Nine is Just Fine

I feel like Janet Evanovich with my titles for Rhett's birthday posts.  Ha!

Anyway, here's another addition of my annual show love to my boy post.  Check out last year's Eight is Great.  Nine years old.  What a great age for kids.  And parents.  

• Rhett, at this age, is so much more independent then he's been in the past.  From a parenting standpoint it's fantastic.  He can do so many things on his own.  With only minor prompting from us.
• He LOVES living in a neighborhood with kids his age that he can just run down to their house anytime.  And because he's more independent we can let him just go.  Again, it's fantastic.
• He's really starting to get a good sense of humor.  He gets a lot of jokes he hasn't in the past and he gets laughing at our family antics all the time.  As I said before, he definitely has the Sacry Laughing Gene. 
• He loves video games.  Especially ones that are not quite age appropriate.  At least in my opinion. Halo is his game of choice right now.  Both Russ and Rhett say it's okay because it's just about shooting aliens not humans. *sigh* 
• Homework is the bane of his existence.  He hates doing it and puts as little effort into it as possible. He's smart and usually knows his stuff but has a hard time getting going.  It's frustrating for me because I was never like this but we're getting through it one painful homework night at a time. Thankfully, he seems to be doing just fine at school.  Even with atrocious handwriting.  
• Even though Rhett loves a good laugh, he is generally a more serious, no nonsense boy.  He's content just hanging at home with little interaction.  He's social with friends but usually ignores adults. Personality-wise he reminds me a lot of me rather than Russ.    
• I love that Rhett seems to not care much about what others think of him.  He has an easy confidence that way.  That reminds me of Russ.  What a great trait to get from his father.
• His brother status is really being tested.  With his cousins Ellie and Kinley so close now and around with Piper all the time it gets a little crazy around here.  Loud girls are not his favorite thing.  Piper will often sing very loudly while playing and Rhett has to work really hard not to yell at her for it.  If we're in the car and Piper is singing you'll usually see him covering his ears.  I get a little glimpse of what it was like for my brother having an annoying little sister.  It makes me smile.   
• This boy is a winter boy through and through.  He loves snow and the cold doesn't really affect him at all.  He definitely got our northern blood.  We have a perfect sledding hill behind our house and he will stay out there for hours.  We need to get him to Montana to test out his skiing abilities.
• He STILL has me scratch his back before bed every night.      

Happy Birthday to our wonderful Rhett!