Year Nine - Year End Review

 Happy happy Golden Birthday, my favorite Bear. 

Put on your golden britches and get ready for your Golden Top 10 Lists! 

Top 10 Things You Love:

1. Legos
2. Star Wars
3. Being read to
4. Your family
5. Going to church
6. The soundtracks from Hamilton and The Greatest Showman
7. Asking questions - you have a great curiosity
8. Helping people
9. Buying/receiving a new LEGO set
10. Tried-and-true foods like pizza, pasta, burgers,  

Top 10 Things You Don't Love:

1. Bugs
2. Sauces and/or saucy foods
3. Being on stage
4. Reading out loud (or reading in general, though I think you may be a kid who prefers to read nonfiction over fiction - but you like 
5. Doing anything that's being timed (it turns the 3rd grade rite of passage, doing 100 multiplication problems in 5 minutes, into a super stressful event)
6. Wanting a specific LEGO piece and not being able to find it amongst your 11 trillion pieces.
7. Not being amazing at a new activity
8. Jumpy and/or hyper dogs
9. Unkindness (It even hurts your feelings to hear someone speak rudely to someone else) 
10. Organizing your LEGOs. We've tried several different methods and all the pieces just either end up on your floor or thrown into giant bins.

Top 10 Things You're Good At:

1. Building original LEGO designs (The way you can build something you pictured in your mind completely baffles my I-can-build-something-but-only-if-I-have-step-by-step-directions brain)
2. Math
3. Giving encouraging words
4. Helping out
5. Protecting and defending the ladies in your life, namely me and Natalie. When Daddy teases me, you spring into action and put up your dukes, ready to defend my honor
6. Being dapper (You love your three-piece suit as much as you love your t-shirts and shorts. 
7. Praying out loud
8. Aggravating Natalie (if aggravating your big sister were a sport, you'd be captain of the varsity team) 
9. Following directions (particularly if they're given by a teacher at school or church ... we're still working on your selective direction-following that seems to plague you when you're at home ...)
10. Trying new foods (you're not good-good at this but you've definitely grown in this area ... you'll now eat my baked potatoes and chicken soup ... YAY) 

Top 10 Things You're Not Good At:

1. Keeping your floor free from LEGOs
2. Emptying the dishwasher without throwing your towel on your sister's head and/or turning a dish into a music instrument
3. Flying a 737
4. Folding and putting away your laundry without first throwing the laundry on your sister
5. Not singing in the shower
6. Keeping your glasses where they should be (they're often at the end of your nose like you're a disappointed librarian)
7. Kicking a 55-yd field goal
8. Wrestling alligators
9. Giving yourself grace when you make a mistake
10. Eating pizza slowly

My golden-birthday boy. You have been and continue to be an amazing delight. You’re intensely curious about so many topics - carpentry, space, watches, fishing, etc - I’m fascinated by the questions you ask and the way your mind works. (And I’m humbled because I can only answer about 3% of the questions you ask)

You're a natural protector and provider. We went to North Carolina just a few days ago and there was a fire pit outside the cabin. You got a wood-chopping lesson from a few of the dads (and even got a hatchet for your birthday from some dear friends) and loved every second of it. Over the next day, you chopped all the wood we needed for that night's fire. When you were done, you ran up to me and said (and I quote), "Momma, it made me feel so good to be able to provide wood for our fire."   

You’re wonderfully sensitive. You’re sensitive to tone of voice, to loud noises and chaos, and you’re sensitive to the Holy Spirit. You’re comforted by physical touch. If you and I are in the same room for any length of time, you often come over to me for a quick hug or two. It warms my heart that you're comforted and reassured by something so sweet. 

The majority of this year has been super weird. COVID-19 changed the end of your 2nd grade year to include Zoom classes for our Monday homeschool group. COVID also made our summer look different - no traveling or spontaneous road trips; no swim lessons; fewer visits to the playground and park; fewer play dates with friends.

COVID also meant that Daddy worked from home - which meant more time to spend with him in the morning before work. And more time to see him throughout the day when he’d come downstairs for lunch or a quick break. We’ve gone on more family hikes and walks, played more games, and worked on more projects together - all because of COVID. 

We watched our church on YouTube for about five or six months. To be honest, it was hard for the first few weeks. It would easily take us an hour to get through the 30-minute sermon because you and Natalie asked a lot of questions. But then Daddy and I realized the benefits of all these questions - you two were able to ask questions as soon as you heard something you didn't understand. If we were in person, you would have had to wait until after church was over to ask those questions, and by then, you may have forgotten what the questions were. Pausing the TV mid-sermon allowed us to have some really deep and wonderful conversations about the Lord. Questions about salvation, questions about fear and doubt, questions about His unending love. 

So while COVID has thrown an awful monkey-wrench into our perceived normalcy, we're trying to choose to see the benefits instead of focusing on what's bad. This isn't always easy and I definitely have times where my frustration gets the better of me. But that doesn't change the facts that we've seen Daddy more, had more family time, and had more faith-filled conversations.

We love you more than you can possibly know. You're our baby, our Charlie Bear, our sweet boy. We're so glad you're ours.

Hugs and smooches,

Mommy & Daddy