Loveable Guy

Xander recently had a concert at school. It was questionable whether or not he would participate, but we went anyway and thought he could at least watch his classmates perform and learn something from that. He ended up participating some--not staying with the class but sitting with us and running up on stage when it was his number. The picture you see here is during the Chinese performance. He did one in English as well. Let me clarify something--he does not know Chinese. According to his teacher, he is not keen to participate in any Chinese instruction and mostly "zones" when it is Chinese circle time. Oh well. At least he knows there is a language called Chinese and he hears it at school--that is something. I'm not sure what the performance was about and the costume thing (because I didn't understand it) but it was pretty cute.

So many people make some kind of comment when they hear we are having another girl that Xander won't have a brother. I always quickly add, "but he has a cool dad." I try to emphasize the fact that he has another pal and will always be able to wrestle, get sweaty, build things, play trucks, etc., with his dad. I think they have a lot in common--neither of them are exactly the conservative type, preferring to, as Joseph once wrote about himself (quoting Thoreau), "suck the marrow out of life." Xander constantly tells me he doesn't like the night time. He likes the day because he wants to do things. He wakes up energetic and optimistic, ready to embrace the day, find an adventure and enjoy life. He also has a lot of determination, strength, and stamina--all the makings of a good missionary someday just like his dad also.

Xander is also the most affectionate guy. He loves to shower me with hugs and kisses. I shut his bedroom door every night after I tuck him in to a barrage of kisses he blows at me. And the other day when I was driving him home from school, he said seriously, "Mom, you are so good. You are just so good." I was surprised at his sincerity and I said, "Why am I so good buddy?" And he thought for a minute, "Um, you are just so nice and pretty." I told Joseph that night that I got some really good feedback at work that day.

One more thing, just the other day, Xander and I were going to check on some jello in the kitchen. He was running pretty fast and tripped on the stair down into our tiled kitchen. He must have hit his chin just right, but it was weird because it wasn't bleeding much. Anyway, it took me a few minutes to decipher through his sobbing words that his chin hurt and upon closer examination, I saw that it was split open pretty bad. The first case of stitches in our family to date. As I sat in the hospital for the second time that day (I had been there earlier for my OB appointment) I counted 17 times there in the last month. Amazing. When the OB office asked if I wanted a tour of the hospital on my next check-up, I answered probably not and that I had a pretty good idea of how to get around.