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| Introducing William: 3rd Grade Edition! |
Birthday Interview
Age: 9
Height: 4 feet, 2 inches
Weight: 58 pounds
(Still a little heavier than he is tall per percentiles, and still overall pretty small for his age... But none of this is unexpected information with Darrell and me for parents)
What is your favorite color: Blue
What is your favorite animal: Dog
What is your favorite book: HiLo series (if by "favorite" you mean "read through three books in one evening", then yeah, it's his favorite. To be fair, it's a graphic novel series, but still--he has flown through these books)
What is your favorite song: Old Church Choir
What is your favorite sport: Soccer (as you'll be able to see from his answers, soccer is pretty forefront in his mind right now, most likely because his spring soccer season started just a few days before his birthday)
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| I should note that spring soccer is a carry over from fall soccer, which he thoroughly loved |
What is your favorite thing to do with Mom: Play (Oof. Well. Two years in a row and he doesn't have much of an answer for this question. Even with some prompting he really didn't have anything to elaborate with)
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| I mean, maybe by "play" he just means being silly with Mom, which I suppose isn't all that terrible |
What is your favorite thing to do with Dad: Play soccer (At least it's a little more specific than the answer he gave for me)
What is your favorite thing to do outside: Play soccer
Where is your favorite place to go: Air Madness
What is your favorite fruit: Apple
What is your favorite vegetable: Carrot
What is your favorite cereal: Marshmallow Treasures
What is your favorite treat: Cake
What is your favorite meal: Beer Cheese Soup
What makes you happy: Playing with people (considering all we hear about from school is recess, I suppose this makes perfect sense)
What makes you sad: When people don't play with me
Who are your best friends: Aiden W
What do you want to be when you grow up: Soccer player (or any sport)
What was your favorite part about last year: Going to Air Madness
What is one thing you want to do this year: Win a soccer game (sooo much focus on soccer, and considering they lost their first soccer game 2-3 the day before his birthday, I'm not at all surprised by this answer)
I made the mistake of saying in his eight year post that because of his age and the "slowing" of his growth that there were fewer "new" things to note. Maybe this is all just catch up from the COVID junk and lack of activities during that time, but holy buckets, did William have an exceptional year of growth and new things.
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| Swim lessons certainly aren't new, but his confidence in his independent swimming grew leaps and bounds, and was especially evident over the summer when he went to a friend's birthday party at a pool. Not only was he swimming and playing in the deep end, but he also went down the tube slide, body slide, AND a drop off slide (a drop off slide that I was probably a teenager before I ever went down) |
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| See that pretty little lesion on his lip? It's called a mucocele, which was a new vocabulary word for all of us. And while being under anesthesia to have it removed technically wasn't new for him since he also had a surgery at 18 months, it was certainly the first surgery experience that he'll likely remember |
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| So there's some debate as to whether or not this was actually William's first time flying a kite (#fail on us if it truly was his first kite experience), but regardless, it was definitely his first time flying a kite that he made himself. We love the enrichment activities he does at school! |
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| First camp milestone! Three year campers receive an Ole Horn, and Mommy impressed the boys by still remembering how to blow in to one. This also should have been his first overnight at camp, but due to COVID precautions, they had not reinstated overnights (which, candidly, was probably fine because he was still having a bit of a rough time staying dry at night...) |
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| Playing golf on an actual golf course? Check! |
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| Hard to tell from the photo, but William had his first fair experience and was pretty brave trying out the rides (this is a picture from the Ferris Wheel, but he--and Garrett!--also braved a hang-gliding ride that I'm pretty certain I wouldn't have done at their age) |
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| Two years ago I mentioned that William had started to play the piano, mostly just from what Mom and Dad could teach him and from the knowledge he gained from the "Learn to Play Piano at Home" books we got from Amazon. Well, at the beginning of 3rd grade, we bit the bullet and enrolled him in lessons and by November he was playing a piano solo for church. He played one again in December for the Sunday School Christmas program, and in March he accompanied a 2nd grader while she sang "Amazing Grace". Needless to say starting piano lessons was a good choice |
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William got his first concert experience in December when For King and Country came to town with their "Little Drummer Boy" concert. Darrell ended up taking William (and Garrett) because there was a bit of a blizzard the night of the concert and I wasn't super comfortable driving in it, and other than it being a little loud the boys LOVED it
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| Our local ski hill (ski bump, as Darrell calls it--apparently it is miniscule compared to the mountains he grew up skiing on) has a snow tubing hill and when our church hosted an outing there this winter William got his first go at snow tubing. We've been sledding a handful of times before, but due to the somewhat icy conditions and steepness of the hill this was MUCH faster, and he loved it. I guess it's safe to say this is the year we unlocked William's daredevil side? |
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| More piano accomplishments--in February he participated in a Piano Festival where he had to memorize two pieces to play in front of a judge and get scored on them. His piano teacher told us that she doesn't usually require first-year students to participate, but she felt like William would be able to handle it, and I don't think any of us were terribly surprised when he received a "superior" rating (the highest possible). This kid loves himself some piano (and I'm sure my mom wishes I would have practiced as willingly as William does--I remember constantly fighting my mom when she wanted me to practice piano, and with William, we more often find ourselves setting boundaries for when he ISN'T allowed to be on the piano) |
Of course, the past year wasn't all new stuff, and especially as COVID restrictions eased, we got to enjoy many oldie-but-goodie activities as well.
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| Boogie Boarding at the beach is always a favorite |
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| College basketball returned! The boys (and Grandpa) had a great time cheering Augustana to the NCAA DII National Tournament, but unfortunately they fell short of the Elite Eight |
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| Model train shows also returned! We've been taking William to shows like this since he was two (or slightly younger), and he is still as fascinated as he was those first few times (I can't say the same for all his brothers, but for the most part they all tolerate going) |
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| Lots of fun at the lake! |
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| Our Outdoor Campus resumed some of their recreation classes, and although fishing is definitely way more Garrett's thing, William still enjoys it once in a while (especially at a pond that is stocked with fish so catching something is basically a guarantee) |
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| I suspect it won't be long before I'll get to add "drove the pontoon independently" to his list of things he accomplished in a year. I'm pretty sure he mans 90% of the controls when he sits there with Grandpa |
One note that I made during the previous year is that William really started to grow in to himself and gain confidence. Sometimes it's self-serving (like initiating a conversation with the choir director at church to ask for a copy of the cantata music so he can take it home and play it or privately approaching a teacher to clarify a misunderstanding about an incident that happened between other students at recess because he was afraid "tag" was going to get banned as a game) but sometimes he walks in to very public situations and owns them for no other reason than he decides that he wants to (like all of his piano performances or reading some of the speaking parts for the choir's Christmas cantata). He definitely takes after Darrell in that regard; I'll get up in front of people and talk if I have to, but man does it make me nervous. And I'm pretty sure I get more nervous for William's sake than he does when he is doing something in public. He's also really starting to pick up on the sarcasm that Darrell and I *occasionally* use, and sometimes he'll even dish it back to us (which is usually fun...for now at least).
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| Focus and determination are not in short supply with this kid--when it's something he wants to do. But ask him to look for a toy that's missing and he'll give up after searching in two spots because "it's too hard" and "I'll never find it" |
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| I'm sure if someone checked on me a few hours after I went to sleep they'd find me in some pretty silly positions, but it's fun to pretend like that isn't true and it's just William (and most of the time, his brothers) who end up in weird positions. Also worth noting is the lack of stuffed animals in his bed; his stuffed puppy made its way to Matthew's crib one day and it has stuck there (with no tears on William's end). He does still sleep with his baby blanket though (which is probably tangled up somewhere under his comforter) |
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| His initial interest in this project was minimal at best (especially because all he wanted to do was eat the marshmallows), but once I helped him get started he had at least a little bit of fun trying to construct a tower (of course, if he had had specific directions in front of him detailing a build idea he probably would have been all in from the start--he much prefers direction following to free building!) |
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| It's a little hard to read, but his shirt says "EYE am 100 days smarter". He was sooo excited about this "pun" for the 100th Day of School--and a little bummed by how few people commented on it |
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| Happy Birthday Kiddo! Hard to believe it's been nine whole years since you made me a Mom, but I've loved every minute (well, most every minute) of watching you grow into the boy you are now |
