To Tyler, at 7 years old

Tyler,

Tyler, Tyler Tyler.  You are still something else and I hope that never changes!  In some ways, you haven't changed at all.  You are still imaginative, stubborn, silly, and loving.  You still suck your thumb as you're falling asleep and in your sleep, but as of the last two days you actually want to stop and you're asking me to "put the yucky stuff on" at bedtime.  You are still afraid to be in any room alone (except the family room) and you worry over bedtime arriving before Timmy gets home from practice two days a week.  You need your sleep, and it's evident the minute you wake up if you needed more!  You are still as sweet as can be too, and will curl up with me to cuddle, end up half way on my chair while eating dinner, and climb on top of me to sit on me while watching TV, all seemingly absent mindedly, and I love it.

If Mom is for loving on, Dad is for playing with.  You spend lots of time together for baseball, but you also have quality time practicing "burns" on each other and you've been doing lots of reading with him.  You love family movie night as much as Dad too, whether it's on our couch or at the theater!

You still make up "facts" and stand by them no matter what!  Sometimes you tell me things about your day and I can't decide if they're real or not, or maybe real but exaggerated.  You rode with a friend to football the other day and told me that you saw a car, that had hit a tree, that was lying on a power line, and the car was on fire, and the person was still in it but escaped all by themselves.  Due to a power outage 5 hours earlier that morning, I believed the first three parts of that story.  You swore over and over that the whole thing was true though.  I recently asked you what you remember of your Rainbow Monsters and if you could draw me one.  You eagerly agreed, but then said you really didn't remember.  I'm so glad I have the videos of you telling me about them!

Tyler's Monsters

Rainbow Monster Update

I struggle with how to manage your silliness when I am in a hurry or worn out, mostly trying to leave the house or get you to go to bed!  These activities try my patience and activate your silliness, which don't go well together!  After a recent challenging time getting out of the house I made myself a promise to let you be silly whenever I possibly can and not to hurry you unless it was really necessary, realizing you will probably grow out of this trait eventually.  I'm so glad you haven't yet!  Most of the time your silliness is easy to appreciate!

You work so hard in school!  If asked, you say you don't like school but you do.  You never complain about going or complain about anything when you get home, and your teacher says you're always participating and involved.  You've made great progress in reading, but it still hasn't completely clicked for you.  We gave you an incentive for extra reading at home, with a reward of going to Chuck E. Cheese when you earned all your stamps.  You earned the last one the week of your birthday party, at Chuck E Cheese anyways, so we still owe you a reward!  You love science experiments and you seem to understand math very naturally.  I hope that continues for you!  Your favorite subject by far is recess.  You will go into extreme detail relaying the events on the playground when asked.  You are the self proclaimed Leader of the Boys Team and the Girls Team is your nemesis.  You talk about plans, attacks, tricks, and spies.  It sounds like it's mostly the girls chasing the boys around trying to catch them.  You get very excited and silly when you tell us about your fun.

Showing off your PBL Project, an interactive book on snake facts that you researched and wrote.

Field Day was your favorite day this school year, you were totally in your element!

Being silly, per usual! After you pulled this pose for your turn, everyone else on your team started doing silly things during their turns!

Boys Team

Somewhere along the line in the last year you started talking about how you are never going to get married.  At first you would say that you only want to be an Uncle, but then you decided you are going to adopt.  Recently Daddy was telling you how good looking you are, and that no wonder the girls are always chasing you.  You replied, "I can't wait to see their face when I tell them I'm never getting married, only adopting!" 

You tried two new activities this year, Adrenaline Dance Club after school, and Flag Football.   I suggested Adrenaline to you, knowing several of your friends were doing it.  The first few weeks were funny, because the activity wasn't really explained to you in advance so when I asked you how it was you would say, "I thought we were just going to get to dance battle, we have to do what they tell us to though."  You enjoyed it and have already said several times that you want to do it again next year.  At the end of the season performance you knew most of the routine, but I don't think you smiled a single time until it was over!

Flag football you asked to play when I was talking to Timmy about him playing.  I believe it was the first time you asked to do an activity without prompting.  Because of scheduling, I ended up taking you to "try outs" with Timmy's age group, you took one look and burst into tears, saying you didn't want to do it and didn't want to do football at all.  I don't know if you would have been as nervous if it was your own age group or not.  I reminded you that you asked to play, that you knew a ton of the kids there at try outs and would have friends in your games as well.  You still weren't interested.  I reasoned, begged, demanded, and finally threatened you with the loss of electronics.  You still weren't moving.  I then told you that I would take Timmy's electronics away too.  You glared at me and stomped off to join the other kids.  You weren't going to let me do that to Timmy (which is what I was counting on!)  Once you were out there, you participated fully and happily the whole time.  I was so proud of you!  When you were done you ran off the field with the biggest smile on your face!  You admitted you were glad that I had forced you to do it, but I was still mean.  The season itself you've really enjoyed practices but you didn't love the games as much as first, you would complain to us about how much you were sitting out and that you weren't getting to touch the ball.  (You were a lineman).  You started asking your coach for fun jobs like Center and to be the Rusher on defense.  You haven't pulled a flag yet, but you've been close, you just hesitate at the last second!  You have gotten to run the ball a few times too.  I'm curious to see if you have any new interest in watching football this fall, since you have a little understanding of the game now!

Tyler at Center

Timmy is your favorite human.  I had thought it was me, but it was clearly evident back in January that I was wrong.  We all went to Florida for a short trip for the Pro Bowl, and you and I headed home before Timmy and Dad, because I had to work, and you didn't care about football so there was no reason for you to miss school.  You cried the whole way to the airport that you just wanted to stay with Timmy, and it was fine if I went but that you would come home when Timmy did.  Even with promises of sleeping in my room every night, doing something fun after school, and being with me, you wanted Timmy.  Timmy has more responsibilities then you do, and you usually revel in that, but if you can see that he really doesn't want to do something, or is really anxious to get to do something else, you will jump up and offer to do what's being asked of him.  You were in trouble recently and I overheard you muttering to yourself from the bathroom, "Timmy is the only person who even cares about me."  He can do no wrong in your eyes, and 90% of the time he is deserving of your high regards of him!

All on his own, Timmy made you a birthday card and had every single one of his classmates write you a birthday greeting.  The minute you came downstairs on your birthday, he called you to the couch and read it all to you!

Your birthday party was super fun, you and 11 of your friends had unlimited play at Chuck E Cheese!  You finally got to do the ticket wind tunnel and you looked like it was the best thing ever!  Every kid earned enough tickets that it took several minutes a piece to get them counted up by the machine, and everyone went home with lots of prizes!

You have grown a ton this year!  You are now at 49.5" and just over 50 pounds.  You are 2" shorter then Timmy was at 7 though, so you are probably due for a growth spurt soon!  You are super skinny, still needing size small shorts so they don't fall off, even though you are in size medium shirts.  You are probably so skinny because I can't get you to eat anything!  You rarely eat breakfast, no matter what I offer you, and you've told me to stop packing anything in your lunch besides the chips and oreos... bringing home anything else I send!  You want a fancier haircut, asking for one like Timmy's or a mohawk.  I talked you into this one for now, but you are currently determined to have a mohawk during the summer.

Tyler on his 7th birthday, holding a picture from just before his 1st birthday

You love watching YouTube, playing on your IPad, playing basketball or on the trampoline with April, and playing video games with Timmy, mostly Minecraft, Overwatch, and Fortnight.  You ask to sleep in Timmy's bed every night, but you're only allowed to on the weekends.  You still sneak into my bed in the middle of the night sometimes, but less and less often.  You finally love to snuggle for reading time and you beg for "one more chapter" every time I say we're done for the night.  You are just the best!!!