Sam at Age 6

Sammy turned 6, dropped the last two letters from his name, and became a full-grown Sam-man.  It's a bit unbelievable.  Since Sam's birthday is four days before Christmas, it's always our goal to set that day apart from the holidays, and I think we've done okay so far, though this year was a bit more challenging.  We spent the morning at the bakery letting Sam chow down on cinnamon rolls, but we spent the next couple of hours apart since I had to take Asher to the doctor because she was acting shady.  D took Sam and Wren to Chuck E. Cheese to play arcade games, and I hustled the twins to the doctor.  In case you're wondering which parent had it worse, it was ME!

We met back up that afternoon and went to see the Christmas lights on Frisco square and grab snow cones, a Christmas activity that Sam requested for his birthday, so that made it okay.  Sam got his longed-for Angry Birds plushie, and I gave him more kisses when he turned "fully six" late that night, though he was already sleeping.  (Are anyone else's kids obsessed with the time of their birth?  My kids will not call themselves an age until they are "fully" that age after their birth time.)

We also did his birthday interview, and here are the results:

The Official Interview

What do you want to be when you grow up?  a chef
What is something you want to do that you've never done?  new video games
If you could go anywhere, where would it be?  Japan
Proudest Accomplishment: learning to swim, finishing my AWANAS book, and learning Sonic the hedgehog video games

Favorites

Thing to do: color
Holiday: Halloween
Food: hot dogs, chili dogs, cinnamon rolls
Season: summer
Gift: my mom

Then on Christmas Eve Sam broke his face, and like always, he didn't scream.  Since this is the second time we've done bloody chin injury in less than a year(Wren in May), you'd think I would have handled it like a rock star.  Not so much.  Sam did that thing he does where he won't cry out for help, so I turned around when I heard Wren screaming, "Mom, Sam fell!" to see my six year-old face down on concrete not moving or making a sound, his face turned away from me so I couldn't even see if he was conscious.  Two hours later when the adrenaline wore off and we discovered he would only need butterfly stitches instead of real ones, I still felt like I was going to puke.

And that may sum up where I need to focus on Sam, reading him on his terms, learning his cues because they are distinctly his.  Sure, we are working on emoting and talking through how we feel, but it's probably a good idea for me to get used to his communication style, because he does communicate if you're paying attention.  In this case, he was breathing, so I guess that counts?

He's made leaps and bounds at expressing his needs this year, and I love every fiber of that kid.  He told me the other day he needed to fix his hair for the girls, and I internally wept.  He's always going to be my guy.