Happy Birthday to my biggest boy! This is the 2nd birthday this poor kid has had during a global pandemic but at least it shows signs of winding down.
William loves all things Roblox and Minecraft and like most 9 year old’s would LOVE to talk to you about it. All. Day. Long. He has a bad habit of bouncing from TV time to computer time to Kindle time. We’re in a stage where I feel like I’m shooing him off a screen more often than not.
His absolute bestie is a kid in his class named Davis. Conveniently Christopher’s bestie is Davis’s sister Vanessa, and their mom is an awesome mom-friend of mine so it all works out well. This year we gifted a Roblox t-shirt to Davis for his birthday in January that matched one I had gotten William at Christmas. Every Monday since, the boys have worn their matching Roblox t-shirts and baby Yoda masks to school. Matching short sleeve t-shirts may be in order as the weather heats up. They are the cutest best friends!
Man can William READ! Thankfully is now into serious chapter books that last more than a day or two which decreases my total monthly library trips a bit. To his credit, he was reading Harry Potter already in 2nd grade, but this year he’s read all of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice series, Brotherband, and Fablehaven books. Keeping the kids stocked on books is a full time job!
William is sometimes helpful. His main job is putting away clean dishes from the dishwasher, but I try to come up with other jobs as I think of them. I’m often met with whining and remind him I could choose jobs for him like cleaning the toilets or scooping the litterbox. These comments usually don’t do much to improve his attitude towards helping. I’m hopeful that I can keep chipping away and get some decent help more consistently little by little.
Nine year old William is also a bit of a know it all. (I think this might be the case with all 9 year old’s). He still believes that because he watching someone do something on YouTube that in reality it’s super easy. “I watched someone dig a well in a video, it’s not that hard”. Unfortunately in real life he still equates watching videos with gaining experience. Hopefully this will change with maturity and real world experience.
William is like me (his mother) in more ways than I care to admit sometimes. He thrives on a predictable schedule and is the bedtime police. Every night he keeps time and lets Christopher know when it’s time for lights out, much to Christopher’s dismay. Having these two share a room is interesting, as Christopher is a night owl, and William is a morning person (didn’t get that from me!). No matter weekday or weekend, we hear “lights out” from William shortly after 9:00pm followed by a complaining groan from Christopher. In the morning William is usually up between 6:00-7:00 AM and we’re prodding Christopher to get him up in time for school. Some of the ways William is like me are great (his love of reading, his love of cats, his willingness of follow rules) and some are not so great (his perfectionism, his shyness/introverted anxiety). I hope as he grows I can help him harness all of these things and see them as gifts rather than weaknesses.
William hates to be the center of attention but at the same time has lots of friends. His class is just one of those classes with a really great group of boys that play well together and all seem like really sweet kids. I’m writing this birthday blog late (really late) so I’m happy to report we were able to invite all of his friends to the birthday party this year that we had originally canceled when the pandemic hit. Better late than never. We still had the kids wear their masks for the party this year, but it was a nice reminder that things are slowly getting back to normal.
One of our favorite spring pastimes has been going out for bike rides. William, being the eldest, feels that his bike riding skills are far superior to his brother, even though he is a total beginner. We let them ride around the school or church parking lot with adult supervision, both of which are walking distance from our house. I bought a bike for myself this year. Now if we get one for Jason I have big goals of family bike rides in our future.
According to William: his favorite color is green, his favorite activity is computer games, his favorite food is Little Caesars Pizza and his favorite books are the Fablehaven series, and his favorite type of dog is a Corgi.
I just know I’m happy to be his mom and can’t wait to see what the next year has in store! Happy birthday Wilbaer! (He now dislikes when I call him that in front of his friends).