Celebrating Jaden

We got to celebrate Jaden's 7th birthday a little early this year. His birthday is actually on November 23rd. It usually falls near Thanksgiving so he got to have his party 4 days before he turned 7. He chose to have a basketball themed party at the YMCA. The kids got to play all kinds of games at the Y and they all had fun. They got to eat lots of orange colored snacks and drink lots of Gatorade. Everyone had fun despite the 3 inches of snow we got during the party.

This is an interesting age for Jaden. He is getting to be so independent. He is able to play outside by himself and follow the rules. He requests to play with friends all the time and rings our 2 neighbor boys' doorbells often. One time he rang the doorbell a few too many times and caused a neighbor boy to call 911. That will be quite the story for him to live down. I am sure Jaden will hear that over and over again. Jaden loves his friends, has lots of them and is very extroverted. Jaden just had his first outing with a friend today when they left to go watch high school basketball together.

He still has issues with hugs and people touching him so we continue to work on this as it seems heightened with a new little girl in the house. He is very organized and enjoys a controlled environment. His need to control things has increased as our house stress level has risen recently. He is fully aware of the changes in our house and has taken that stress more on himself than out on anyone else. He needs his life structured and predictable and if it's not, he must fix it. This causes him to obsess about some things that he shouldn't and this has made family life even harder. He could definitely use some prayer in this area.

Jaden seems to love all things "boy," cars/trucks/bikes, legos, Star Wars, super heroes, particularly Iron Man right now, sports, being physically active, along with reading, games and music. He became interested in the ukelele this summer when he saw 2 very cute older teenage girls playing them for one of his favorite songs, "This Is the Stuff" by Francesca Battistelli. Hopefully we have encouraged his love of music with his new uke.

Jaden is still very energetic and quite talented physically. He enjoys racing and competing with anyone at all times. He loves winning and knowing he is the best at something. I think he is a great reader and love listening to him. He is still very skilled at math and hopefully his love of math continues.

Jaden's personality is very similar to mine and I love that about him. I know he is my son! I see my weaknesses and strengths in him and I am very proud of him. He continues to teach me new things and I love that. Just today he showed me that he has a huge heart for the little girl in our house by trying to calm her down. This melted my heart. I want to squeeze him close like a little baby but he only wants to push me away and continue growing up and older. He is growing more compassionate and caring and growing in intellect. I love watching him change and love seeing how he changes me for the better. Happy #7, Jaden!