Confessions of a Seven Year Old

If ever a child suffered from "middle child" syndrome - Ian is the one! He is the 3rd of four and for 5 long years he was the baby of the family. Now he is the middle boy. It's a tough place to be. Megan is kind of a middle child too, but being the only girl sets her apart in other ways. I never stop hearing about how she hates being drug along to all the "fun boy stuff" that our family does, but that's a subject of another post entirely! I never know what makes this kid tick. I can never tell if he wants to do something because he's just following in his big brother's footsteps or if he geniunely wants to do it himself. I want him to have his own idenity and I think we are both still trying to discover what his true passions are. He also stuggles with being seven. He has a brother who is 13 and a brother who is 2. Most times he wants to have the same priveleges as Taylor, but then we'll find him on the couch cuddled up with Brayden watching Backyardigans. He wants to be a "big boy" and a "baby" all at the same time.

Tonight we were rummaging through our "snow gear" to see if we had enough gloves, pants, boots, etc. for the whole family to go sledding on Monday morning and pretty much the only thing I needed was gloves for Ian. So, after dinner I took him to the store to get some gloves (thankfully Big 5 still has plenty of snow gear and it's all on sale!) On the way, this is how our conversation went:

Ian: Mom, how it was possible for the Holy Ghost to help 1000 different people all at the same time?
Me: It's possible because the Holy Ghost doesn't have a body like we do, so it's easier for him to be in many places at once. Are you excited to be baptized this summer and get the Holy Ghost?
Ian: Not really, I'm kinda scared.
Me: Why are you scared? What part of it is scary?
Ian: I'm afraid of getting the Holy Ghost because I'm not sure I can always be good. I lie a lot.

That is definately no lie! This kid is a compulsive liar - about the silliest things too. He's earned a bad rep for lying in the family and that makes it even worse, because when he is telling the truth, no one believes him the first time around. Hopefully we can get that under control before his baptism in August. Hopefully we can slove his "identity crisis" sometime soon. I don't want him to grow up with "middle child" syndrome! He's such a cute, funny and clever kid. He's had a hard day today, but we still love him anyway!