Every time I sit down to write one of these blogs, I realize how shockingly time flies, or how old I feel, or how it just feels crazy that my child is having another birthday. This might be the first time I have sat down and thought, actually, this age just makes sense. I think it is an indication of how much growth I have seen in Ezekiel this year.
Zeke keeps pushing himself. This year he wanted to try new things, he wanted to make hard goals for himself to accomplish, he wanted new experiences overall. He set a huge reading goal for himself, double than what I had recommended for him, and met it so quickly, it made my original suggestion look insulting. He wanted to join his sister doing the kids triathlon, despite not doing "proper" swim strokes and not really enjoying running for the sake of running. He runs all the time, but that's just his pace, but he never wants to go with his sister 'for a run', there's no fun in that. Yet, he trained hard and did great at the triathlon. While his sister begged us to homeschool her forever, Zeke was ready to go to school and have an entirely new experience, again, thriving at another huge life change.
I lost countless nights of sleep before he started public school. It was a total waste of energy, because his transition to school has been remarkably easy. We walk to school every day with two of his best friends, one of which he has in his class and it has made school a much more fun experience. His teacher is wonderful, and at our first ever parent teacher conference, informed us how Zeke is a role model for his classroom, and there doesn't seem to need to be any major adjustments. Mostly I've had to talk to him about sometimes just leaving situations alone and letting some people deal with their own issues, I'm not sure that lesson stuck. The only other difficulty with school has been having to wear shoes on a daily basis, but I believe he's mostly adjusted to that.
Zeke has been taking more initiative overall. There's been a couple school projects that not only did he not need my help with, he didn't WANT any help with. With his most recent one, he told me, "I have a vision!" and knocked it out, hot glue gun and all. He came home and told me he was joining choir and he loves it. He really is coming into his own. His sense of humor has had me rolling, he has a book of "creatures" he has drawn with entire stories in his mind attached to each of them, and he has his own diverse play list on Spotify where he is singing along word for word to songs I hardly know. For Christmas the main thing he asked for was cardboard boxes, to fulfill his dreams of a giant fort in the living room, and when he received said boxes he celebrated and made a giant fort for he and his sister to sleep in. It's been fun watching him grow in confidence and he expresses himself more and more as he grows.
This year has thrown several hurdles his way, and time and time again he has handled them so well. His kind and empathetic heart is appreciated by all of us, and he's a good one to have around not matter what life throws our way.
