Family Update #1

So much to cover, so little time.  But the kids are changing, the school year has wrapped up and I feel like I need a kid review to remember this time period.  So first I'll start with the I-man.

Issac means he will laugh and when he was just a few months old Travis and I worried we had misnamed the two boys based on temperament.  Because Issac was a colicky baby and he just didn't fit the ideals, standards and expectations that my other two kids had set as precedent before him.  Wyatt means little warrior and he was the easiest baby ever and we were starting to wonder if we had totally given each child the wrong legacy.  Because for all of Travis and my name picking that was what we made our decisions on most, what kind of legacy the meaning of the name could potentially have for the child.

After several months of constant crying, multiple diagnosis from the doctors and several procedures later they chalked it up to his temperament or colic.  Eeks I was scared.  My mom and dad gloated in his difficulty because I had been an especially prone to crying infant as well.  But after six months or so he flipped the switch.  And the child I had known to that point left and was to never be spotted again.  Instead lay a little boy with smiles for miles, almost dimples, the bluest blue eyes and blond hair making women everywhere coo over him and exclaim his absolute adorableness.  On the first day of nursery he walked away from me never looking back or worrying about where I was.  Likewise started the pattern of his life of never needing me.

Although he was a much easier child in some ways I worried most over him.  He didn't need me long before he could communicate and I wondered how he was away from me.  Because although he was now a very happy child, he was super spirited and filled with a mischievous streak that could make him seem like his often compared alter ego Dennis the Menace.  Sending him to Primary and Preschool I worried about how he was behaving, if he was being good or if he was using his new found freedom from me to reign in terror.

And for the most part I got good reports from his teachers and other adults.  Still at home he remained our amusement maker.  In Kindergarten at a parent teacher conference his teacher expressed her only concern "When he gets excited he talks louder and louder and louder."  To which I replied, "Have you met me?  I can't teach him something I haven't learned to do yet.  But we'll work on it."  And we did.  He started his first grade year this year.  I was a little nervous because his teacher was a neighbor and I just didn't want something to happen that would cause later awkwardness.  But alas my concerns were for naught.  He had a great year.  So great that at the end of the year he got the Principal's Award, which is for the student who best exemplifies the behaviors and attitudes of our school of being responsible, organized, kind, etc...

So what would I say about this kid now. He's amazing, he's kind, he controls his mischief and instead focuses all his energy, enthusiasm and drive into sports, extreme sports and playing.  He's fearless and brave, a leader, a good example, a great big brother and a good little brother.  A happy kid who loves to be happy and make others happy.  He's taken a huge growth spurt as well as maturity spurt this year and changed from a child to a boy.  I can't wait for him to grow into a man.  Each day of child raising is a surprise, one kind that I particularly love!