From before Nathan was born, he must have been sucking his middle two fingers. I never could break this boy of this habit. My dad always said, "Let the boy suck his fingers... you can always fix his teeth later, but if he needs this habit for security, you cannot fix his mind." I noticed by the time he started kindergarten, that he sucked a LOT when he was thinking. It was a connection... like the battery of his brain was in his mouth, activated by these two little fingers... and he has a brilliant brain...
Some scenes from Nathan's life are imprinted in my memory. Like when he was a toddler sitting out in the driveway with the Tonka truck and Tonka loader and one of my kitchen spoons... playing as sweetly as any boy ever did... and out came some yellowjacket and stung him! Oh! The injustice of it!
Nathaniel has always been an easy child to raise. In school, he just "knew" things. I remember him reading out loud all the "Bob Books" to me... and he was a whiz in math. For the first year or so that I homeschooled him, I would begin a sentence and he would finish it for me... he had been paying attention all those early years and he just skipped ahead to Stephen and Julie's grade and learned whatever they were learning, because he already knew kindergarten and 1st grade. And he thought the most unusual thoughts... for a 6 year old. He would hang out in the living room... thinking... after looking at the thermostat. He called out, "Mom? What's 82 plus 82?" "Wait! Don't tell me! I know this! It's 160!" I started to correct his math, but before I could he said, "Oh, no... I forgot the 2's... it's 164!" So, I continued fixing dinner, amazed by my brilliant child. Then he was going to bed... laying there sucking his fingers and thinking. You could practically see his brain at work. I asked him what he was thinking about and he raised up a bit and said, "Oh, I was just thinking of how many pieces are on the chess board... I was counting up how many on each side and the total..." Mmm-hmmm... just what every 6 year old boy does when it's bed time, right? Just so you know, he is the undisputed chess champ of the family. Sometimes Stephen can get a game off of him, but not often.
I will resist the more embarrassing (for Nathan) stories... but I will say that he has been a bit of a momma's boy and I don't regret that one bit. He has been a gift in my life. He has sang some lovely, sentimental songs to me with all his heart... but that's all I'll say... for his reputation... since he IS 14 now...
Nathaniel is smart, but sometimes is unmotivated... well... lazy, truth be told. He plays a solid, strong game of tennis and gives his older brother a challenging match. He is set to move to his father's home this summer and will play a lot more tennis than he does here with me. I am excited for him to have every good opportunity that he can take hold of and chase down each dream for his future that he has. On quiet evenings I will be missing him... wondering if he is sucking his fingers, trying to solve an algebraic expression... and I'll be hoping to get a call asking me to come watch an important tennis match that he'll have.
Here is a slide show from Nathaniel's 14th birthday celebration:
1 comment:
I love this post. Cool slide show too. Thanks for posting
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