Connor at 6

I thought I'd take a few moments to jot down some notes about Connor because I will forget.

1. Connor is wildly addicted to his Wordsearch book. Every day when I get home he says, "Mummy, see what I did today. I need your help with this one and this one".
2. When I freak out sometimes and say I also want to just lay around and have fun instead of cooking/ whatever, he's the first one to say, "I'll come help you in a few minutes" and he does.
3. He still gets a kick out of competing with me, whether it's by running up the road, or by getting dressed in the morning.
4. He loves peanut butter, and once a week I treat them by making peanut butter and jam sandwiches. On that day I am the best mother in the whole entire world :) Should we have a post about school lunches?
5. One of his favourite meals is egg and potato, with cucumber on the side "with the purple spice" (Robertson's olive and rosemary spice). Sliced potato fried lightly in a pan with an omelette mix poured over. He loves it. However, he's getting fussier about some food he doesn't like. The other day he said, "Mummy, the ONLY nice thing about this food is the FORK!" . (It was a creamy chicken casserole)
6. He adores making his bed and really takes pride in there being not even one wrinkle. He doesn't get this from me - I don't even make our bed. That's always been D's job, or Nanny S's. Now and again, he even remakes my bed because "it looks ugly".
7. He loves mint sweets. D bought him a packet of Mentos a few weeks ago, he ate about 3 - 4 sweets and stuck the remainder of the packet in the pocket of his jeans. Then Nanny S washed the jeans. He was distraught that the sweets were "poisoned" in the washing machine and that D wouldn't buy him another packet :)
8. This boy loves numbers and maths concepts. He plays with numbers - addition, subtraction and multiplication. Sometimes I say, "Connor, what do you want me to do - play with you (number games I have to make up) or cook supper?" "You can do both, Mummy". 
9. D says it's scary how much we are alike. I agree except it's rather frightening to see this level of determination and stubbornness when he's fixed his mind on something... at barely 6.
10. Connor hates it when I listen to podcasts because he can't talk, but he's learnt to say "press pause, Mummy" so he can tell me his stories. The only think he likes listening to is the Bible app. The photos in this post are of him listening to the Bible.
11. He still adores Friday the bear... and Thursday, K's bear, and sneaks Thursday away from Kendra if he wants to sleep with both of them. When he makes his bed, he makes a space for Friday to have a pillow and blanket too. It's very sweet.
12. This boy loves playing games with D - like backgammon, ludo and the latest craze, Diamond Rush, on D's old Nokia phone.
13. His favourite thing to do with me is still to go on walks and a close second, to have tea and each of us read either on the couch or on my bed.
14. He says he loves winter because he likes the cold on his face.
15. D asked him tonight, "Connor, what are you good at?" I can't remember what they said but when I went to pray with him, I said, "you know what you're good at, Connor?" and I rattled off a lot of things, and he said while smiling sweetly, "I think you're right, Mummy". SWEET BOY. I said numbers, writing, being a good brother to K, being a good son to us, Wordsearch, using my phone, reading, taking photos, going on walks with me, helping me in the kitchen and riding your bike.

That's my boy.



To think I couldn't imagine mothering a boy when I was pregnant (I even had a nightmare where I put him in the wardrobe and forgot him there!) and then he arrived. Aside from those irrational outbursts, he is so easy for me to understand and I love being his mother.

Did anything surprise you?