Brief update: this was written a year ago, and I am just now getting around to adding pictures and posting it. To be fair, it was written when we were in the middle of packing up our rental, issues with the new house and the start of the school year, but MAN have I been derelict in keeping this blog up-to-date...
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| Brady, Aidan, Gavin on their actual birthday - 9/9/2015! |
I can honestly say I have NO IDEA how the boys are already seven years old . . . As they began first grade at Moharimet this year, their teachers have asked for them to bring in pictures of their family members, likes, etc to help their classmates learn about them, so I have done more than my fair share of looking through old pictures (which I still have yet to put into albums! AAAGH!) lately and, while biased, i can say that I think my kids are just the best. THE. BEST. And while I miss their infant, and 1 year old and 2 year old and 3 year old and 4 year old selves (and so on) I am so enjoying their 7 year old selves and all that life offers with these boys. So, without further adieu, my thoughts on who these sweet, sweet boys are today . . .
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| Aidan and his funny faces |
Aidan
Aidan, you seem to be the child who is the most physically humorous in our family. You love to ham things up for us, whether in costume, playing a trick on us, or singing and dancing along to your favorite music. Your sense of fairness and justice are still extremely strong, and I have seen you grow in how you respond when you feel you have been dealt a bad deal from your brothers (or other people on the soccer field - like the kid this weekend who was so frustrated you kept getting the ball that he tackled you twice. You kept your composure, but I could tell you were mad instead of just crying to have an adult help out). You still love legos and getting dressed up and all of the things that go along with your wonderful imagination. You think about how others might feel and you are enjoying school and your new classmates. You are certainly becoming sassier with Daddy and I, but it certainly all seems to be a way of you seeing what the limits are, rather than actually pushing back against Dad or me. I love your sneaky smile, your attempts to get anyone out of a bad mood and your energy when you get into a flow for your play. You love learning about animals and nature and sharing your knowledge with us. You still love to find money (and are good at it!) and rocks and shells and feathers and we have more drawers filled with that kind of stuff than I ever thought possible. And your full body hugs are the best, I will be sad when you outgrow those.
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| Brady and his first year on the Oyster River teams (Grady and Bel in the back) |
Brady
Brady, you are such a reflective, thoughtful, energetic child. Your love of soccer is INTENSE and your sense of humor is extremely mature. You are often trying out new ways of being in our family as a means of showing how grown up you are, but sometimes you are also my little boy who just wants to snuggle with me, and I love it. You are still the narrator of our family, which sometimes gets you in hot water as your brothers also want to be the ones who choose to share or not share things with us. That will be a line you need to learn not to cross as you get older. You have interesting observations (like how today you observed that Gavin always seems to have the teachers who are really focused on learning how to read and do math, or in your words "who are better") that come from your clear love of thinking through ideas and concepts. You often try to talk with your brothers as though you too are a parent (hence our nickname for you "third parent") but I honestly think it comes from your desire to talk things out and work things through. You are still more shy when it comes to groups and being in front of others, but, at least through soccer, that seems to be changing a little bit too. You LOVE when dad is able to spend some time with you and show you new soccer tricks, and you are clearly IN LOVE with dogs and want a dog so badly. We are now calling you the Dog Whisperer, since our neighbor Gully and you seem to have such a special relationship. I'm so glad we have that neighbor for you, and I love that you can just say "I'm going to play with Gully" and I know that you are and will be pleasantly occupied for awhile. Hopefully one of these days dad and I can get around our desire to have a hair free existence and we will get a family dog. I know you would take such good care of them.
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| Gavin up in the Whites after a day on Cannon Mtn. with Grandma and Grandpa V. |
Gavin
Gavin, you are so driven by reading and math and writing, it is wonderful to see that coming from you all on your own. You have some extremely interesting ideas and are very passionate about them. Sometimes your big temper and my big temper or dad's big temper run into each other, and we know that is less fun for everyone involved, and we are trying to learn the best ways to parent you when we see those storms brewing. You are an extremely physical kid in that you LOVE full body contact games, but even though you are far stronger than either of your brothers, you rarely use your strength to dominate them. You have such an active imagination and it comes out so beautifully in the books you write and illustrate. I have also seen your sense of justice and treating others with respect come out when you feel others might be criticizing someone you love (like your wonderful KG teacher Mrs. Dubois - oh you two were SUCH a fantastic pairing!). You still love legos so much and i love hearing you tell me that you will build legos for a living one day. I really hope that you do. :) You really seem to have found your strength in school and see learning as a way to get smarter and better at things, rather than having an expectation you should know certain things already. You also seem to apply that to your brothers as they are learning things that you have already been doing on your own (in terms of reading and writing). Today at lunch your conversation was how you knew the most of anyone in our family, except for dad and I and how that was OK because your brothers would learn those things themselves when they were ready. I look forward to seeing the friends you make this year, as I think there will be many. Your very nature is to be having fun and looking for ways to have more fun, which I feel like I need to remember at times. You also have some really big feelings, that I think you are beginning to think you shouldn't show everyone. I am always here for you my sweet boy, as is daddy, and you can always show us those scary feelings. We won't leave you alone with them.
Some other fun pics from the year:
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| B and G goofing around in a river (October 2015) |
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| On the Cannon Mtn. tram with Grandma and Grandpa V! (BAG) |
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| Brother VS Brother - B and A |
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| G and A do some belated birthday legos! |
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| Halloween 2015 - Aidan (knight) Gavin (Darth Vader - year 2) and Brady (Iowa football player) |
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| Mount Major hike 2015 (ABG) |
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| Curt and I get in pics once in awhile too! and are then photobombed. |
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| On the way down the Boulder Loop Trail |
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| The Lego guy that Gavin created. Then wrote a letter to Lego about selling it to other people and he got a letter back! |
