My boy at 8
On the eve of his big day, it's time for another birthday post... my young sparrow is 8, where's the time gone?
He's all broad shoulders, knobbly knees and shiny big grown-up's front teeth. I watch him grow like a weed as he runs everywhere with his boundless energy (this boy doesn't walk!), freedom-loving and structure-rejecting. His heart is big and so open and vulnerable it's making me feel like mama bear with the need to protect him.
He feels everything so deeply. Joy - "This is the best day of my life!" happens on the regular, also the most infectious high-pitched laugh... but there's equally strong anger, which he's yet to learn how to keep in check, and which sadly often results in him lashing out at those around him. He will tell me he hates me and wants to run away - and an hour later, without any manipulative agenda, he'll tell me I'm the best mum ever and he loves me with all his heart. He just says what he feels at the time. My response is always, I love you too.
He is incredibly creative and has many interests...
- Any cardboard coming into the house is immediately claimed for a project, and there's always some Lego on the go. Minecraft is his current passion so when some styrofoam packaging arrived yesterday it was quickly turned into a Creeper mask and a sword.
- He's hugely into growing things - has bought two orchids with his own money, any seeds from food we've eaten get planted to see what happens, and he's got his own areas in the garden where he grows plants from passion flowers to liliums.
- Speaking of living things, it's not just flora but animals too - he loves all animals, particularly bugs. He's the dog whisperer at our house and the grandparents' cats love him too.
- His current favourite question to me is, "How would you feel if.... [insert random scenario]?" but he's also branched out into asking endless questions of Google (Home) who, unlike me, can't get away! A million Minecraft questions but also, What's the biggest bug in the world? How fast do aeroplanes go? If D asks me such questions, I've resorted to saying, that's a Google question not a Mama one!
- Current career ambition: inventor. Not that he's got a particular invention in mind.
D is very much his own person and does not enjoy being led, in anything. Led activities of any kind don't sit well with him - be that karate (we had to stop because he just didn't enjoy it), sitting down with maths, or even half term fun camps. He much prefers to be in charge of his own time and his own learning - and when he is, he'll sit with something in full concentration for hours on end!
N(9) and D make an incredible team together, at least most of the time: they will spend hours in independent play and exploration. At the moment he particularly enjoys her reading to him - he'll say he can't read (not true!) so she needs to help him, which she's more than willing to do.
At this time I'm still the love of his life, the one his eyes search for in a crowd. The other day we were watching Disney's Beauty and the Beast, and when the villagers sang about how beautiful Belle is he turned to me and said, You're much more beautiful than her! Oh, my heart. It's such a privilege, being loved so deeply and openly. Happy eighth birthday, my sweet boy.