Grayisms

Predictable post, I know, considering we're gearing up to celebrate another birthday in our house, but predictable child?  Not hardly.  Here are a few tidbits about our almost 7 year old.

1. Have to get this one out of the way right off--Gray is different and he likes being different!

2. I have learned so much about Gray this year and my number one new vocabulary word to describe him would be "divergent thinker".  (see Grayism #1)

3. Words Gray's teacher has used to describe him:  eccentric, cool kid, genius, challenging, happy-go-lucky, overly playful, and the one that gets him out of trouble with her:  charming:) School has been tough this year (because he's not particularly fond of working hard or doing things other peoples' way), but his teacher has been great and he's done a lot of maturing over the last month or so.

4. He loves asking people to guess things.  We usually get 3 guesses and even if we say something ridiculous on the first guess, he seriously says, "Nope.  Two more guesses."

5. Even if he is just a few feet away from the bathroom, but in the kitchen, he will go the long way through the kitchen, back hall, and living room to get there.

6. He is a focused child.  Now what he focuses on may not be the thing at hand or what you're wanting him to attend to, but he focuses nonetheless.

7. He sees lots of patterns and connections in things.  Though he could finish his homework in 10 minutes, he will often take an hour because he's counting up how many times a particular letter occurred or making each line of his homework be a team he made up or doing some other imaginative daydreaming.

8. He loves to read.  Some of his favorites are Dr Seuss, Chris van Allsburg, and books with the following themes:  dragons, knights, superheroes, monsters, or anything gross, scary, or stinky.

9. He hates to write.  BUT in the last 2 weeks he has suddenly learned how to write neatly and that gives him a little more confidence to not take 30 minutes to write one sentence:)  I think he just decided that it was valuable to try to have good handwriting and there was no getting neatness out of him until he came to that conclusion on his own.

10. That brings me to the next point...He is very determined to do things his way.  Very.

11. He has lots of interesting ideas.  For example?  This week he decided that he'd trying sleeping in his laundry basket, which he added blankets to and put on his bed.  He barely fit, but thought it would make a good night's sleep anyway.  Just the other day, we played a form a basketball in which after every made basket, he threw the ball up in the air as high as he could for a "jump ball."

12. This year he has improved sooo much in his basketball skills.  He totally surprised me with the time he put in to practicing and he went from slapping the ball a couple of times and then losing control of it to being able to run while dribbling fairly easily.  I think it is some kind of therapy for him to go out and shoot baskets on his own.

13. He will argue with a brick wall, usually accompanied by sassy head bobbing.

14. He still NEVER wears underwear unless I make him.  Never.

15. He has interesting forms of communication.  He often tries to tell me something by just pointing.  Once we were upstairs and strangely enough, I was not understanding his "sign language".  Rather than talk, he took me all the way downstairs so he could write out what he wanted me to do.  Gray's favorite way of having a conversation is to walk in circles while he gets out all his thoughts.

16.  He is a free bird.  He is happiest on days he can stay home and do whatever he wants without any requirements or demands on his time.

17.  He's not afraid to try new things.  He's our only child that will venture to do things like ride a pony or try a little kiddie ride.

18. He's learning a lot about friendship.  He often plays alone on the playground because he likes it that way, but also enjoys group games of football or soccer.  Recently we found out that the boy he used to say was his best friend wasn't treating him well and Gray was able to discern that this kid was not really his friend and made some new friends instead.  Great life lessons!

19. He still likes to dress up, but his favorite accessory is by far the weapon.  Any kind will do, though sharp things are always popular.

20. He cares for those that are hurting.  He is very quick to pray for the little Compassion child, Alex, that he picked out in December.

21. And finally, Gray loves to laugh, snuggle, and have a good time.  His teacher says he clearly prefers to view school days as one long recess:)  We sure do love this sweet boy!!

Happy Birthday, Gray!!