Gavin's Introspection

Lately, conversations with Gavin have been different. Good different. He's become more self-aware and introspective which I am really enjoying.

Last week, he had a "moment" where I could see pure joy in his face. It was right after his shower before bedtime and as he's putting on his pijamas, he is beaming from ear to ear. He said, "Mama, there's been so many amazing things happen in my life. I can't believe it." When I asked him to give me an example, he said, "there are so many but like when I moved up to big kid Dreambox."
I would've never thought about this as an "amazing thing" in his life. I thought it was an ordinary thing but to him, it was clearly a big deal.

Dreambox is a web-based math program at school that he logs on to do math lessons on and it tracks his progress and grade-level. The level he was on looked like a Mario Brothers video game where you go from land to land and in hindsight, I guess was "pre-K" looking. But as Gavin completed lessons, he progressed above his starting grade level. According to the software, he was working on 3rd grade level (85%) and 4th grade level (15%) skills and I guess this prompted the upgrade to the "big kid" Dreambox that has a different "look" and it's more like a regular video game. The day it happened, he got off the bus with the biggest smile on his face and ran up to me and said something like "I'm in big kid dreambox now..." and then went on and on about the new dreambox. He said, it happened while he was playing in the computer in his classroom before school started and that he had a "big smile on my face the whole walk to Mrs. Waller's classroom" (he is in 1st grade but goes to a 2nd grade math class for 1st period so he's referring to the walk from his classroom to the math class). I could tell it was a big deal to him that day. From the moment he got off the bus, I knew something good had happened to him. I could see his pride showing. I didn't realize this is a "core memory" for him that is just so "amazing". It's kind of fun to see what is important to him and what I think of as what could be his "core memories."

Last night, he had an introspective moment. Gavin asked me if I liked being a grown up or if I wished I could go back to being a kid. I told him that I enjoyed being a child but that I like being a grown-up and look forward to being an even older and wiser grown-up. To which he replied, "I like being 7 but I also wish I could go back to being 3. I had a good life then...well, I've always had a good life but I was so imaginative and creative then, I wish I could change my mind to that again."

The way that he said, "I was so imaginative and creative then" was so lively that I could tell he really enjoyed whatever it was that he thinks is now lost. The bad thing is that this was after dinner and we were being pulled in different directions by Liam and Ellie that our conversation was interrupted and I didn't get to ask him what he meant by it.

It's so fun to see him changing right before us. His conversations are getting more abstract. I am really looking forward to this stage.