Zeke turns 11

     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.

Genevieve the Teen

      This isn't even real.   I've just randomly blogged 12 previous blogs about my daughter and what, now all of a sudden she's a teenager?   Un. Real.  There's really no way to prepare for the fact that you have a baby, and watch them grow with wonder and awe as they become toddlers, stumbling all over the place, then they become kids who read and write and play and develop cool personalities....then all of a sudden they're like, ok I'm a teen now.   Having kids is insane, but incredibly amazing.   

          It's been an absolutely crazy year of change and growth for Vi.  As we wrapped up our last year of homeschooling, she really seemed to show appreciation for all the things that came with it; lots of outside time, extra reading time, a flexible schedule, getting to do school on the couch or outside, while she also expressed a wide variety of concerns for public middle school.   We talked about it....a LOT.   It's hard to prepare your kids for a whole new environment, we did our best and discussed all possible scenarios to help know what to expect, and we had a ton of friends who helped along the way! I watched as she would go from super anxious, to excited for the opportunities, and back to nervous, but slowly having more peace about it. 

 We used summer time to do as many things together as we possibly could, but also Vi used the time to train for yet another triathlon, and joined the swim team.  Her friend talked her into joining the competitive team and she loved the longer meets and hanging out with friends.   We also did zoo trips, biking treks, nature walks, board games, kayaking, trampoline parks, gardens, time with cousins, and overall enjoyed all our time together.

School started and you know, middle school is not really anyone's favorite memory.   Genevieve's first impression was that "middle school boys are the worst!", so guess we don't have to be concerned about her suddenly becoming boy crazy or anything.  However, school itself?  She actually loves it.  She loves that she has made friends, she loves all her teachers, she loves orchestra, the library, she loves that she got to join battle of the books and cross country, she loves that there is a crafts club and running club, and recently, she started a science club!   It has had it's ups and downs, social interactions that can be...complicated.   We have found that while she tested excellently, the organization skills are...lacking.   There are some days where all she wants to do when she gets home is sit in her room and decompress by reading a book, and other days she wants to talk nonstop telling us about every detail in every class.  Overall, she has knocked this whole going to school thing out of the park.   

    Vi loved cross country, and it was fun watching her times improve over the course of the season.  At the end of the season the coach sent out information for Cross Country regionals in South Dakota.  Immediately I was like "pass" and immediately Vi was like "absolutely" and signed herself up.  I talked to the coach, with all sorts of excuses why next year would likely be better, and he countered with all sorts of reasons why it would overall be really good for her.  She was the only girl who signed up, and possibly the only 7th grader.   Yet she showed up for all the practices, she ran on her own with the practice instruction sheet the coach set up for her, and we drove to South Dakota and this event was HUGE.   Thousands of runners from all over the midwest starting a race every couple of hours for different age groups and such.   It was a crazy event, and she met and beat her personal race goal, and was very proud of all the work she put in.

    Last year Vi picked up the cello because her friend told her the best teacher at middle school was the orchestra teacher.   She has never regretted that choice and has really grown in her skills as she went from homeschool class once a week to daily class.   The concert we went to was so much fun and a joy to watch and listen to!

    Vi has stayed true to herself.   Middle schoolers don't always value that trait when it's a little different from what everyone else is doing, and I'm really proud that despite the pressures, Vi is still confident in who she wants to be.   She is funny, quirky, thoughtful, talkative, messy, creative, intrigued by so so many different things, and cares about people around her.   It has been a pretty rough season for our family, and she has shown so much grace and compassion while experiencing and processing her own emotions, and I couldn't be more proud of her. 

 But really, what a great year it's been, I think these teen years are going to be....less reason to be terrified than I had built it up to be in my head.   I know this girl, she's pretty cool, and although we'll butt heads I'm sure, cause we already do, she is the coolest 13 year old I know, and she continues to grow into the most wonderful young lady.  

Zeke is TEN

 

    I really try hard to make these birthday blogs about the kids and the things I want to remember or admire about their growth.  But real quick, now that my youngest child is officially turning double digits, I am old.  I don't make the rules, it's just a fact, and it leaves me feeling quite shocked about it all.

 Seriously.   I'm aware we had our kids pretty close together, but there's something about my youngest turning 10 and being so far removed from all the baby/toddler/preschool small kid stuff that makes me step back and think....wait...shouldn't we have more of this parenting stuff figured out by now?  Thankfully, we really lucked out, cause Zeke really does make it pretty easy (at least for us and our style of parenting).   He is rambunctious, daring, adventurous, playful and ornery, so he still keeps us on our toes without a doubt, which has its own challenges.  But as far as handling correction, his overall attitude, and desire towards good, he keeps it pretty easy.  Sometimes we worry that his desire to do good, and avoid all bad is actually the problem.    We've had a couple teachable moments how avoiding problems can sometimes lead to bigger problems, and we've seen a lot of growth in this understanding throughout the year. 

It's confounding to me how this rascally, high energy child is also the most sensitive person in our house.  I see it frequently, but one morning this week he woke up early, made his bed to look like he was in it, and hid behind his door.   I peeked in on him and when I turned to leave after seeing him in his bed, he jumped out from behind his door making me jump and scream.   My heart was pounding and I exclaimed "oh my gosh!  You are horrible!", while laughing and shaking.  He was laughing but then his face fell and he replied "it hurts my feelings when you call me horrible".   He knew it was in jest, we have had these conversations, but he has told me, even when joking it always hurts him when anyone says "bad things" about him.   I immediately apologized and told him he just got me good and he was back to laughing and telling me how he planned it all out.   It's a small example, but the juxtaposition of his feelings with his orneriness is always surprising to me.   

He finally had his first broken bone, well rather, minorly fractured bone.   He climbs the highest trees, walks along edges of any cliff he can explore, tries stunts with his bike, runs with abandon, jumps off the couches, and is constantly going at full speed.   What adventure led to his injury?   Colliding with his friend in a semi made up version of baseball. I cannot express how much this makes me laugh after years of watching him with a tightness in my chest as he took great risks; OF COURSE it's just playing normally with a friend that sends him to the Urgent Care!   Thankfully, it was pretty uneventful and only needed a brace for a few weeks. 

So I think the moment that stands out the most from this year is when he tested for his brown belt.   Once you reach brown belt you are in the "advanced" track for karate, so the testing is no joke.   From brown belt forward it is basically levels of advanced training towards black belt. Every time there is testing for any belt you have to show all the strikes, kicks, and blocks.  You also have to know a series of moves to demonstrate certain self-defense maneuvers and counter attacks.  For example ONE of the ten self-defense maneuvers would be to know if someone tried a "Two hand grab on one arm" he has to step by step perfectly show this response:  Step to side, hand to stomach, reverse grab, hand to elbow, turn stepping back with outside foot to throw.    Also each belt has progressively more difficult katas, this particular kata had some pretty specific steps and detailed moves; then to get your brown belt you have to name and 'perform' something called "Shih Pa Lo Han Sho" aka "18 hands", which the kids start working on every single week from the beginning belts.   To sum it up, it's a lot.   

During testing they call up each group of kids that is testing for each particular belt and have them do their testing together.  They do these in front of their instructors and all the parents in the dojo.   Except this time Zeke was the ONLY kid testing for brown belt, so he had to do ALL of it in front of everyone ON HIS OWN.   I don't think I breathed the entire testing, I was so anxious for him.   He was the last to test as they work up through the difficulty levels, and after brown they do separate testing altogether.  They ask that the parents hold their applause until the end of ALL the testing so they can get through them all, but after Zeke did '18 Hands', the other parents all exhaled and one of them said "yeah, that deserves an applause now" and the other parents all applauded before he even finished testing.   His testing took the longest, and he had a room full of people he didn't know watching, and again, had to do it entirely on his own...and he nailed it!   We are so proud of him persevering under pressure.   He had to grow a lot to get to the point of doing all that by himself when just a year or two before he didn't want me leaving him at karate class because he didn't want to be away from us.

         He has a lot of change ahead of him, and while I get anxious about all the changes, I am reminded that I really am confident in his ability to tackle it all and do great.  He's moving too fast for me to try to hold too tight, and I think in the year ahead, he really is going to to shine.