Tuesday, August 21, 2012

First Grade!

(I just found this unpublished post that I started on Liam's first day of first grade. It's a rather wordy description of Liam as a six year old. You don't have to read it all. I just mostly wanted to document it. It basically says that Liam is awesome, and we sure love him.)


My sweet Liam.

Liam is such an intensely motivated kind of kid. When he is into something, he gets into it full throttle. When he was little it was Buzz Lightyear, Transformers, Wall-E, or Cars. He could tell you all the characters and their special features. He loved to wear all their licensed merchandise. Now I find he has graduated to super heros, Legos, and Star Wars and still loves them with the same intensity.

If there is something he wants done he will come up with as many ways to accomplish it as he can until he finds the perfect solution. He is quite the problem solver. My favorite story about Liam is the story of the Smurfs:

A while ago, a friend of ours was asking around to see if anyone had any excess McDonald's Happy Meal Smurf toys that she could use to put together a Christmas present for her little boy. I had a bag stashed away in a closet where they had been for MONTHS awaiting a trip to the thrift store because my kids just didn't play with them. I offered them to my friend and when she came to pick them up Liam watched in horror as I handed them over. For weeks afterward, Liam constantly reminded me of the Smurfs and how he wanted them back. He came up with all sorts of solutions: buying new ones and trading them to get ours back, finding the other little boy a different toy, asking nicely, and on and on.

Eventually, they were mentioned less and less until one day six months later while Liam was playing with these plastic melty beads and peg boards. He arranged and organized and finally showed me his creation: a round angry face. "This is how I felt when you gave away my Smurfs," he explained. I am glad that he could so creatively and accurately express his feelings, but I would like to say once and for all that he never played with the dang things and had I discretely tossed them out, he NEVER would have mentioned them again.

His problem solving in conjunction with his helpful nature occasionally works in my favor though. After half a day of trying to get soap out of an empty dispenser to wash his hands after using the restroom, Liam decided to take matters into...well...into his own hands. He pulled down the soap bottle from the top shelf and refilled the dispenser, and kept refilling and refilling. Soon the soap was all over the counter, but he got the squirter back on the dispenser, washed his hands, and and came to proudly show me what he had done. I was pretty proud of him too for taking the initiative.

I'm sure I praised him that day, and I try to praise him often. Will and I have noticed how he thrives on positive reinforcement. You can just see his eyes light up when he has done something well and we notice and thank him.

The thing I find myself praising him for the most these days is for being a great big brother. He dotes on his baby sister Penny and lives to make her laugh and smile. He may at times be reluctant to do things for me, but if it is something for his baby sister, he does it in no time flat, no questions asked. If Penny is upset, he is right there doing something silly to try and help her be happy.

He's a different kind of big brother to his little sister Teagan. I think he sees her as more of an equal...which has its ups and downs. He includes Teagan in his play and always wants to share his activities with her. My favorite sound in the whole world is the sound of their laughter as they play together.  However, Liam sometimes forgets that Teagan is three years younger and is not as skilled or mature as a six year old would be and this leads to frustration. I didn't realize how often I said these words until I heard Tigi telling Liam one day, "I'm only three!"

Although six year olds may be more mature than three year olds, they still have some growing to do themselves. Liam is a cautious kid and is timid about new situations. He does well when he has set rules to follow, but new social situations with ambiguous rules about how to act make him nervous. He does better when he knows how what to expect, but overall, he likes to maintain the status quo. Last year during kindergarten's spring break he mentioned how he was so excited to have things, "just like the old days," when he got to stay home all the time, and honestly, it was really nice for me too. I love having my boy home.
 
With all his passing phases one thing that has remained the same is Liam's inventive and creative nature. He has wanted to build robots for as long as I can remember.

I look forward to seeing how he grows and changes over the next year.

I love you my big first-grade boy.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Penelope Olivia Pettit


Penelope Olivia Pettit
12/12/2011
7 lbs. 3 oz.
20 in.

Our little Penny arrived in record time just before Christmas, and she is perfect, absolutely perfect.