My Little Man Turns 7

Justus is celebrating his 7th birthday today.  Happy Birthday, buddy.

For my own benefit, since my blog helps my memory, 🙂 I am going to write out some of the things he’s doing at this stage and a little bit about his personality.  It may not interest anybody else in the world but I think it will be a great place to record it.

Justus was born 7 years ago today.  He had 3 brothers and 1 sister waiting on him when he arrived.

Justus can be shy.  He is also my most sensitive child – not that his feelings get hurt easily but that he feels sad when he hears an unhappy story.  For this reason, I’m especially careful of his seeing or hearing things that might bother him later.  Of course, that is probably a good policy to have for all the children, right?

He enjoys being in the kitchen on occasion.  Here he is at 4 years old with an almond cake he made with almost no help from me (besides telling him what he needed to do).

He likes being a cowboy like most other boys his age.

He’s teaching himself to read with some help from his phonics.  I told him that he needed to slow down because I wasn’t even done with his phonics book and he’s trying to read everything.  He’s the first one of my children to do this.  

Here he is wearing some glasses he picked out of the Treasure Chest for finishing a step in phonics.  We use Sing, Spell, Read & Write which I love.

He looks up to his brothers and wants to do the things they do.  For example, they are on a strength building program of doing so many push-ups a day, etc.  So Justus has been doing push-ups, too.  It’s very impressive.  He did 24 of them the other day.  For someone like myself that has never even done 1, I’m impressed.  Really impressed!  I didn’t think those little matchstick arms of his could have such strength.  What a man he is! 🙂

On the trip home from Denver, Colorado a few weeks ago, Zachary sat in the back seat with him and explained the workings of the world to him.  He sat there and listened attentively, his eyes having a distant expression as he absorbed what was being said.  

Something was said at this point that really clicked with him and he became quite excited.

He’s very good at playing by himself but he also plays with Audrey sometimes.  Yesterday, they had a grand time pretending they were swimming and fishing, so they donned life jackets and swim suits.  This swim suit is for beginning swimmers with built-in flotation.  He looked quite hilarious in this too-small outfit.

We asked him to remove it for this picture.  The combination of swimsuits and a construction apron with tools (which was his birthday present) just didn’t seem fitting. 🙂

The tool set came from L*owe’s and sold for $20.  All of the tools are real, not plastic.  It also came with a tape measure.  He wanted one of these so he could help his dad.  His cousin, Lincoln (hi, Lincoln 🙂 ) had a real belt with tools that Justus saw a few years ago and he’s wanted one ever since.  I thought the tools was a better choice for him than some of the other things he had written down on his birthday wish list like — hearing aids!  “What?” you say.  You read it right.  He wanted hearing aids!  I have no idea why.  Maybe he thinks they look like fun since he’s heard them make noises when someone’s adjusting them.

Who can know all the things that run through little boys minds but I love them anyways. (xoxo) 

Even when they’re dirty…

or being silly…

They’re little men in the making.