawing*

Me: “Do you think you’ll be an artist when you grow up?”

Leon: “Well, I already am an artist!”

Touché 🥺🥰

Leon: “A strike is when you knock down all the pins. A spare is when you only knock down some of the pins.”

Me: “Yeah, it takes you two tries to knock down the pins.”

Leon: “Yeah. And I have bowling on the tablet and on the Nintendo Switch. So, I deal with bowling a lot.”

Me: “Oh man, I spilled water on my shirt! That’s pretty silly, huh.”

Leon: “It’s okay, Mommy. Sometimes I forget to eat a bar on the weekends, but it’s okay!”

This morning, Leon was looking through old memories on Tinybeans, and he came across a video of him singing in class in August 2020. He watched it and then looked at me and asked, “Why did I talk like that?” 🥺🥰

Leon is now half a decade old!

He had a Paw Patrol-themed party last weekend at an indoor playground near our house. He had been looking forward to it for months, and he was so excited I don’t think he stopped moving the entire duration of the party. I was pleasantly surprised by the turnout despite not getting RSVPs back from most of his classmates; I think we had about 13 kids total, and I ordered more than enough pizza for kids and parents to have an early lunch.

Minh is teaching Leon chess. So far Leon knows the names of the pieces and possible moves, but of course he doesn’t always notice a step or two ahead — but that doesn’t stop him from still asking to play! He also turns ordinary objects into chess pieces and explains the rules to me in earnest. Chess doesn’t work as well with playing cards, but that doesn’t stop him from trying…

And he’s kicking butt in speech therapy! Even though he doesn’t have all the sounds perfected, he’s so much more articulate than he was just a few months ago.

Along with addition and subtraction, he now understands the concept of multiplication and can even do basic multiplication equations. He tries to do division but we’re not quite there yet…

He loves being “‘sponsible,” and he is the most eager little helper. His chores include setting and clearing the dinner table, putting away the silverware, cleaning his room, and tidying his desk — but he also offers to help with cooking or laundry or whatever it may be. And I take him up on it!

He was a ring bearer in Minh’s family friend’s wedding a couple weeks ago. He took his job very seriously and was so proud of himself. I was proud of him too; we thought he’d get to sit with us after carrying up the rings, but they had him sit up front — and he sat through an entire Vietnamese Mass without fidgeting or talking.

AND… He just got his first dose of the COVID vaccine this afternoon — which feels monumental after waiting so long! He’s currently feeling very tired and is laying down in the living room watching Bluey (it’s very unusual for him to stay in a room by himself, especially after it gets dark).

Leon: “We watched a movie today and it was about a train and it was called… um…..”

Minh: “Was it called Polar Express?”

Leon: “No, I remember now. It was called Panda Express.”

Since my last post, we enrolled Leon in private kindergarten at his school, and he’s already outpacing many of his older classmates. Supposedly the owners had to buy him chapter books because the books they had in the classroom weren’t challenging enough for him. He knows addition up to 20 or so and subtraction from 10. I’m not sure what we’ll do in regards to kindergarten next year, because he’s already learned so much. He came home talking about binary the other day…

And as of August, he’s in the public school district’s speech program, and they bus him back and forth from kindergarten twice a week — for free. He can now say K’s and G’s with ease, and while he still struggles with R and H blends, multiple people have commented lately that it’s much easier to understand him.

Aside from articulation though, he’s doing well communicating and loves telling us stories (either real things that happened during his day or completely made up). He’s able to order his own food in restaurants — from picking out what he wants by reading the menu, to speaking his order loud enough for the waiter/waitress to hear, to saying “thank you” when his food arrives. He has great manners and is overall the sweetest little boy. 

And last week was Halloween! Because we drive by the crossing guards every morning, Leon wanted to dress up as one! He was adamant for weeks that that was what he wanted to be, and he never changed his mind. It wasn’t the most intricate outfit to put together, but I really can’t complain that my kid had the safest costume of the night!

On my phone checking out artists on Instagram when I get an email notification: order confirmation from Amazon. Huh? I look over at my computer, and there Leon is, beaming that he was able to order himself colored pencils from start to finish.

I appreciate the independence and artistic inclination, but contrary to how it may seem, Amazon is not just a magic
toy store 😬😩

Last week, Leon’s teacher said that he didn’t want anything to do with their first Splash Day of the summer… wouldn’t even get close to the water. In talking with him, I figured out it was because he didn’t realize he’d be able to change clothes afterwards, so he thought if he went in the water he’d be in wet clothes all day 😂

I prepped him a lot over the past week, and he had a bunch of follow-up questions about where his shoes would go, why he has two pairs of socks, etc. And here he is this morning living his best life on the slip ’n’ slide 🥰