Last week, Simon celebrated his ninth birthday!
Since he was born with tetralogy of Fallot and went through heart surgery and treatments as a baby, we have always said that this guy has the most special heart, and that is still true today. He loves big, he loves loud, and he loves pretty much everybody.
Especially dogs.
He wrote a persuasive essay at school last year outlining his reasons to believe that everyone should have at least one shih tzu. (Don’t worry, Remy was not offended.)
Simon is affectionate and funny and oh-so-sincere. He is also incredibly comfortable in his own skin. He is strong and well balanced, friendly and well liked (by kids, grownups, animals… everybody!), and intelligent, too. It is fun to see how easily he picks up new things. He started playing roller hockey and has learned to be a strong skater and a smart player really quickly. He started to learn to play drums just last year, and he is now practicing on drums, keyboard, bass, and vocals for their upcoming School of Rock show. I know I’m biased, but I think it’s a fact: no one is brighter.
It can also be fun to hear Simon talk for ages about a topic of interest to him, because – believe me – he will learn every possibly thing that there is to know about the things he’s interested in. If you want to hear all about African wild dogs or Overwatch or Philly sports stats (where does he even learn those?!?), well… please come to our house and let him talk to you instead of us for a short while. That’s a real gift to all of us.
At our conference with Simon’s teacher this year, Mrs. Patterson said that he gets into some scrapes because, of course, “he’s a silly little boy,” like most little boys are. This made us laugh because we can imagine exactly what she means – he has a bit of trouble concentrating sometimes, goes along with a noisy crowd, and can get carried away. But it also makes us remember what his kindergarten teacher said when he would get distracted in her class – you can’t catch him in bad behavior by asking him a question about the current lesson, because he knows all of the answers even if he’s only half listening. This kid can be a handful, sure, but mostly he is smart, social, and full of the very best intentions.
There is no one who wants harder than Simon for everyone to be happy and for everything to be great. Luckily, he has some really great power to make it so.
Simon, this world does not deserve the likes of your love. May your heart remain incredibly strong in every way.
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