James's 5th Birthday Interview and Pre-K Party 2016

James had a little birthday celebration at school on the actual day of his birthday. We got him some Snoopy and Woodstock cupcakes and his teacher made him a Snoopy hat. So nice! James says Woodstock is his favorite and insists that he's not a bird but a fish. Oh well.

James's PreK class the day he turned 5!

Snoopy cupcakes

Since James's fourth birthday he's matured in so many ways that sometimes I forget that he's really still a little kid. He can read and he can speak and reason the way that I see slightly older kids doing, so I forget that he's still a very sensitive "little" preschooler.

Close up! Dillon, Ellie, James and Lexi

James's Happy Birthday Cupcake-face

Interview, 4/27/16
What's your name? James.
What's my name? Mama.
What's my husband's name? I don't know.
   The guy who left for work this morning? Dada. You had to give me a hint.
How old are you? Five.
How old do you think I am? Seventy-six? (I am 37.)
How old is Dada? Fifty-five. (He is 36.)
How old is Miranda? Almost 3. (Nope, just turned 2 last week.)

What is your favorite animal? An elephant.
What is your favorite color? Green, yellow, and pink.

What is your favorite food? Apples!
    What's your favorite breakfast? Yogurt.
    What's your favorite lunch? Pickles.
    Do you have anything with the pickles? Yes. Cheese sandwich.
    What's your favorite dinner? Pasta. And chicken nuggets!

What is your favorite book? Hm... tick tock tick tock... I know! I Love You Stinky Face.
What is your favorite song? Rock-a-bye-baby.
What is your favorite toy? Play-Doh. (Currently playing with Play-Doh.)
Do you sleep with any toys at night? Um, Fudgie. (In a "duh, mom, type voice)
What is your favorite show? (Thinks about it.) She-zow.
Which is your favorite movie?  Like at the movie theater? Inside Out. I see it at the movie theater. Movie theaters have all different movies, and one time I saw Inside Out at the movie theater. You took me. Sometimes we see movies and the movie theater right? Wait, what are you typing?
Me: Everything you're saying!

Are you funny? Yes.
How do you know? Since you always say that.
Do I say you're funny or do I say I'm funny? I am sometimes.

Who is your best friend? Adrianna. (Girl at school.)
Do you like school? Yes.
What do you like about school? To play and I like show n' tell.
Who are your teachers? Miss Jackie and Miss Tasha. Oh yeah, Miss Jill. Well there's four, so there's one more. Wait, it's Miss Patti!

Do you love me? Yes! 
Do you love Dada? Yes! 
Do you love Miranda? Mm, a little bit. (I laugh.) What? She does bad things. I call her Bad News.

What does it mean that you love someone? That you like someone and that you like them a lot.

Do you want to get married one day? Yes.
What do you think the person that you marry should be like? Ellen. (8.5 year-old girl that lives on Cape Cod.) 
Do you think Ellen would make a good a wife? Yes.
Why? Because she's my BFF. Do you know what a BBF is mama?
Best Friends Forever, that's a good reason. Yeah!

What's your favorite thing about Grandma? That she's really nice.
What's your favorite thing about Nana? That she's also really nice to me.
What about Bob? The same thing?

What do you want to want to be when you grow up? A teacher.
How come? Because I want to teach people work. Dada's a teacher.
What kind of a teacher is he? A worker teacher and I want to be a teacher.
What does Dada teach? Work. Wait, what does Dada teach really?
He teaches people to write stories. So he's a writing teacher? You can erase work, and write writing teacher.

What do you like better the beach, the library, the Aquarium, or the playground? The library, because we can play in the children's room and there's lots of toys.

What do you like to do with Dada? Work.
What do you mean? I used the sucky thing when the mud got in the pipes. (James has been using a siphon to help Kevin fix the sprinklers.)
What do you like to do with Mama? Play. What do you like to play with me? Legos.
What do you like to play with Grandma? I like to play with her iPad.
What do you like to play with Nana? I like to show her Rope Rescue. (Game he plays on TV Roku.)
What do you like to play with Bob? Pretty much everything.
What do you like to play with Dada? You mean Work? 
No, you play with Dada sometimes. What do you like to play with him? She-zow. (They act out James's favorite superhero scenes.)

What else do you think I should ask? What Elmo is.
What is Elmo? A monster.

I thought of another question, what do you think the meaning of life is? Don't know.
I mean, what do you think life is for? It's a game?

James is 3.5 years old 2014

James 3rd Birthday interview

James's interview at 2.5 years old

James wasn't interview ready at 2 years old, but he was starting to use sentences.