How is that possible? I think Adam will be perpetually three in my mind, because he is just so cute and enthusiastic. Five year olds aren’t usually nearly so adorable, so I just can’t believe he is already so old!
Adam’s birthday somehow crept up on me (like everything seems to be doing these days), but luckily he is a pretty easygoing kid. A few days before his birthday I asked him if there was anything special he wanted. He responded with conviction, “Yep. I want something from Target.” I figured I could make that wish come true without too much trouble, so on the actual big day I headed to Target with him sitting in the cart and promising to close his eyes while I picked him out a present.
We have a little book with birthday cake ideas that Adam loves to look through. He has had his cake picked out all year from one of the ideas in that book. Lucky for me, it was easy enough to pull off in about 10 minutes (after baking)! It was even forgiving enough that when I was in a hurry and trying to get it out of the pan before it was cool and it broke in half, I still managed to salvage it. It certainly did not turn out looking professional (check out that glob of chocolate frosting that is supposed to be a football in the middle), but Adam was thrilled which is all that matters to me. In case you can’t tell, it is a football field with BYU playing against “the red team.”
Adam is a unique soul. He throws his heart and soul into whatever happens to tickle his fancy at the time. Recently he has gotten really into writing Chinese characters. We’ve been taking Chinese lessons from a cute (and brilliant) PhD student from Beijing named Fairy. She doesn’t really teach us about written Chinese, but Adam has decided he is going to be an expert Chinese calligrapher. He spends many mornings sitting on the kitchen floor tracing or trying to duplicate various Chinese characters. He loves to come and tell me all about whatever he is doing in his eager way. His eyes get big and round with an animated look as he nods his head intently to emphasize his point.
Speaking of Chinese, Adam’s eyes also sparkle with enthusiasm when he comes up with funny jokes to tell. He loves to use the term “aka” in his jokes. On Adam’s birthday I sent Glenn a text asking if we could come downtown to his office for lunch after a stop at the downtown aquarium (a pretty good birthday, if you ask me!). Glenn responded “Sure.” When I told Adam what the text said, Adam’s face lit up and he said with his wide eyes and bubbly nod, “Sure- AKA-ten in Chinese? So Dad said ten?” (Ten in Chinese actually is pronounced a lot like the word “sure,” so Adam was pretty proud of his bilingual play on words.)
We “sure” had a good time downtown seeing the sharks and feeding the stingrays (despite the crummy phone pictures)!
Adam also likes to play with matchbox cars at the moment. He lines them all up in a row and then narrates complex plots while racing them through the house. He is great at playing with Amelia and manages to be mostly patient with her demands. He and Amelia also love to color and spend long periods of time at the kitchen table drawing and coloring their creations.
Adam is slowly learning how to read. I think reading the actual words hasn’t seemed particularly important to him because his imagination does just fine in making up stories to go along with any book. He is getting pretty good though. The other night I heard him long after his lights were off, reading Hop on Pop out loud in the dark. He made some interesting guesses on words that he couldn’t sound out, but got probably 75% of it right!
Growing up with big brothers has served Adam well. When he turned five he BEGGED me to let him empty the silverware from the dishwasher. Somehow he managed to overlook all the whining and complaining that both Derek and Evan do about their dishwasher jobs. For some strange reason Adam views it as a great privilege saved only for the mature and capable in the family. Now that he’s five, I would say he fits into that category! He gets the job!
Adam is in a pretty non-picky phase with food, which is nice (he has always been a pretty good eater). For his birthday dinner he chose “Cowboy Quesadillas” which is basically a bunch of ingredients thrown in a tortilla with barbeque sauce and pan fried to a crisp. He would eat macaroni and cheese every day for lunch if he could, and he always wants to be the one to put the cheese in. He has recently started to like snacking on dried seaweed. It isn’t something I love, but he and Amelia will fight over it during the day.
Adam’s heart is doing well. I took him in for his annual checkup recently, and Dr. Miller told us that we can stretch his visits out to every two years now! When I think back on what his first few months of life were like, it is an unbelievable blessing that his body is so healthy and strong. And he thinks it is unbelievable that he gets to watch Frozen for 45 minutes while getting an echocardiogram (another grainy iPhone in the dark picture)! Sorry, Adam! Two more years until the next time you get such posh treatment!
We have discovered a new side of Adam, which is his competitive side. This fall he played soccer for the first time on a team. Glenn was his coach. He is a feisty little thing and would really go after the ball. We learned quickly though, that winning is important to him. His team played four games. The first two games they lost 2-1. He was pretty heartbroken about the loss, but the fact that he was the player who scored the one goal in each of the games was consolation. The second two games they lost badly- about 8 to nothing. It was so funny to watch poor Adam! The first couple of goals just made him run faster and work harder. After that point, the other team scoring was just devastating to him. They would score and he would burst into loud sobs. Glenn or I would get him to calm down and get back out there to try again, only to have them score again and then tears springing forth uncontrollably. By the end of the last game he was learning to control his wild emotions. When the other team scored for the 6th or 7th time, he would just look over at one of us with tears in his eyes wanting to spill out. Instead, he would manage a fake smile to hide his quivering chin and a weak thumbs up followed by his signature nod, and he would turn and run after the ball. What a kid! We certainly got our money’s worth out from entertainment this soccer season!
Well, that’s probably enough for one blog post. I could go on and on about how much Adam fills our lives with joy. Happy birthday, buddy! We’re lucky to have you in our family and we love you!
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