Today my boy turns 8. It’s been a journey to get to the point of saying that. I would do it all again in a heart beat because I’ve gotten to see my child create himself. He knows who he is and who he wants to be seen as in this world. I like that about him.
I like that he is capable of making decisions for himself about identity. He tried out being thought of as a sibling for a while and then he realized that wasn’t really what he needed from his relationship so he adapted. He has asked for Bubby to be his brother title name and that’s fine with me. (In my family history there isn’t a special name for anyone but the oldest sister. It’s ok that he wants his own thing too. I’ll support that.)
He’s really smart. He knows a lot of stuff. When he doesn’t understand something he will ask many questions until he really internalizes the topic. I respect that.
He is more aggressive with his big sister than anyone else on the planet and that really worries me sometimes. Let me clarify that I worry about his impetuosity as a child with limited self control and appropriately age developed brain. I do not worry about how he will turn out as an adult. He’s going to be awesome. But while his brain is forming… he reminds me so much of me. And I have so many things from my childhood I regret. I hope I can help him have a smaller list.
He is sweet. He is brave and willing to try almost anything once. He’s an incredibly gentle and caring big brother. He’s great with his baby sister.
I love getting to have private conversations with him. His mind is fascinating and intense. We talk about how to help one another with our big feelings. Things like “When I’m feeling sad I find that deep breathing helps.” “Oh, that isn’t as effective for me. I find that the most helpful thing is curling up under a blanket.” Like, not that he needs to help me but we share strategies. We encourage one another to exercise a lot because that helps both of us stay stable emotionally. If one or the other of us is being pissy sometimes the other will say, “Hey! You are sounding like a run might be helpful.” It’s really cool when that works out. It helps a lot.
We really love running together. I am dead serious that I trained for the marathon so I could keep up with my children. They wear me out. Yes, I can go farther than them. Yes, I am stronger than them. But not much and I have to constantly work on it. I have improved so much over the last ten years just because I don’t want my children to leave me behind while I am incapable of keeping up.
I don’t want to be left behind.
He’s a little ahead on math. He’s just about exactly at grade level for reading at this point. He’s really proud of all the Spanish he has learned. He’s much better than me at chess. I think he’s a much better artist than I was at his age, but he is very intimidated by me, Noah, and EC having more practice than him and he thinks he sucks. I think he’s pretty good.
He has a startlingly large fan club. Folks get along with him. He’s most prickly with his family. We are safe.
He doesn’t have one clear favorite book or movie. But holy tomato his favorite food is bacon.