TJEd in All Kinds of Places: Awesomeness

Monday, April 30, 2012

Awesomeness

At the museum with Erik

You know how Angry Birds are everywhere now? Well, among six-year-olds they are a much talked-of topic. Even Nick mentions "Hungry Birds" every once in a while, translating it into his own understanding, of course. Xander has been able to play Angry Birds a few times on family members' iPads. He doesn't have that chance at home.

My son is awesome. Can I just say that? He has the biggest imagination and he is kind, caring, helpful, and sociable. He also, like many children his age, cares about justice. But what I think is awesome today is his announcement that he was playing Angry Birds...with napkins and our little math bugs. I like how he took this electronic craze and played his own version which happened to be extremely low-tech.

(This reminds me of my brother when he was little. He often had his two index fingers fight each other for his low-tech play. I mean, for minutes and minutes and minutes. I saw Nick doing this the other day and had a flash-back.)

At soccer practice (not his)

Not to leave out Nick's awesomeness: He is learning to use the potty very, very fast (this time around) and really isn't happy when I do chores unless he can do them, too. He doesn't pretend to do them. He actually sweeps with a hand broom and gets mad at me if I sweep his pile into my dustpan. No, he has to sweep it into his dustpan and dump it himself in the trash. He likes to set the table and empty the dishwasher. The other day, I was able to call, "Nick! Come here!" and get a, "I coming, Mommy!" I asked him to wash his hands in the bathroom, he said okay, and he ran off to use his step stool to wash his hands all by himself. The most impressive part, to me, was that he turned off the water when he was done.

Sure, there are more screams than thank yous, more pouts than pats on the back, but there are more than enough wonderful things to keep this mama going.