Ren turned NINE a few days ago!
-He is very artistic! He loves drawing, painting, coloring, creating. His current project is drawing (in detail) Minecraft weapons and then tacking them on the bulletin board he got from Grandma Nancy. He loves talking about colors...and is always trying to explain the EXACT shade of blue that is his favorite. I think we have decided that it's called Azure.
-His most favorite thing is hiking and climbing on boulders. He could take or leave a walk or a flat hike, but if it involves climbing or hills, he is all about it. He's gone on several mile long hikes and loved every second. He also loves playgrounds where he can climb, and he likes me to make "challenges" at playgrounds. Like: go across the monkey bars, up the spider web, through the merry-go-round, up the stairs, down the slide....as fast as you can!
-But he doesn't like sports. He has zero interest in playing any type of sport, competitive or otherwise. While other boys do some of that at recess, he'd prefer to play a pretend type of game. So he plays with girls a lot at recess.
-He says his best friends (besides his brother) are Leanna and Vance. He and Leanna have a very cute relationship and she recently got them corresponding Best Friends keychains.
-He is very very very very smart. He will learn new words at school or on a TV show, then incorporate them (correctly!) into every day conversation. Examples are exponential, hyperbole. He also pulls out the most random facts to tell me at the most random times. Recently he told me that Mercury is the only planet without an atmosphere.
-He does this funny thing where he alerts us when there is a "fact family" on the clock. Like, if the clock reads 6:33, he will say "FACT FAMILY" because 3+3=6...and don't forget that 6-3=3. Hence, fact family. He has recently added the tidbit that when there's a 5 and 2 next to each other on a normal digital clock, it looks like a mushroom cloud from a nuclear bomb.
-He still makes some of his letters and numbers backwards. It's never consistent and it's becoming less and less but it still happens at least once on nearly every assignment. We have just decided it's because he doesn't care about the details, that's not important. It's just getting the right answer. I'm sure he'll grow out of it!
-We had a little trouble at the beginning of the school year with him not obeying his teacher, or forgetting what she told him and doing it again. At conferences, we came up with a little system to help remind him of what he should be doing and also to give him a goal to work toward each day - red, yellow, and green - his teacher would write where he was at that day. We never got any reds, occasionally got a yellow, but he got to the point where every day was green and his teacher said he was doing so much better that we don't have to do it anymore. She said she has been very proud of the changes he made this year, the leader and friend he is becoming.
-He took speech this year. The teacher noticed some things about his speech that I didn't even, and after being evaluated we found it was an issue with S and Z sounds, and how far his tongue goes forward. He looks forward to speech every week but I think she has just about phased him out since he's made good progress.
-On school days, the normal routine is that Ren gets up around 7am and snuggles with me on the couch for a few minutes. Then I make him a bowl of oatmeal and some chocolate milk. He generally prefers that I pack a cold lunch for him than eating the school lunch but there are a few school lunches he will eat. Cold lunches consist of a meat-cheese-and-mayo sandwich, strawberry applesauce, SunChips, and a Capri Sun. We get to school around 7:50 and I pick them up at 3:20. We come home and he chills out on the couch to watch TV for awhile. If we don't have evening activities, he will do legos, drawing, or play with his pets. If we DO have evening activities, they are mostly his brother's sports, so Ren is drug around to a lot of Sutton's things all the time. He always packs a backpack with drawing things and Legos. An iPad if we allow it, which isn't often.
-He has discovered a love of reading this year. Mostly graphic novels, but he is slowly branching out to some chapter books too.
-His room is ALWAYS messy. When you ask him to clean it, he will be in there for like 20 minutes and then you go check on him and it looks like he hasn't done a thing.
-He can have trouble focusing...I think his mind is just constantly working and wondering. I have to get on him and on him and on him to do something and I don't think it's (usually) disobedience, more that he just forgets.
-His stories can be verrrrrrrrrrry long-winded. Like he gives all these tiny details and over-explains things. My personality (enneagram 3 = efficiency is life) has a hard time with this (he's enneagram 4 = boho and feelings and seeing the beauty in things) and I sometimes try to rush him to get his thoughts out. I do try to be aware though, and not rush him all the time.
-He does this thing where he asks you something about yourself when he wants to tell you something about himself. It took me awhile to catch on. He was always asking me things like "What are your top 3 favorite superheroes?" or "What is your second favorite color?" or "If you could buy any one thing in the world, what would it be?" And I would answer him and move on. But then I began to realize that he wanted to tell me his answers to those things. It's a very interesting way for a 9-year-old to go about conversations.
-Favorite things: Doc Greens. Mac n cheese. Mac n cheese with hot dogs and ketchup. Dog Man. Wings of Fire graphic novels. Sweats and hoodies. Footed pajamas. Cottage cheese. Yoohoo. Cute animals. Azure. His brother. Weekends. Show - the Owl House and Phineas + Ferb. Movie - Lightyear. Legos. Stuffed animals. Foxes. Gum (but not mint). Orange pop. Twix. Swimming. Trampolines.
-He doesn't love not sharing a room with Sutton, even though its been over a year since they got their separate rooms. He says he has trouble falling asleep often, we put a little couch under his loft bed and he chooses to sleep on that sometimes. He will come to our room still, every so often, saying he can't sleep or he had a bad dream or he can't stop thinking about sad things. He spends the night down in Sutton's room every weekend day for a "brother sleepover" so they just keep an extra mattress down there at all times.
-In general, Sutton is still his favorite thing ever. Their relationship is the best. Even though they annoy me because they just pick at each other.
-He is very kind. If he has a yummy treat, he will always ask if you want a bite. Or if he does something he thinks is fun, he will ask if you want to try it. He is always so good about sharing and being thoughtful in that way.
-He mostly showers now instead of doing baths, which is new this year. He still has to use the No Tears baby soap because he's not good at keeping it out of his eyes. Another new thing is that after his shower, he likes to get fully dressed in the bathroom (instead of coming out in his underwear like he always used to) with his hair perfectly brushed, plastered to his head. He spends a really long time doing these things, and talks to himself in the bathroom the whole time, we can always hear him and it always makes us laugh.
-He is definitely an introvert, and likes to be in his own head. I think his mind is just going going going, which explains a lot of his quirks. He needs alone time after being around too many people, this year for his birthday he just wanted to take one friend to do something. He doesn't like loudness and can be found hunched over with this hands over his ears. He's not nearly as outwardly expressive as his brother.
-He gets in moods where nothing is happy and everything is wrong. He will throw his body around and pout and not respond appropriately to anything. These are few and far between....we find it mostly happens if he's had a bunch of unchecked electronics time.
-Speaking of electronics, his choice is to be on his iPad but he also got a hand-me-down computer and hand-me-down phone this year. Phone isn't hooked up to a number yet, but he can play games on it when he's connected to Wifi and he got a Starry Nights phone case that he loves. He likes to play Minecraft, Roblox, My Little Universe, Freeform.
-We joke that he has "cute aggression". We got a kitten a few months ago and he was just constantly saying he wanted to squeeze her so hard because she's so cute. He loooooooves animals.
-He continues to be one of the most clever kids I know, as in, he has really great comedic timing. I love it.
-We have had a mohawk since the fall. He loves it. I think he loves having something different about himself:
-He kept coming up with great ideas for poses or spots for his photos this time. He really wanted one hanging from a tree:
-One of the things we love most about him is how much joy he has for simple things. He sees the beauty in things around him, which I think can be lost on kids a lot.
And the birthday video:
