Our soft-hearted, analytical and creative little boy



- While at the zoo last week I overheard my son attempt to get an older set of girls' attention by using this line, "Hey, girls! I know math. Four and four plus equals eight." (Yes, I cracked up inside thinking that I just overheard my son's first pick-up line at the ripe age of four and a half.)

Ian - June 2011

- Ian has recently learned about compliments and how much it makes people smile to receive a compliment and how good it feels to give genuine compliments to others. He will often pause and tell his Daddy how handsome he looks on his way to work or tell his Mama that she looks beautiful dressed for church. And the sweetest is when he tells Anna she looks pretty when she's dressed up in her play dress-up clothes. And he's being quite genuine. Just as it feels good to hear these compliments I have to also remember that it makes a little guy beam to get a compliment, too. So I will compliment his Lego-building skills, how smart he is when he does his "math", and how handsome he looks.

Enjoying his first snowcone
at the zoo this summer.
Of course it had to be a blue one!

- Ian now enjoys saying the meal-time prayers, especially dinner, for everyone - even out in public at a restaurant. He will often speak up and ask, "Can I say the prayer for everyone?"

- Recently Ian has started singing really long, elaborate songs that he comes up with all on his own. Because the content is usually something about how God loves us, I tend to see them as prayers he is coming up with and simply putting to music. He will whistle often and sometimes whistle entire songs he creates. He recently challenged his Papa Bob to a whistling contest via Skype and I'm not sure who won that one!

- Mark is usually the one to tuck Ian into bed at night after we all read books and say prayers together, and their ritual is to tell each other one "spooky" story. Ian lives for the stories Mark tells and will often attempt to retell them to me the next day but will say, "I can't tell it as good as Daddy does." Ian will ask Mark for a scary story but just as the seemingly-scary part starts, Mark turns it into something funny and I can hear a burst of giggles from down the hall.

- Ian is our little "engineer". He is definitely a thinker and very analytical at times. He will tinker with his Legos for long periods of time, he'll take things apart to see how they work and then put them back together, he'll use his toys in creative ways the makers never intended, and just has a healthy dose of creativity. He's very much like his Daddy! It's fun to just watch Ian sometimes. On a recent zoo trip I captured a shot of him being fascinated by how the hooks on the ropes in one of the exhibits worked.

The little engineer.

- Our little man has also taken to choosing his own clothes, right down to the socks and shoes, within the past six months or so. And boy do his outfits get interesting. Just today I had to convince him that wearing his fireman rain boots to a birthday party wasn't a good idea. He loves to wear his Spiderman baseball cap and his soccer cleats...out - to the store, the natural history museum, you name it. It gets pretty interesting to see what he chooses but sometimes he surprises us with something that truly matches. Other times, not so much. Here are some of his wardrobe creations. I always let him wear what he wants to wear whether it matches or not because it was his choice. I do sometimes over-ride his shoe choice in the interest of his own safety. But he knows our shoe rule is that if he (or his sister) chooses a pair of shoes, they must wear them the entire time we're away from home and I will not bring another pair. Thankfully, we haven't had any situations where he complained about his feet hurting. I am a firm believer in logical consequences...within reason, of course.

He often chooses plaid shorts and a Star Wars
or super hero shirt, but today he threw in
his soccer cleats and tall socks....to keep it stylish!

My creatively dressed young man at the zoo
with his zoo pass around his neck and
map-in-hand, ready to go!

I love watching Ian grow and learn. He's a fascinating little boy (as biased as I am). As the child's book titled Guess How Much I Love You reads, 'I love all that you are and all that you will be.'