My Boy

This boy. Oh, This boy. I'm sure glad he's mine.

We recently picked him up from school, being informed that his first set of school photos were available to look at, and we could buy them if we wanted. I had no idea it as picture day. Bridger had chosen his own clothes. There's no way his hair was combed. He had some scrapes on his face. But he's happy. He's just happy kid, and the photos captured it.

Bridger wakes up, each morning, bleary-eyed, stumbling into the living room and flopping down on the couch, laying there to wake up until breakfast. As tired as he is when he first comes out, I watch him carefully open and shut each door so that he doesn't wake up his little sister, with whom he shares a room, ever careful of what we've asked him to do several times. He's often like that. He's a good listener, and even though it sometimes takes work, he is the type of kid that will form and keep good habits when we encourage him. What a blessing. 


He rides his bike to school and back again every day. Every ride is, at some point, accompanied by some self-produced theme-music. I love riding behind him down the street, hearing his rock-and-roll, beat-boxing impression of whatever sounds he's hearing in his head. The lyrics are often something like: 
"We are the BEST-tuh, duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh, AND WE don't even know it, duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh, I just don't even knowwwww! Gonna go, go, go, ....duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh...."

And it goes on...and on...and on....
On the bike. At home. While playing with Legos. While sitting alone doing nothing. While riding in the car. 
And a favorite I heard him singing from the other room while at home the other day:
"Who's gonna butter my kek-SUH. Whoooo's gonna butter my kek-SUH". (Butterkeks are the equivalent of German graham crackers...). 

He's sitting here watching me type this. He's fascinated, and just asked me if he could type a bunch of the same letters in a row: 
 oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
He surprised me the other day when we were driving around and he said "Hey. There's a zoo here." I was confused, as there were no signs with photos of the zoo, but we were indeed nearby a zoo.  "How do you know that, Bridger?" I asked. 
"Because I just saw some letters on a sign, and it said Z-O-O....zoo." 

It was the first time he'd, out of the blue, without any help or prompting, read a word. 

He's growing up. 

And he's such a good friend to his little sister.

 I am so glad they have each other. They play, they laugh. They wrestle around. And when he does something wrong, he's almost always quick to say he's sorry. He knows - he knows he's teaching her by example. She copies almost everything he does, in the moment and out (including the theme music). Just yesterday they were playing in the bedroom, and I this is what I heard:
"OW, JUNI!!!!! If you want something off of the shelf, you don't HIT someone, you say to them 'can you please get that off of the shelf for me?'!!!!"    

He just asked for a turkey sandwich for breakfast. 

This kid. He has his moments. We all have our moments. But I am really, really enjoying being his mom. He makes it pretty-darn fun.