My baby, who hates for me to use that word, turned nine years old before he woke up today. This will be my last year of having a child whose age is a single digit. Here are nine ways that I would describe Oliver Elliot:
1. Friendly - he easily talks with strangers whether they are adults or children. He absolutely loves to play with other kids whether they are his age, younger than him, or several years older than him. He absolutely needs to work on always being kind and walking away if someone is being unkind to him.
2. Generous - he's the kind of person who would absolutely give you the shirt off his back. Oliver loves to share. Of the five people in our family, he is definitely the most generous.
3. Loves to be outdoors and be active - it doesn't matter what time of day it is or what the weather is like, Oliver loves to be outside, especially if he can play with other kids in the neighborhood. He also is more attentive to nature (such as birds) than his siblings. We have a tree growing in a cup in our kitchen from a seed he planted. Considering how much time he spends outside, it is a blessing that he is the least prone toward getting sunburned of my three kids. Oliver is almost always on the go. He rarely chooses to do a sedentary activity in contrast to Ian and Nadia who enjoy things like playing with Legos, Barbie dolls, drawing, coloring, and reading. He has been rather accident prone most of his life. Thankfully the frequency of him needing a band-aid has gone down over the last year with the exception of him needing 4 stitches last month.
4. Eats almost anything - The list of foods he doesn't like is rather short - cantaloupe, broccoli, or raspberries. A few foods that used to be on his dislike list in the past (ex. bananas and tomatoes) he will eat now. Sometimes he eats very quickly (such as when he sees friends are playing outside), and other times he takes F O R E V E R to finish a small meal. He is never tempted to overeat. He's 4.5 feet tall (74th percentile) and weighs 60 pounds (40th percentile) which puts his BMI at the 13th percentile. In other words he's closer to being underweight than overweight (if he lost 2 pounds he'd be underweight). He still enjoys cooking and baking. Maybe he'll be a chef someday?
5. Loves to listen to music - he uses his Echo dot, discman, and cd player to listen to music. His taste in music isn't the same as mine. He wears headphones so I don't have to listen to his music. I absolutely love hearing him sing at church. He sings more loudly in church than his siblings do. I also enjoy hearing him sing along with the radio when we're in the van. Some of his favorite artists include Toby Mac, Skillet, and Lecrae.
6. Affectionate - Oliver loves to give and receive hugs and kisses. He loves to snuggle, and he often brushes my hair because he knows I like that. He uses the least Spanish of anyone in the family, but he has switched to calling me "Mamasita" all the time.
7. Talkative - Oliver talks almost nonstop every minute of the day that he is awake. There are times I long for a bit of silence, but I know some day in the future I'm going to miss hearing his voice! I'm hoping over the next year he can learn to do a better job of listening to audiobooks, what I read aloud, sermons, etc. He has started taking notes during the sermons at church. He also needs to work on being careful regarding the tone of his voice when he's talking.
8. Brave - In general he takes after his big sister in terms of never being afraid of trying new experiences such as zip lining, climbing a rock wall, etc. He's looking forward to the daring experiences we're planning to do at Snowbird resort in Utah and Riversport in Oklahoma City in September. The notable exception would be rides at amusement parks. When he was younger he would ride anything that he was tall enough to ride - even roller coasters. Last summer and this summer he has decided not to ride many dry rides that he's tall enough to ride. He still will ride all of the water slides.
9. Easy going - Oliver is usually very flexible and willing to defer to the wishes of others. Although this is in general a wonderful trait, I do wish that he would be more motivated/competitive at times. For example, I found out that he didn't learn ANY of the Bible verses last week at Camp Good News which hurt his team. The kids wore headbands and received one bead for each verse they said plus an extra feather if they said five extra verses. Every year that Ian and Nadia have attended this camp they've always received all five beads, and they've almost always earned the second feather for learning the extra Scripture passage. I told Oliver that he wasn't going to Knoebels this Friday unless he at least learned the five verses that were for the beads last week. He learned two of them on Monday and one each day on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. It's great to be content, but it's also important to be motivated to do one's best.
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