Top 10 Reasons I Am Thankful For Jared

I guess I better keep track of these kid posts because I'm running out of November thankful days. I'll get the other two in there.

1. He is just an easy going kid. He was born layed back. I think he realized I had my hands full chasing his brother around so he was always content to just sit back and watch.

2. He just has a different thought process. What I mean is he thinks about things that my other kids would never be concerned about. Sometimes he will think about something for days before he will bring it up for discussion. When he was three he had an in depth discussion with my brother about pickles. The next day he said "we should talk about pickles again". My brother told him they could talk about other foods too.

3. He is a collector. As much as it drives me NUTS I also have grown to love it. You know if you see a sparkly thing on the ground or an odd piece of paper or a cool stick or rock he WILL pick it up. Sometimes you have to yell - DON'T before he gets his hands on it. He had a collection of wood chips for a while - I threw them out when he was at my moms.

4. He is a Grandpa's boy. It's actually sort of odd because the other two could hang out with Grandma all day long. He went and stayed with my parents and my mom was shocked thinking she would have someone to hang out with. Nope - he went everywhere with my dad.

5. He is a great reader. This took a LOT of work. In the early days I thought someone might lose a life over trying to learn how to read. It was painful. Very painful. I'm still not sure how it happened but he is a great reader and he loves to read. He is on book 5 of the Harry Potter series and has encouraged his friends to also read them - boys that haven't even seen the movies.

6. He is frugal. When my other two have money they just HAVE to spend it. If Jordan has a dollar she's in the dollar section at Target searching for something. Jared will go to Target several times and also search online until he has finally decided what he really wants. Jackson will just buy something to buy it.

7. He is happy to play alone. He will be in his room for hours playing with lego's or GI Joe or his other toys. Of course on the flip side I've gone in to his room and noticed that every GI Joe is strategically placed to shoot whoever entered. It's like Toy Story in there.

8. He still uses words he learned in England. He also still pronounces the letter H as "haytch".

9. He is a trivia buff and loves history. Even when he was having a really hard time with school he would retain stuff that was shocking. We could travel to some castle or historic area in England and say "hey Jared what's the difference between the anglo saxons and the normans" and he would explain it. It always amazes me.

10. I'm just thankful for him because of who he is. There have been many times that we've said "well that's just Jared" but it is. It's like he is his own definition.