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| Still smiling because he hasn't been asked to change a diaper yet. |
As we await the arrival of our second child (first girl) I've been watching and appreciating Kendall closer lately. Not that I don't appreciate him all the time, but I'm trying to really capture the moments of our family dynamic before it forever changes. Kendall has always been a sweet, funny, thoughtful and competative kid.
I have some very humorous friends. I feel blessed that over the years I've been associated with such a great group of people that can make me laugh as well as others. However, Kendall might be on the path of being the funniest person I've ever known. Kendall has perfect comedic timing. He can spot the joke or punchline as it's developing. When he's on, the jokes and one-liners flow effortlessly. He still has a few repetative jokes that he throws out a little too often but he's learning how to use them more sparringly and properly. I'm excited to watch his humor develop, especially with a little girl in the house to entertain!
Kendall has a big heart and wears his emotions on his sleeve. His feelings get hurt easily when he's frustrated. He wants to be good at everything. He's very talented at many things and is very sharp. Kendall has a great sense of confidence. Sometimes he runs into something that's new to him or he's not very good at yet. As parents, Karenand I understand that this is part of children learning and developing. As a kid, this can be terrifying. It's hard to watch when his confidence is shaken or to se him struggle. The best we can do is guide him through the challenge and rebuild that confidence. He's lucky to have a very patient mother. Karen takes things a little slower and looks at details. Dad jumps in and just assumes we can wing it.
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| LEGO's for people too lazy to play with real LEGO's |
This past year Kendall took more to video games. I think with the move from living in the country to living right off a highway in a small apartment just might have had a little something to do with that. Kendall still loves being outside and playing but it just takes a little more time to get him out the door now. I think he got stuck in a routine where it wasn't as easy to just go out in the yard and play. We really don't mind Kendall plaing games because he is a happy, athletic, healthy kid. His favorite right now has been the game 'MINECRAFT.' I sound like a crochity old man when I say this, but I know next to nothing about the game. It sounds like it's LEGO's but on a computer. Kendall has watched countless hours of Youtube videos of people playing Minecraft. He wasn't just mindlessly watching them play though. He was learning the game. He also learned a lot of computer and gamer terminology. It's kind of funny to hear a 7 year old talk about "lagging" and "pwning." He's even got his mom playing the game with him. I'm still holding out for him to play Super Mario Bros. with me again.
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| THIS make smore sense! |
Kendall helped name his soon to be baby sister. Her name will be Lily Rae Merrill. At first we were going with a 'K' name to stay in the tradition of Karen Rae & Kendall Rudy. The three of them would have KRM initials. At some point I said, "how about Lily?" Karen and Kendall seemed to like it. Karen's grandmother, who lives hours away, also came up with the name Lily the same day. We thought that was a great coincidence seeing as how everybody was busy thinking of 'K' names! We decided that Kendall might have final say on this so we ran it past him as a possible idea. He liked it and has referred to his baby sister as Lily from that point on. We told him it was just an idea but he went ahead and told his teacher, classmates, and anybody else that would listen that her name was Lily.
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Karen is already sick of "Lily Pad" & "Lily's Pad" jokes.
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Kendall has grown in the last month. It seemed to literally happen overnight. He walked past us while in the livingroom and I made him come back and stand in front of me for inspection. Just like I thought, he had grown! Karen and I like to make a big deal about him growing and really play it up for him. He gets a big goofy grin on his face when we do that. After dinner tonight Kendall and I were taking our weekly spelling test and we had the word 'big.' I said, "BIG as in 'Kendall wants to be BIG like his Dad!" Kendall gave me a huge eye roll and said, "yeah right." Chances are, he's not going to be a big guy, he's too much like his dad. But it makes us smile because we're happy and sad at the same time every time we have to clear more jeans and t-shirts out of his closet because he's growing. Pretty soon he won't be our 'baby' anymore. He's our Big Kid!
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| Kendall's the one on the left. |
