Five Years Ago Today

Aaron is my fifth child to turn five, and this birthday has me pondering a lot of things. He is the latest born of all our children, and by far the most intense.  When my oldest turned five it was such new territory but I've done this a few times now, and still there is always something different about each one. And Aaron I think has been the most unique so far.  Because when I think I have everything figured out and I know the way things should go or where children should be, he's the one who teaches me that each child is unique, that each has his own way, and I need to learn from him rather than imposing my own views of how I think he should be.  Which is not unlike this day five years ago, when he made his grand entrance into the world.

Finding our Family Niche

Long before kids are actually kids, parents (or at least we did) dream of what kind of family they'll be. Never having been too sporty myself but recognizing the importance of sports to a child's development (and honestly, just seeing that the cooler kids growing up were generally the more sporty ones) I thought for sure we would steer our kids in that direction.  As the kids have grown we've tried several different things over the years, some of which have become mainstays in our family life, and others which have fallen into the category of "not for us but we gave it a shot".