Luke on Luke: Nine

Luke at nine is doing fine!  Luke's current passion is science.  He reads the Steve Spangler Science experiment idea books cover-to-cover on a regular basis and wants to do every single experiment within the covers.  Of the sciences, space is still his very favorite and he'd still love to be an astronaut one day, with working for NASA being second if that doesn't pan out.  I'm hoping his love for the sciences will encourage him to keep working hard in math, which is his least favorite subject right now.  The need for speed doing math facts is killing his opinion of math!  Luke is still an avid reader, reading being his great solace, and his favorite author this year is Rick Riordan, especially the Percy Jackson books.  We also often find him laughing at the antics of Calvin and Hobbes.  Luke is clever and curious and always looking for new information and interesting factoids.  We often hear the phrase, "Did you know...?" coming from his mouth.  Over the year, Luke has opted for less-traditional sports, enjoying activities that allow him to be as much of a monkey as possible: rock climbing, gymnastics and ninja-warrioring.  He is usually sporting blisters on the palms of his hands.  Luke loves to make people laugh with his goofiness, but he's still working on when it is appropriate to be silly and when it's not.  We especially see the silliness rise when things get hard and he's looking for a distraction.  Luke has matured a lot over the year.  He has always had a sensitivity to other people's sadness and discomfort, but this year he has really started to reach out and help those who he sees in distress.  It is really heartwarming.  He is especially cautious of taking care of Tommy.  We are seeing longer stretches where he is skillfully taking control of those big emotions of his and finding good ways to channel his frustrations.  He has worked a lot this year on his "toolkit" of calming techniques.  It makes me really proud to see him pause, take a deep breath and instead of yelling, walk away or calmly respond.  One recent development at the end of his eighth year was to remove gluten from his diet, which seems to have helped a lot.  Since removing it, we have had two times where we've allowed him a special gluten treat, and both days we saw him struggle to calm down quickly.  He is an incredible kid and I learn so much about life and the world from being his mom!  We learned this year that his name means "light-bringing," and that is very much the definition of our Luke. 

How old are you?  "Nine."
What makes you happy?  "Going to Disneyland, talking with Mommy, and reading...unless it's a sad book."
What are your favorite things to eat?  "Noodles, Panda Express and barbecue."
What is your least favorite thing to eat?  "Broccoli and brussels sprouts."
What are your favorite things to do?  "Ride big roller coasters, kayak by myself, play with my friends."
What is your favorite TV show?  "Wild Kratts."
What are you really good at?   "Hanging from things, cello."
What is your favorite movie?  "Harry Potter 4: The Goblet of Fire."
What is your favorite animal?  "Sifaka lemur."
What is your favorite color?  "Purple."
What is your favorite song?  "Books of the Old Testament."
Who are your best friends?  "Cooper East, Andrey Ishchenko and Connor Monigat-Kelly."
What do you and Mom do together that you love?  "Read and snuggle."
What do you and Dad do together that you love?  "Build stuff."
What is your favorite sport?  "Parkour."
What is your favorite book?  "Land of Stories: The Enchantress Returns."
Where is your favorite place to go?  "The {Conlin} Cabin."
What makes you feel scared?  "Being alone and really tall heights."
What do you want to be when you grow up?  "An astronaut or an astronomer."
What words would you use to describe yourself? "Happy, nice and friendly."
What is the most exciting thing you got to do this year? "My Nana/Papa trip to San Diego!"
What do you want to tell the future you? "Don't play your phone a lot." (good advice!)