This kid...

... belted out a Natalie Grant song playing on K-Love today, word for word, and it might have been the sweetest thing I've ever heard.

Speaking of K-Love, he has a boy named Caleb in his Cubbies class at church, and every Wednesday night on our way out the door, he says to me, "Ca-wub is in my class Mom. His name is Ca-wub, not K-Love. You know that, right, Mom? You know, he's the boy, and not the radio??". Every Wednesday night, without fail.

That made me remember the time, a few months ago, when I caught him matter-of-factly rambling to himself in the van: "I.... don't like loud cars. I.... don't like driving. I... don't like people. I... don't like positive, encouraging K-Love".

I had his first Pre-K conference with his teachers this morning, and came out appreciating him in a whole new way. He's the middle kid at home, always trying his best to fit in with whomever will include him. At preschool, he's a four year old leader, everyone's friend, a girl chaser, smiley, expressive, smart guy, with his very own identity. He's not compared to anyone else. He's just Chase. And he's a teacher's dream come true.

Who knew?

I love that each of my kids has their very own personality. Strengths and weaknesses. Today I realized that in the busyness of the season (of the year, and in this season of my life), I've focused a lot on what each child needs, instead of who they are. Does that make sense?

So tonight, instead of keeping track of how much food was left on his supper plate...

I listened to him giggle while he told jokes to his big brothers in between bites.

I noticed that he calls his sister "Girl" way more than he calls her "Tess". It's an affectionate term, and he used it a lot while he played trains with her under the kitchen table while I cleared the supper dishes.

He fell three times in a row running through the house, bonking elbows and knees. He asked Trey to wrestle him probably four times after supper. He didn't cry any of those times.

He joined Jack, Trey and two neighbor boys in scooter races (on their bottoms!) down the driveway tonight. When he saw that the youngest friend was sad because he hadn't won yet, he purposely slowed down and let him beat him from then on.

He begged to read Joshua, our current nightly reading in the Bible. I'd skip many a night if it wasn't for his persistence.

Ends up he didn't finish his supper tonight. He got dessert anyway. I'm probably going to pay for that, but it just felt like the right thing to do...