Deacon You Are S E V E N

Deacon William... you are SEVEN!!

Please note that you did not get a 6 year update. Trust me, it's not for lack of love but lack of my brain's capacity to do anything beyond what was necessary for survival. Our lives have been full and wild. We've built a house, sold a house, moved into a house, and been surviving a pandemic at home together for a year while dad goes to work everyday and we do work and school from home. It's been A LOT. It's been a lot of together, a lot of learning, a lot of growing, and a whole lot of forgiving, snuggling, and screen time. School came to a halt right after your sixth birthday and you missed out on half a year with the incredible, amazing, Mrs. Farrar. You missed your first season of Rookies (besides the one practice) and your first 'big kid' summer of camps. While there was lots that didn't happen there was sure a lot that DID! A pandemic didn't slow you down. If anything it gave you space to find out who you were in lots of new ways. 

This year you were set on ADVENTURE and moving onto some land gave you room to find lots of it. In the warm weather that adventure was mostly in the wild creature department. From catching frogs to our favorite summer morning discovery of the largest snapping turtle I have ever seen... you loved and named all of our buddies. From Jumpy the frog to Rex the snapping turtle there was never a lack of joy when a new friend joined your world. As spring approaches we are hoping that your favorite evening visitor, Fasty the rabbit, rejoins our sunset porch sitting. 

You've always loved school and all it held. While this year has not seen many days without some tears about virtual learning, I've also gotten the gift of seeing you learn first-hand. You are never short on stories or answers or connections or silly reactions. Knowing you may never sit in a 'first grade classroom' gives my heart a bit of an ache but it's also been a blessing that I'm also working from home so our days are a different kind of flow we've never had before and probably won't ever have again. 

All this together time has brought us lots of excitement and in December we welcomed a new member of Team Rut... Roxy Rye... who gives your wild a run for your money. She is cute but is teaching you a lot about cleaning up messes and being patient even when it is hard. Even though dad is still going in to work he's found time to take us on adventures that mostly surround driving to places off the beaten path, you all complaining, and then all of us have a great time. What would have been months of adventures with friends has become a year of the four of us. While we do a great job of getting on each other's nerves we all agree that we're all still our favorites. You and Aubrey have fought like I've never seen and also created secret hideouts, become expert basement roller skaters, and learned to problem solve school issues when I'm in important meetings. 

And maybe the biggest marker of all this year was your 'accidental' purchase of the first Harry Potter book on our living room Alexa. One book quickly turned into two and by December you had listened to the entire series and were nagging Aubrey and I to catch up so that we could watch the final movies. For a child who was once afraid of any music change in a cartoon that indicated tension you have become a first grader with strong feelings about evil, Voldemort, and how Luna Lovegood never gets enough attention. You even refused to read the name Tom in reading circles with Mrs. Morris as a nod to 'he who should not be named'. It's EXTRA. But you are EXTRA EXTRA with a side of EXTRA so we are just glad you found something to keep you company while we are home. Your inherited love of tie-dye has stayed strong as the curtains in your new room will attest to. You still sleep in the ODDEST positions and always have something to complain about. Your heart breaks for everyone and thing. This year there have been multiple times your dad and I have had to calm you down as you've become enraged at people's disrespect for nature and how they keep destroying trees to build all the new sub-divisions that are taking over Crozet. There have been tears about it. Lots of tears. You do everything big. You get happy big and sad big and love big and sass big. You are not afraid to say what you think and you want this world to reflect what our family values; equality, kindness, justice, and love. 

Outside of the pandemic our world did a lot of waking up (and also taking some scary steps back) to things that matter a lot to us. The BLACK LIVES MATTER movement is something we speak of often and the way systemic racism affects us all and that to you, a white cis male, benefit from the most. Our conversations about race and equality have been open and frequent. So much so that there have been times that your sweet (read: wide open) self has proclaimed in the middle of Harris Teeter that Black women are the most underpaid, undervalued, and underestimated members of our society and that 'it has to change'. Understanding the diversity of humanity matters to you and you explain what Trans means better than most adults I know and you have no issue calling people out on the fact that genitalia does not indicate gender. 

It's hard for me to believe you are an actual, real life, big kid now. I am so proud to be your mom. There are many nights your dad and I collapse on the couch after you both have gone to bed and cry-laugh at what is ahead for us. Some days you dance on tables like a drunk frat boy and others you weep in the car for the trees. Raising a YOU is making ME a better human being.

DWR... I adore you and love you MORE,

Mom

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**Post Script** it is critical that for posterity this story is recorded for history. On one of the last days you had in-person school last March I picked you up from after-school where you ran out to tell me a joke:

You: Guess what?

Me: What?

You: Chicken butt. Guess why?

Me: Why?

You: CHICKEN THIGH (as you pulled an actual chicken thigh bone out of your pocket)

You did not have chicken for lunch that day. Regan did. He gave you his chicken bone. You kept it in your pocket until 4:30pm so you could tell me this joke. Well played, sir, well played.