Eight

I have an 8 yr old now.

It's something that somehow I didn't really expect. Everyone says stuff like, time goes so fast with kids...but seriously....he's 8! How did this happen?! Mostly, though, it makes me feel like now I have to start the "real" parenting. It's both exciting and scary--but mostly exciting because he's a really, really nice boy.

One of the greatest things about Max is his extraordinary gift for being able to enjoy just about every situation he's in and everybody he meets. I see this as one of his biggest talents. Sure, he still draws like a 3 year old, but he makes friends as quickly as I can put down an open bag of snack-sized Twix. He has a true joie de vivre.

Recently his class was given a writing assignment where they would each write a letter to another classmate of their choice. Max came home with five letters--half the boys in the class. And what I know about Max is that a huge part of this gift of his personality is that he is completely unaffected by ego or competition. When it was time to plan his birthday party he quickly made a list of 19 kids. I had to force him to pare down the list to eight boys, and you would have thought I was forcing him to eat asparagus.

Speaking of dinner time, I admit, sometimes at the table it really starts to bug that his overflowing exuberance means he can barely keep his bottom on the seat without multiple reminders. Or, last Fall, it did drive me just a little crazy to watch him in soccer and see that he wasn't necessarily playing to excel at the sport or figure out every aspect of how to actually play the game well, but that he was playing to just...well...play. I complained to Adam about my frustration, he pointed out that if I love Max for being so easy-going in so many other aspects, that this is just part of the package.

What it means is that the boy has basically no anxiety.
And that's a birthday present that I hope he keeps getting for years to come.