Christian

Christian is a pretty cool kid. I'm supposed to think so since I'm his mom, right? But he keeps surprising me with the little things he says or does, and he keeps a smile on my face - most of the time, anyway.

Over the last month, he did 3 things in particular that I thought were pretty cool:

* He competed in his school's Storytelling Festival and took 2nd place in his grade. He participated in the Festival last year, which made sense considering how he loves to weave a good tale (not unlike his dad) but I was also a little surprised that he chose to do it. How many other boys choose to give up their recess to go practice storytelling? But I was blown away last year and this year as I watched him up on stage, theatrically telling scary stories. He even wrote his own story this year, without any help from us at all. He wouldn't even practice telling his story to Mike or me because he wanted us to be totally surprised. And we definitely were, pleasantly so. He did a great job.

* Christian's class put on two class plays for their parents. The kids apparently directed themselves, did the costuming and props themselves and carried out the whole production themselves. The day before the play was to be performed, his teacher sent an e-mail to the parents letting us know the place and time .... and that was the first I had ever heard about it. When I asked Christian about the play, he said, "Oh yeah, we're doing 'Where The Wild Things Are' and I'm Max." Hello? And he didn't mention it to his parents? Sure enough, Mike and I were totally surprised watching him be the lead in the play, recite all of his lines perfectly and play a great Max.

* A few weeks ago, Christian arrived at the start of Primary and realized he was supposed to give a 3 minute talk. He had forgotten about it and I had never even known about it. When he admitted to his teacher that he had forgotten, she said, "Well, why don't you just give your testimony then?" He said, "No, that's o.k. I'll give a talk." And then proceeded to stand up and give a 3 minute impromptu talk. His teacher told me that she wouldn't have known that he hadn't totally prepared one if Christian hadn't told her. He opened his talk with a story, tied it into a gospel teaching and finished with his testimony. And again, Christian never mentioned anything to us about it until over a week later.

I guess the theme here is that Christian is an independent, competent young man. I'd like to think that he needs his parents to show him the way but he keeps proving that he's doing just fine on his own. I'm excited to see what he does next that surprises us ... hopefully pleasantly so. :}