Alex is just a few weeks away from being four-and-a-half years old. Yikes!

He continues to enjoy his school, where he is making huge leaps forward in his math skills and in writing. He has already composed his first short story (he drew a picture of a train and dictated a four-sentence description of what was about to happen to it to his teacher, who wrote the story down), complete with action, adventure, and daring-do. But rather, when I refer to his writing, I'm more talking about his ability to draw numbers and letters -- he can write his name legibly, and it gets clearer and clearer all the time. Various exercises in school involve writing numbers and adding them up, which he's doing with amazing clarity.

The biggest kick for me, as far as his schooling is concerned, is that *he* is now starting to read to *me*. Oh, sure -- not much. The first story he read to me was "Fat Cat". As I'm sure you can imagine, Fat Cat isn't so much a story as it is a series of sentences that build upon each other. Fat Cat is sad. Fat Cat is glad. Fat Cat sat. That kind of thing. But it's a pure joy to watch and listen to him puzzle out some parts and breeze past others and correct mistakes. Words can not convey the pride I feel as he shows me newly developed skills on almost a daily basis.

Alex continues to be quite a talker, and very articulate at that. It seems that his favorite hobby is explaining things (which, I fear, is almost certainly more an imitation of me than of his mother) -- gesturing emphatically with his hands and varying his vocal pitch in an exaggerated sing-songy way, complete with dramatic pauses and head-bobbing counterpoints.

He is increasingly self-sufficient, as when he assembles his breakfast by himself (ranging from peanut butter on crackers to cereal with milk, et al).

Like his younger brother, Alex is showing an increasing interest in the space shuttle. We were going to a Christmas party this past weekend and made sure they had a computer with internet connection available for him to watch the shuttle launch, which was scheduled to happen during the party; he had been *most* disappointed when the previously scheduled attempt had to be delayed due to inclement weather, and he didn't want to miss this one.

(That said, he was still quite social before and after the launch. Alex likes parties, even the kinds that are mostly meant for grown-ups.)

We try not to over-schedule our kids' time, which means we try to only have one or two "classes" a week outside of school. Right now, Alex is taking swimming, and he's enjoying it a great deal. He is already able to swim from one side of Redmond's municipal pool to the other. Paulette and I are inclined to eventually sign up both of the boys for gymnastics, but we don't want to over schedule them, either, and we don't want to take Alex away from swimming just now. We'll have to see how that all plays out. One thought is that we'll introduce gymnastics once school is done for the summer break.

In the meantime, we're not letting the cool, dark winter nights keep us cooped up in the house. Paulette brings the kids to the children's museum or the acquarium or the like on a regular basis, and we occasionally dine out as a family (where Alex can be quite well-behaved, especially if we keep the meal from going too long).

It's been almost four and a half years since Alex came into our lives, and he still continues to inspire and amaze me. Raising him and Nolan is proving to be a most excellent adventure.