Justin

I was thinking the other day about my boys and how they are so different. It's amazing to me how these children can all be from the same family. What also amazes me is how they can drive me crazy in both the good way and bad...

Take Justin.

He is my sensitive child. His feelings can get hurt so easily. You might not even say anything hurtful (at least you don't think so) but it can devastate him. You need to watch how you word things so he can understand that you are not putting him down but just showing him a different way. This can be difficult at times because he is also unassumingly oblivious at times. No matter how many times we have told him certain things he looks at you like he has never heard that before. If it's something that you are frustrated over and asking him again not to do it ("please use your fork while you are eating.") he will look at you and say "why are you yelling at me, I didn't know!" This comes even when you are not yelling but by then you want to yell and say "I'm not yelling!!!! I am just asking you for the 1000th time!!!!".

He is also my mathematician. He was doing multiplication at the end of first grade. He understands concepts in math that I even get confused on. He may not be able to explain it to you so you understand but you know he gets it. Yet he also loves art. Any kind of drawing, clay molding, designing he just can't get enough of. His new favorite is origami. He has a book that is way above his skill level but he will sit there and try again and again to figure out how to make a origami werewolf that I can't even help him with. He actually completed it. I don't quite know how he did it but he did. Yet he has trouble with writing (verbal is not his strong suit either) but he never gives up trying. He works so hard to keep up with his classmates. The funny thing is he enjoys writing. He will make up stories all the time.

Justin is also the lawyer of the family. When he wants something he won't give up no matter what. He will ask you a million times even if you said no the first 999,999 times. He will claim you don't understand what he is asking and try again. If you tell him not to ask again he will say he has a different question for you and just reword it. He never gives up. He has even gotten Ryan to come and ask me things. Justin can be the instigator. He is not one to be real physical but he knows how to push buttons on his brother that will drive Ryan crazy mad. I think a lot of this comes from his lawyering techniques of never giving up.

He is also the jokester. He will tell a joke, make a funny face or even do "physical" comedy to make someone laugh. He enjoys the attention and can't get enough of someone elses laughter.

Justin can be so helpful when you ask him right. He will not complain if I have asked him to clean his room again or get me something for his little brother. He is so easily adaptable too. Put him in a situation and he will just blend in. Change everything around and he just goes with the flow. He was never one to have trouble with that.

So in a nutshell that's my oldest. He is the most complicated of them. It's hard to capture a description of him in a way that really justifies who he is. My little me, complicated beyond beleif and yet easy in a way you couldn't imagine..



Oh and by the way, he has the greatest laugh. When he lets one out, you know one of those real deep ones you can't help but laugh, not matter what kind of mood you are in.