Henry is 7

A space where the first of three teeth lost so far abandoned ship.

Henry's birthday was on August 5th. I asked him if he wanted a friend party, but he opted to celebrate with his family because "I don't think my friends want to play Monopoly." As usual, we did our traditional dragging out of the birthday. We celebrated early when Barrett's parents came up to watch our kids for our half marathon the last weekend in June, then again when I ended up taking the kids to CA the first week of August, and finally on Henry's real birthday back in Olympia. He decided that in lieu of a party he wanted 1) to go the thee-ate-er, 2) to play family Monopoly (I won); 3) to go to Charlie's Safari (indoor play place with bouncy things and a big climbing structure); 4) family bowling (have yet to do this - the alley was closed until recently); and 5) to play family basketball.

Cake with cousins in California.

Oh how I love this child and his analytical brain. Sometimes it seems to be exclusively reserved for numbers. So much that he's not allowed to have a clock in his room because he will start to watch the numbers change when he goes to bed at 8, and then upon waking up announce that he fell asleep at 11:27.

This is how it sounds to watch a movie with Henry that is based on a book he's read: "this is chapter 12! I can't wait for chapter 16!"

I also hear things like this a lot: "Mom, is it page 358 that says how much Harry's wand weighs?" He genuinely expects me to know the answer to these questions. Speaking of reading Harry Potter and Henry's compulsive calculating, quick funny story. Yesterday we read about the second task in the Triwizard Tournament. You know, the one where Harry has to rescue Ron from the merpeople, but sticks around to make sure the other champions' hostages are ok too. As I was reading about Harry struggling to the surface with Ron and Fleur Delacour's sister in tow, and how he doesn't know if he can make it with both of them, Henry suddenly shouted "drop the girl!" Oh how I laughed. And then felt a bit concerned as I explained that Harry thought dropping the girl would lead to her death. Henry responded that she wasn't Harry's hostage anyway, and that he was going to lose points if it took him too long. Oh dear.

Still, Henry is the reason my kids are best friends. When Laine was born he never questioned even for a second that she was here to be his best friend. He defends her always and takes care of her when he can. He is no different with Charlie. His aunt recently told him that one day Charlie would be big enough for the two of them to play together. Henry replied "well, he's almost one." As in, he's been one of my best friends for a while now. Laine treats Charlie the same way, and I'm confident that Charlie will welcome the newbie in kind - they all learned from Henry.

Henry and his new bike. Also see how he supports his sister; though he doesn't share her passion for art, he helped her plaster this entire wall with her work.

His sense of justice is kind of hilarious. If he feels he's been wronged he will act wronged until the perpetrator apologies. At which point all is forgiven and forgotten in an instant. If the "perpetrator" feels she is not wrong, she explains her point of view sympathetically, but does not apologize. In this case all is neither forgiven nor forgotten, and the acting wronged continues.

Henry cannot lie. He also cannot let it go if I say it is 8 when it's 7:57. He can't even let it go if I say "almost 8." Not only can Henry not lie, but he can't detect a lie, or even an exaggeration, in others. Once he told me he had to really get going if he wanted to catch up to a friend (another kindergartner) who had likely had enough of Henry's favorite topic of conversation and told Henry he was doing 10th grade math. This of course led to another installment of my ever popular "your friends don't want to talk about math" lecture.

You will never hear Henry saying anything negative about anybody. Ever. Once his teacher told me to ask him if some 4 year old in another class was annoying (apparently some kind of super spazzy super genius). She just thought it was amusing, but Henry got so uncomfortable I thought he would cry. I felt terrible and learned my lesson. I will never again ask him to put someone else down.

In sum, it is 2:30 and Henry is starving because he is unwilling to pay the price of today's lunch: one kiss on the cheek. He'll hug till the cows come home though. Oh how I love my Henry Fitz.