Wyatt

About a month ago I said I was going to do a post about each of our kids and what makes them "them". I started with Blake because I had so much 'material' in the form of pictures and stories that exemplify Blake. Sadie was next and now I have finally arrived at Wyatt. It only took me a month!

Wyatt just finished up farm camp last week so I thought it would be fitting to include his pictures from his time there with my post about him. He, like Sadie, loved farm camp. He says it was his favorite thing he did all summer long and the kids are already asking if they can go back next year. It is very interesting to go to the same place with different kids and see how they each experience it in their own way.

Animal feed....

the kids could feed one animal with their parents, so Wyatt chose to feed the steer

This picture really shows who Wyatt is.....he immediately found the pedals on the tractor and pretended to drive it around for what seemed like quite awhile. Interestingly, Sadie never even sat on the tractor and I didn't even notice that there was one there!

I was a bit surprised with how comfortable Wyatt was with the animals by the end of the week. He was petting them, letting them eat out of his hand and didn't seem scared by any of them!

Wyatt and his friend Eleanor

Riding bareback! He did such a great job 'steering' Gertie and seemed quite comfortable!

LOVE the fresh food on the farm

Wyatt loved the tire swing and the zipline

I LOVE this picture of Wyatt. He is beginning to look so much more like a 'big kid' to me and he is a lot of fun to be around. We have great conversations with him and I look forward to hearing what he is thinking and feeling. He is a 'thinker' and surprisingly, doesn't talk a whole lot if you are with him and his siblings aren't around. He is a lot like Matt and quietly observes every detail about a situation and doesn't have a need to talk all that much. But he has a certain 'honesty' to him that is so pure...not sure how else to explain it, but I know that he will tell me what he is really thinking and feeling and he is always very truthful. I just wish I could stop time right now and keep him this age forever!

My 'observer'.....just checking things out

(No, he was not picking his nose!)

The bugs they caught on their nature hike the last day

I noticed as I was taking these pictures that Wyatt wasn't smiling a lot in many of them. And although he is a very happy kid, you will often find him with a contemplative look on his face rather than a smile. He is always thinking about a specific situation and taking it all in....

I did get a smile here, though. And I also realized that we have reached the age where, when asked to take a picture with a member of the opposite sex, both kids would just stand near each other and smile.....no more hugs apparently!

...getting sick of Mom taking pictures...

Wyatt continues to be a really great big brother and I am not looking forward to him going to 1st grade this year-----everyday all day!!!! He is my helper for just about everything and life gets more difficult around here when he isn't home. (Don't get me wrong, there will also be less fighting between his siblings and he, but we will miss him.)

And I'm not sure who will miss him the most, but I can tell you that in our male-dominated family, Blake won't know quite what to do with his brother around. Do you think he looks up to his brother?

Blake picked up a car shortly after Wyatt did....

A few other things to note about Wyatt at this stage in life:

(1) He has become quite the picky eater. I had prided myself on not catering to my kids' food choices and making them eat whatever was prepared for them. However, it seems that my pride is completely unfounded (and sinful) because I have recently noticed that Wyatt won't eat many of his vegetables at dinner, only a few types of fruit, and instead fills up on any type of bread/starches available. I hadn't been paying as much attention since I felt like we were kind of past that stage, but apparently it has crept back up on me! And hopefully it will change as I haven't been making food specifically for his tastes, but it will surprised me! If it were up to Wyatt, he would have waffles or my homemade cinnamon rolls every day for breakfast, PB &J for lunch (2 of them, if he could), and then bread and butter for dinner. But along with his love of bread, he also loves peanut butter. He will eat just about anything if it has peanut butter on it (in fact, he doesn't like bananas much but will eat them if he can put PB on each bite). Thankfully I do buy the original peanut butter that doesn't have any added sugar or oil in it, but I think there still has to be a limit. I am quite sure that he would eat a grasshopper covered in peanut butter if I offered to him.

(2) He sits sideways. Yes, sideways. Anytime he is in the car, at dinner, or at a table anywhere, he sits sideways. It's as if he is getting ready to go....all the time. And I actually remember sitting that way at dinner and my mom used to say, "Sit forward....stay awhile!" Yes, I find myself saying the same thing to Wyatt. But in the car, he sits sideways looking out the window, again observing all the details and taking everything in. I love it and love the things he points out to me that I never would notice without him telling me.

(3)He still LOVES his cars. They are by far his favorite thing to play with and he is content to spend an hour playing with them during 'rest' time. If he has several cars with him, he is good to go. He has made several comments to me lately, noticing that many of his friends like LEGOS and he doesn't. But once I reassure him that it's okay to not like LEGOS and instead play with cars, he recounts some of his friends who also love to play with cars (Kael, Coby). I don't know if you can tell by this picture, but he takes the cars and makes 'roads' in the carpet with them. He basically lines the cars up and drives each one around to a different place and then lines them all up again. And he will often ask us not to mess up his roads in the carpet (by not stepping on them).

Do you think this little guy pays attention to his big brother??

making the motor sounds with his mouth (and lots of drool/snot from teething!)

(4) He is still a Mama's boy. As long as Wyatt is with me or near me, he is great. But he still doesn't like to be on a separate floor in the house than I am on. In fact, many mornings he will be doing something and all of a sudden call my name. When I respond, he'll say, "I was just checking to make sure you were still down here". It has become so routine to me that I often find myself telling the kids when I am going to go upstairs or downstairs and letting them know what I am doing, just to calm any fears/anxieties Wyatt might have about being away from me. When we are in a store, he prefers to hold my hand or hold the handle on the cart or stroller. And if I am taking a shower, he likes to be in my room somewhere.....just as long as he isn't too far away from me!

That being said, he will go to the neighbor's house and play with other kids or go outside with Sadie and play. But if it's just us around the house or in a store, he prefers to be close to me. And once again, Matt says he was the same way as a kid. He remembers feeling so safe as long as he was close to his mom. SO I am happy to provide that feeling of safety for Wyatt and realize that there will come a day when all of this will change. So until that day, I will enjoy his desire to be close to me!

(5)He continues to hate storms. And hate might not even be a strong enough word. I used to love storms but I have come to dread them, solely because it means I won't sleep at night. But it is interesting that both Wyatt and Sadie get so scared during a storm or even just heavy rain, but as soon as we bring their sleeping bags in to our room and put them on our floor, they fall asleep immediately. It could be crazy loud thunder and lightning all over the sky but once they are close to us, they have no concerns and fall right back asleep.

(6) He got new glasses, in time for school to start, and he was so proud of the ones he picked out himself. I have to say, I think he did a pretty good job!

(7) In preparing pictures for this post, I realized that at the age of 6, Wyatt is not very interested in being in front of the camera. He definitely takes a back seat when the spotlight is on.

(8) We are only 7 days away from 1st grade. And I am anticipating this year being more of a transition that last year because this will be our first year of having school everyday and all day. I am sad that he will be at school more than with me (at least during his waking hours) but I know he is excited and I am excited for him.