'Cause Ya Gotta Have Friends!

The Rascal turned 5 this week (!) and he celebrated in several ways. The first thing we did was have a Christmas birthday with his class [his brother's birthday is Halloween, so he felt it only fair :)]. We went out to dinner with my folks and he got to "ride the saddle" while the whole place sang to him. Later in the week, we joined a friend who also turned 5 this month for a Build-A-Bear excursion.

It's been just plain neat to see him interact with all his buddies and even with the people around us in public places. He has this smile that lights up from within, and he generally treats others with kindness, empathy, and humor. Many of the kiddos he knows have been together since birth, and have known him since he was 18 months old, so they're all pretty tightly connected.

And I think about my Elder-- he's pretty independent, but he is able to get along with all kinds of kiddos. Want to talk about drawing and art? Can do. Learn about snakes or other animals? Yep. Run around like a Tasmanian devil, climbing trees, throwing rocks at the lake, getting dirty? Absolutely. And I LOVE the comments I hear from the parents of friends he visits. They always tell me how polite he is, how kind, how easily he finds compromise to keep the activity of choice moving forward... all things that make a mom's heart full to bursting.

So three cheers for friends! Life made more interesting!

at the Pumpkin Patch, 2007