Christopher!

Okay, I’m going to preface this with saying that I might type the word “Christ” instead of Chris at least once.  I’ve done it before by accident and been called on it, but I truly don’t mind.  No, I’m not being arrogant about it, but it reminds me of the meaning behind the Greek name “Christopher” (Christophoros) which is “bearing Christ.”

Chris turned five in January.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t celebrate right away, with so many different things going on at once, and we didn’t want to have to cram his birthday in amongst other stuff going on, so we waited until February to celebrate.  He had a transformer party and invited 5 boys to come and play transformers/hot wheels/dinosaurs/knights and whatnot.

So what can I say about my eldest son?  What can I NOT say?

The stats:

Born January 18th, 2004  at 5:00 a.m. on a wintry and snowy day.

The middle child with a sister who is 20 months older and a brother who is 27 months younger.

White blonde hair since the minute he was born, blue eyes, a large noggin and a long, wiry build 🙂

He goes by “Chris,” “Christopher,” “Christopher Carroll” (when he’s in trouble) but hardly ever do we say “Christopher Marcus.”  In fact, I wonder if he even knows what his middle name is.  Hm….

The loudest voice EVER.  As a singer I can safely say that the kid has natural resonance so if he wants to pursue a career in opera he’ll fill the hall–with whatever kind of voice he ends up having 🙂  Since the day of his birth I’ve been astounded at the VOLUME.

He speaks English and German fluently with no accent.

But who is he really? I’ll give it a go:

He’s an Elephant.  What I mean by this is not that he’s big–actually, he’s really skinny because he’s a picky eater.   What I mean instead is that he’s got the memory of Elephant (so to speak…I’ve yet to research that saying).  You tell him and he remembers.  A melody, song lyrics, movie lines, what he wore on his third birthday, a promise made two weeks ago about going out for ice cream after going to the doctor, which by the way happened today, mom… you get the idea.

He’s musical.  I could say this about all my kids, though they’re musical in different ways.  He’s learning piano and I’m repeatedly astounded at what he remembers.  He loves to help Dad sing the boys part in devo songs and remembers songs that we haven’t heard in a long time.  For instance, one day Randy heard him singing “You Fill Up My Senses” in the hall while he was playing with his cars.  We couldn’t figure out where he heard it (since we don’t own a scrap of John Denver) and then we remembered that we had borrowed Steve’s car for a week about 6 months ago and he had a John Denver tape in it that would play whenever we got in the car.

He’s a collector.  Since he started walking, which was at 9 months, he would take a slew of toys to bed and line them up on his pillow.  Now he has large collections of cars, dinosaurs, legos, transformers.  Not overly large, but Chris never forgets a toy, though he carries them everywhere he goes and he repeatedly plays with all of them, so there’s no chance of giving the older toys away.

He’s possesive.  And don’t even think about touching one of those toys without his permission.

His love language is quality time.  But if you volunteer to play with him and his precious toys, then you’ll get the toys and you’ll get his steadfast friendship and loyalty.

He’s protective and loyal and has an innate sense of justice, though sometimes his justice is not the same as everyone else’s.  For instance, he himself can pound on his little brother, but if anybody else tries to, they’re in serious trouble.

He loves to pretend.  He wants to be superman.  He wants to be Optimus Prime.  He wants to be Goliath, or Batman or a combination of several things which makes for interesting costumes.  But he’s also bossy (yes, I know it’s from me) which means pretending usually goes like this.  “Okay, you’re Bulkhead and I’m Optimus Prime and now you say, ‘Optimus I need you to help me get my wrecking ball unstuck’ and now I say this….” You don’t really have a choice in the matter.

He loves his siblings.  Chris has an older sister who looks after him, but he loves to look after Alex in turn.  He has such a strong and one-of-a-kind personality that it’s hard to imagine him getting stuck with a “middle child” complex.

Yes, it’s hard to do him justice in a mere blog post, but I felt I had to try.  He’s come so far in a year in areas such as keeping his fists to himself (okay, I’m kind of joking about that one…), helping without being asked–in fact, being eager to help, becoming a leader at times among his friends, instead of just being the odd man out (something German helped with) and having a little more patience.  I won’t say he’s gotten quieter or that he’s grasped the concept of an “inside voice” because that’s just not true.   All in good time.  Maybe.

At the party I saw all of this come together in a culture all his own that I never experienced as a kid.  He greeted his guests either in German or English according to what they spoke and was eager to give them their gift (we give gifts at our birthdays, like the hobbits 🙂 ) which was a mini-transformer.  I heard him switching from German to English with no problem as he helped them figure out how to transform their robot in record time and then it was off to play.  Though I jokingly set out the tylenol, the party went without incident except for Robin Hood’s sword getting broken (all kids came in costume according to Chris’ wishes) and only one kid getting injured (though how or why I never found out).  They even did well making their own pizzas (with Chris giving instructions, of course) and sitting patiently at the table to eat and wait for cake.  Only one other mom was there with me, but it turns out I didn’t need the tylenol after all.  My little angel! 🙂

Happy birthday, my son, and may you bear Christ in your heart for as long as you bear it in your name.