Parenthood - 2021-02-11 Matthew turns 8

February 11, 2021

Matthew is eight! One less booster to schlepp around!

Matthew likes to try new things and while he has picked up some caution in his old age, he's still more prone to doing rather than thinking. Easily frustrated, he's made great strides in controlling his temper. He still has a little lisp.

This year he's made a lot of progress on his reading. Fascinatingly he seems to read like I do. We'll have to see if he ends up being as speedy! His teachers all agree that his french reading is exactly where they'd expect, in a year where many of his peers are behind. I was surprised to discover that he seems to be at grade level in English as well. He's recently started reading the easier Famous Five books to me, something Elizabeth definitely was not able to do at the same age.

He's a pretty good skater, confident biker, and cross country maniac who is definitely much better on skis than either of us. I'm still a better swimmer (haha) but his main problem is confidence and lack of practice due to pandemic.

He loves "fiddling" on the computer to find out "stuff", "searching up" various topics of interest using all the resources at his disposal. He is very into minecraft, though his version crashes frequently and that can be extremely frustrating. He likes to build mazes. He also loves playing the prodigy math game. His favourite prodigy activity is wandering around doing the various quests, but he enjoys solving problems, especially when he can rescue new pets to battle with.

Lego and building stuff is still a real interest. Eight is sensory seeking and cuddly, and must have a hot water bottle at bedtime. He also always wants his giant water bottle refilled before bedtime. He says it takes him a long time to go to sleep at night but at least he is no longer disrupting anyone else. Our bedtime routine consists of reading to him and Amelia, then he reads to me while Amelia falls asleep. Matthew's very into comic books right now. He especially loves Tintin who really tickles his funny bone.

Matthew is a pretty good eater. Some favourite foods: meat, bananas, naan bread, pasta and chocolate shredded wheat.

He's pretty responsible about most things and has recently become quite useful in the kitchen. I can ask him to chop things up, put things in and out of the oven and he's even got a few things he can make on his own.

He dropped out of karate and is trying zumba with me instead. Organized fitness classes don't really seem to be his thing. He's not too keen on exerting himself for the sake of exertion. "Horseback", on the other hand, is definitely his thing. He likes animals. I think he finds horses a little bit frightening and enjoys the challenge of conquering that fear (adrenaline junkie?). He also definitely likes being our family's resident expert for all things horses. Amelia has expressed a tentative interest in learning to ride as well and after careful consideration he allowed that perhaps his siblings should be "allowed" to do so because it's such a fun activity but asked that no one else start lessons until he was far enough ahead in levels that no one could catch up. Perhaps Erika passing him in karate belts was more demotivating than I realized!

He loves playing outdoors and forest school suits him down to the ground. Generous, thoughtful around others, imaginative and creative are all words we'd use to describe Matthew.

Overall eight is a great age!