He's so tiny. He's currently outweighed by his 4-year-old brother and is only about an inch taller than Brekken. Needless to say, that makes him the smallest in his 1st grade class by far. But it rarely seems to register with him. He's such a little dynamo - constantly running here, there and everywhere. Aaron and I joke that the reason he doesn't grow is because he's so full of energy that he burns off every calorie he eats before it has a chance to do him any good! Running, climbing, jumping off of things, breaking things, constantly fighting with his brother... he's all boy. Frankly, it drives me nuts sometimes. :)
He's also very emotional. Everything is a worst-case scenario for him. If he gets banned from the computer for an hour then he's NEVER GOING TO GET TO PLAY COMPUTER AGAIN! A time out leads to YOU HATE ME! YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO LET ME OUT OF THIS ROOM! Time to stop playing and get ready for church on Sunday? NO!! I HATE CHURCH! I'M NOT GOING! JUST LEAVE ME HERE BY MYSELF! And this in spite of the fact that once we're at church he has fun and frequently on the way home from church he tells us - I'm not going to throw a fit next week. I just forgot that I liked it. *sigh*
He loves dinosaurs. A few months ago he picked out a book about dinosaurs from his school book order. I looked at it - a 20 pg book about various types of dinosaurs - and then looked at the book next to it - a dinosaur encyclopedia of over 100 pages about every dinosaur currently known for only a couple of dollars more. I made the swap and got him the encyclopedia. It's best buy I've made for him! He adores that book. He looks at it every night. He and Aaron sat together for many nights until they had read every page. Now Preston sits with me and reads the pages to me. It makes me laugh a little that I sometimes have to help him with everyday words like first or later, but he has absolutely no problem reading paleontologist, Eoraptor, Dimetrodon, or Corythrosaurus. Nothing we've done to help him start reading has been anywhere close to as motivating as that impulse purchase of a dinosaur book.
He also loves to play on the computer. Given his choice, he would spend hours and hours on end just playing Lego and racing games and puzzles and alien wargames online. It's devastating to him when he is forced to move away from the computer and do something active. (Of course, once he has gotten over the fit, he moves like a whirlwind and wreaks so much havoc that you want to beg him to go back to the computer.)
His siblings are his closest friends. And his deadliest enemies. They laugh and play joyously together and then minutes later they're slugging it out in earnest. Screaming with laughter or screaming with rage. All in the course of a normal 10 minutes at our house.
In spite of the fact that he makes me crazy, I adore him. He's such a cute, precious child. We're lucky to have him in the family.
2 comments:
Oh. My. Goodness. I could copy and paste word for word what you wrote about Preston and use it for Jacob. They sound exactly the same and they have said almost exactly the same things. If I had a dollar for everytime Jacob told me I hated him. Oy vey. And yet at the same time he has completely wrapped himself around my heart. I asked the doctor onceabout Jacobs emotional outbursts and he told me highly intelligent children have a hard time dealing with their emotions. I suppose it's a compliment?
Maybe it's a 2nd child, boy, thing???
I will take it as a compliment. :) I'm always glad to hear I'm not the only one who has these issues!
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