Wonder

Everett’s energy level seems to keep going up. It is a fantastic experience to be around someone who is so full of life and has such a sense of wonder about the world. At the same time, this degree of exuberance can be exhausting at times for his parents. He literally does not seem to stop moving from the moment he wakes up until he falls asleep. Even when he is standing during a conversation he moves his hips in a circle and says “I’m stirring my body”.

Everett still wakes up almost exactly at 7am every morning, no matter how tired he is or how late he went to bed the night before. Yesterday he had a full day starting with his final drama class in the morning. Chris couldn’t attend, but Everett came home afterward with his graduation certificate, held it up and proudly announced “Here’s my sarcophagus!” Next was a birthday party for one of his classmates. From there we went straight to the Pettit Ice Center for ice skating with the Y-tribe. He has only been ice skating once in his life and that was a couple years ago with Chris. This time he and Chris skated slowly around the ice while Everett got used to the skates. When we started out Chris held him up by his armpits, which was kind of exhausting, but Everett really worked hard and progressed to the point where Chris held one of his hands and by the time we left he was skating by himself.
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Afterward all of us went to Cranky Al’s for pizza, and he went to sleep about an hour after bedtime.

The next day was on the warm side, but there is still some snow on the ground and it was perfect for packing so we decided to try to build an igloo. This turned out to be a challenge because usually when the two of us are outside to together in the snow we just tromp around and do whatever he wants: sledding, hiking, climbing snow piles, digging snow caves, tracking rabbits and other animals, etc. Today was different in that Chris had a goal to build the igloo before it got dark. It went ok, but Everett didn’t seem to fully grasp Chris’ level of intensity for this task, and Chris was getting increasingly frustrated with Everett for not getting out of the way fast enough, knocking down walls, etc. At one point Everett was cutting the walls with a saw and Chris got intensely irritated and decided to call it a day. At this point Everett was crying and Chris expressed disappointment that we couldn’t finish and that the walls kept getting damaged. Everett said “I feel like you don’t love me when you say that.” It’s not the outcome we were hoping for, and it was a reminder for Chris about the risks of setting overly ambitious goals during playtime. Chris reassured Everett that he is always loved and noted that his feelings of regret were intensified by the fact that earlier in the day Everett told him that he is the best Dad in the galaxy. It was a rough ending for the afternoon, but by bedtime we had patched things up. The next day we finished the igloo after Chris came home from work.
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On a lighter note, here are some recent things we have heard from Everett:

“Do platypuses need to breathe?”

“Do dogs get pregnant?”
Melissa: “Yes”
“How does the baby dog get inside the Momma?”

“Hey guys. Did you know that I can communicate with bats?”

Funniest thing Chris has ever heard in church: “Please don’t put the tiger in your pants, ok?

Funniest things Chris has heard at home: this is a tie between 1) the times when Melissa or Everett ask for some quiet; 2) the time recently when Everett told Chris to “Bring it down a notch” with regard to roughhousing.

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