Max & Rebecca: Charlie is 8!

Oh my Charlie, Sometimes I don't even know how to describe him. He is full of energy when he's excited about something, he dives into his interests and tunes out the world. He takes life at his own pace. He loves to help, and his mind is an endless trove of creations and ideas. Any project he embarks on turns into something bigger and grander than when he started, but then often doesn't get completed.

He is a goofy and happy boy, he can get angry but he's always quick to recover and apologize. He loves to make people laugh!

Charlie has become an amazing reader over the last year. His favorite books are the Dog man books.

Charlie is full of confidence, he makes friends with everyone and has never been afraid of speaking to adults or asking questions. (or asking other people for food, ha) A recent example of this was a couple days ago when we were at the library. We just barely got inside and Charlie was lost in the aisles of books, I find him and he is asking the nearest adult to help him get a book down that he likes and talking to them about who-knows-what. On another recent day Charlie started a conversation with an adult while we were eating at the Costco food court, he was telling them all about his new glasses, and new coat and so many other random things.

Charlie is a kind soul, he is honest and will generally talk openly with me about situations at school. I'm so grateful for this and hope he always feels comfortable talking to Max and me.

As you can probably tell, he's lost a lot of teeth in the last year and his baby teeth were replaced with massive adult teeth, just like his parents.

Charlie has always had trouble focusing, especially on tasks that are overwhelming or taking away from something he wants to do. We didn't think this was very strange, especially for a little boy. We always tried to keep him active and he has always had very minimal screen time. We found that halfway through 1st grade (last year) that he was really suffering in writing. He was completely capable of writing and had great ideas of what to write about but there was something in his mind that was blocking his ability to get his thoughts and words on paper. This was a daily struggle in his class, it was starting to frustrate him. Thankfully he was doing okay in reading and math, but writing was so frustrating to him that he was beginning to dislike school. We decided to do some testing with his doctor and found out he has ADHD. I've never been worried about how high energy Charlie is, but it was so hard to see him stuck at school and we started to look into medication. Ive never been one to want to medicate my child but we have started to experiment with some medicines and haven't come to a final solution yet. He works hard and is capable of so much we are just on a journey to figure out the best way to help him thrive and use his intelligence to the best of his ability, so if any one has kind advice and doesn't want to judge me for giving my kid medicine, let me know.

Charlie chose to be baptized shortly after his birthday which will be in the next blog post, but first...

Here is his birthday interview, which we didn't fill out until a month and a half after his birthday...

Name: Charlie Gorden Baertlein

Nicknames: Charlie

How old are you? 8

What is your favorite color? Red Blue and Gold

What is your favorite animal? Cheetah, Peregrine falcon

What is your favorite book? "When people read me the Book with no pictures"

What is your favorite TV show? "Octonauts, PJ masks, and paw patrol"

What is your favorite movie? "Octonauts"

What is your favorite song? Jingle Bells Batman smells

What is your favorite food? Cheese pizza, I mean Pineapple

What is your favorite drink? Apple Cider

What is your favorite snack? Cherries

What is your favorite treat? "Chocolate orange, a whole chocolate orange"

What is your favorite outfit? green and white stripped pajamas

What is your favorite game? "knock them over, even if it's not safe, it's a big kids game for teenagers and wrestlers"

What is your favorite toy? "Foxy"

Who is your best friend? Raegan

What do you want to be when you grow up? An Inventor and chef
What is your favorite thing to do? "Ride scooters in big spaces that are clean"

What is your favorite thing to do outside? "Scooters again:

What is your favorite holiday? "Christmas" why? "Because we can give gifts and get gifts and it makes you feel happy also"

Where is your favorite place to go? Oaks Park

What is your favorite restaurant? "Tillamook, Ice Cream and cheese!"

Where do you want to go on vacation? Disneyland

What do you love? Oaks Park
What did you do on your birthday? "Cake, a big one, a doughnut cake"

What is Mom good at? Feeding me

What is Dad good at? Driving us places

What are you good at? riding a scooter

What is Miles good at? Being a trickster

What is Edwin good at? Finding things

What makes you laugh? "Jokes, I mean... can you erase that? hahahahaha when you write that"

What are you afraid of? "Im scared of Lightning"

What do you like to do with your family? "Eat Pie"

What do you love to learn about? "Reading, I mean, Making glass!"

Tell me a joke? Knock knock, who's there? Strawberry pants, Strawberry pants who? What color did the pants turn into? I don't know..."Red, because Strawberries are red"
What is something you learned this year? How to read really well.
What makes mommy laugh? Nothing, I don't know, you never laugh"
What's a nice thing you have done for someone? "Help someone get up when they fell down"

We just love our Charlie and his willingness to help others. He is an example to us in many ways and we are excited to see what the next year brings.

Also, I just realized I didn't write down the events on his birthday, everything was super simple since we were going to be celebrating with family a couple days later. During the day Edwin and I went to pick up 8 balloons to surprise Charlie with when he got home for school, but I guess we've been doing this for awhile so it's not much of a surprise. He picked Crepes for dinner so that's what we ate as soon as Max got home, then he got to open his presents and since I'm so behind on my blog, I don't remember all his gifts and I didn't take photos. I do remember he got a real tool kit and a Dog-man book. But I'm pretty sure there were a couple other things.