The Grashorn Grounds: edmund at 9 years

Happy 9th Birthday Edmund!

It's hard to believe that Edmund is nine years old. It is the final year of single digits. It also signifies almost a decade of us being parents. Edmund is continuing to grow before our very eyes. Once the round faced little boy, he is now the tall, slender and inquisitive boy with the big brown eyes.

Despite the years bringing so much growth and changes, we are amazed at how much of Edmund's character and personality were cemented long before he was born. God created him just the way he was meant to be. It brings to mind the verse from Psalm 139:13 "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb." While sometimes, we jump with joy over this, there are other times that we can cringe with frustration. We all have our strengths and weaknesses and trying to parent a child that has his own view of how everything should work can be challenging. But he is so very interesting. He is one of the most interesting people we have ever met and he is going to do great things.

As we continue to love and struggle everything that comes with parenting, we look forward with hope to the man that God created Edmund to be. We pray that with God's guidance, we will raise him well. That he will grow into a man of integrity, develop a strong work ethic, and faithful character. We pray that he will love well, marry well, and be kind to others. Here is a look into the past year of our lives.

Appearance

Edmund still has his smooth pale skin with small freckles that dot his cheeks and nose. He has heart shaped lips, and big brown eyes framed by long dark lashes. He has grown even more long and lean with slender limbs and a muscular trunk. He has has gotten in so many of his big teeth. The big teeth just look so darn big in his boy head. We know he will grow into them. He squints his eyes when he is being funny, smiling, or being mischievous. His eyebrows furrow when he is annoyed. His face and eyes turns red when he is crying. He has a long slender neck (also from his mother) and his hair comes to a little peak at the back of it (like his father). He has his father's cleft in his chin. He likes to smile when he is sitting around thinking to himself, so he often looks happy. He can often be found humming to himself with a smile on his face while he is in thought or more often beat boxing. He is our dreamy child.

Personality

Edmund's personality has continued to grow and change, although many of the traits he had even as a baby are the same. While Edmund tends to be shy and reserved, in the right mood he can be extremely chatty. He loves being by himself but also enjoys having people around and loves being silly. While not being very funny, he sure tries hard. He enjoys making up his own jokes, but unfortunately his sense of humor is not often found funny by other people. Often, though, his desire to be funny looks like him doing silly things to try to get people to laugh. Although he is very happy to entertain himself and enjoys playing and reading books, he most often is found playing (or fighting) with Nathaniel. He really loves playing with Clara and Emmalyn too. He loves running around outside, climbing trees, digging in the garden, or playing with Legos in the basement. He has really gotten into reading to himself and he is an excellent reader. He loves reading books on cars and Garfield comic books. He is really into RVs, campers, boats, and cars. Edmund loves creating things and always has ideas of different art projects he has come up with himself or he has found in one of our craft books. He loves the outdoors and love insects. He can be found holding pill bugs or collecting different insects to place in his bug box. He has a grasshopper that he has been keeping for the last month, gathering food for it and making sure to clean his cage.

Edmund always loves going places. One of the most common questions that we get from him in the morning is "what are we going to do today?" With that in mind, this past year was very strange and sometimes a struggle for him. Despite enjoying doing whatever he wants, the effects of a pandemic were hard on Edmund. Luckily, we have a big family so we have many bilt in playmates for him. He really missed being able to go different places that used to be our favorite like the zoo and COSI. We found our love of hiking with parks being closed for months as a way to get outside and enjoy the outdoors. That is one of the things that helped to keep us sane. He loves looking at catalogs in the mail and that looking at items of interest in the store. This year he used his birthday money to buy a metal detector and a cactus. We ordered the metal detector from Field and Stream and we took him to Oakland Nursery to purchase the cactus, which is one of the few places that the kids have actually went to a store since the beginning of the pandemic. Edmund's favorite thing is going on trips. He loves seeing new things and getting to sleep in hotels. He is also a good traveler, which makes him so easy to go places with. He spends most of his time snacking and dreamily looking out the window or reading books. We loved our trips to visit family in Wisconsin and our trip to Charlevoix in northern Michigan. The only bad part about traveling is he cries when he gets home because he is disappointed that the vacation is over. We hope he will always love to travel and explore.

Edmund still struggles with flexibility, but he has grown so much in this area from where he was when he is little. He stands firm when he wants his way, which can be challenging. He is always full of ideas and often thinks his ideas are the best and should be followed. He can get upset when he doesn't get his way and it can be made worse if he is tired. This can cause him to make poor choices, which typically comes out in the form of hitting his brother. We have worked on having him walk away because he gets too upset that he can't get the words out fast enough. We have encouraged problem solving and giving alternatives to bad choices. We constantly encourage him to use his words and have him practice using them so that he will continue to learn what to say when he is thinking with his dinosaur brain. We also have to give him consequences, which he hates. While he still doesn't always select the right choice in the heat of the moment, he can typically tell us what he should have done instead. He also is great at coming up with solutions for problems. He is persistent which allows him to work on things much longer than we would expect for his age. It is all a work in progress, but we know that like many things in life, he will eventually get it right most of the time.

Edmund is curious and creative. He is always asking questions about tons of different topics. He is really interested in boats and hamsters right now and loves spending time on mom's computer to research them. He has been very interested in different types of insects, cooking, and he even had his own little garden this year. He planted beans and popcorn and while the popcorn didn't work out, he has enjoyed picking his beans for dinner this summer. We try to always encourage him to learn about new things. We show him videos on different topics he is interested and try to find him books at the library when we get a chance. We hope he will always desire to learn more about the world around him.

Edmund is a helper. It's so funny to us how this has not changed since he was little. He loves to help with most things we are doing, as long as it interests him. There are things he would rather not help with that we make him, like sweeping the floor and washing his dishes after lunch. He will, however, happily chop vegetables for dinner and load the dishwasher. Some of the other things he is responsible for are cleaning up his toys, watering his plants, vacuuming, picking vegetables in the garden, getting the mail, shoveling snow, cleaning his room, watching Emmalyn, and clearing his plate after meals. He also has a servant's heart. When he has done something wrong, he often will try to make it better by doing something nice for the person he hurt. If it is mom, he can be found sweeping the floor or trying to clean something. If it is his brother or sister, he will often make them something or help them with a task.

Edmund completed his third year of elementary school, graduating Second Grade. It was a big transition having to do school at home for the last two months of the year. He missed the time with his classmates. He loves riding the bus to and from school. He has been involved in a few things outside of school. He has been in Cub Scouts, which he loves since he loves camping and the outdoors. He also did baseball. While not loving baseball, he said he wants to play again and we are going to be doing a summer league.

Things he likes to say (all the time):
"So guys, here's the thing..."
"That sounds terrific!"
"What are we going to do today?"

Monthly Highlights

August -
Attending Farm Days at COSI, Vacation to Grand Haven, Meeting my new teacher and the first day of 2nd grade

September -

Apple picking, Emmalyn's 1st Birthday, fishing, selling Cub Scout popcorn, hayride and kettle corn at Freeman Farms, Heritage Fall Party

October -
More Apple Picking, Trunk or Treat at school, Carving Pumpkins, Dressing up like a fire fighter and Trick or Treating on Halloween, Cub Scout Camp Out, Gramma and Papa visiting,

November -

Celebrating Clara's birthday party, Getting the family Christmas tree, Thanksgiving in Indiana, Weekend at Mohican State Park, Trip to Malabar Farms, Seeing rozen Junior at Dublin High School

December -

Wandered around zoo lights at the Columbus Zoo, Played in the snow, Looked at Christmas lights at Alum Creek, Baked a Cake for Cub Scout Cake Contest, Meal Packing at Lifeline,Traveled to Indiana and Minnesota to celebrate Christmas with family, Rides at Mall of America

January -

Sledding, Painting, Hanging out inside to beat the cold, Having Tea Parties

February -

Celebrated Valentine's Day by making Valentine's for class, Cub Scout Pinewood Derby, Created Bottle Buddy of Coretta Scott King, Highland Lakes Valentine's Party, COSI

March - The beginning of the great pandemic of 2020, School From Home, Beginners Sewing Lesson, Hiking at Metro Parks, Baking, Art Projects, Bird Watching

April - Last Snow of the year, Visiting Covered Bridges, Easter at Home, Watching Movies, Online School, Lots of Nature Hikes at the Metro Parks

May -

Helped plant the garden, Last Day of School and Swenson's Malts, Celebrated Mother's Day, Beginning Days at the Pool, More Hiking, Celebrating Nathaniel's Birthday, Mother's Day, More Covered Bridges, Releasing Our Butterflies

June -

Genoa VBS, Camping Birthday Party with friends, Played at different metro parks, Pool Days, Marmon Valley for Horse Back Riding, Bike Rides for Ice Cream,

July -

Blueberry Picking, Trip to to Wisconsin with Plantenberg Family, Gardening, First Day of Baseball

We thought it would be fun to interview Edmund and ask him a few questions each year. Here were his answers.

Questions:
1. What is your favorite color? Black

2. What is your favorite toy? My music player and Legos

3. What is your favorite food? Mashed Potatoes

4. What is your favorite TV show? Tumble Leaf
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Eggs and Hashbrowns and Pizza

6. What is your favorite thing to wear? My Pajamas

7. What is your favorite game? Apples to Apples

8. What is your favorite book? Garfield

9. What is your favorite animal? Hamsters

10. What is your favorite song? Coldplay songs

11. What is your favorite subject at school? Science

12. What is your favorite sport? Baseball

13. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Collecting Bugs

14. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas because sometimes I can get things I've always wanted
15. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? My blanket

16. What is your favorite thing to have for dinner? Mashed Potatoes

17. What do you want to be when you grow up? A Construction Worker, Garbage Trucker Driver, Over the Road Truck Driver
18. What is the best thing about your family? That I have so many siblings

19. Describe yourself, what kind of person are you? Interesting boy, I love more adult things. I like vegetables, campers, boats, metal detectors, and vehicles.

20. If you could go anywhere where would you want to go? New York City
21. What is something that makes you happy? That I exist on earth

22. What is something that makes you sad? Animals Dying
23. What are you scared of? Being in the dark and alarms going off

24. What is something you are really good at? Sleeping and Eating
25. What is the funniest thing you have ever seen? Garfield losing his fur

This has been another wonderful year with our dearest Edmund William. While much of this year was a brand new adventure, although not very adventurous, we are grateful that he took it in stride. Here is to many more adventures in the future for you. We love you to the moon and back.