a little bit of Luke

Luke is the middle child and he probably gets slighted a bit-- at least on the blog. But he knows that he's my favorite. I adore everything about him. His face is handsomely delicious. He has been an easy-breezy kid from day one. He never complains about anything, goes with the flow, is always sharing whatever he has, etc. etc. I absolutely love this child.

A couple of weeks ago, his primary teacher gave him a foil-wrapped chocolate for being good in his class. He waited until he got home to eat it and went straight to the kitchen. I watched him pull out a sharp knife and cut the small chocolate into three parts. As his brothers came into the kitchen, he gave each of them the most minuscule piece of chocolate. I probably should have been more touched that he did something so sweet and kind-- but to tell you the truth, it was an everyday kind of Luke gesture. He is such a lovable boy and our family would be missing our HEART without Luke around.

Sometimes I wonder if he feels like his opinion doesn't matter. He's never talked a lot.. and when he does it's usually quiet (because he has super hearing powers :) Whenever I ask the boys what they want to eat/where they want to go, Luke usually waits for Ben to answer and then he will pick the same thing. This makes things easy for a parent because they never fight or disagree, but I worry that he doesn't get a say in things around here. So recently, I thought of a new game to play with them. I will give them an option and on the count of three all of my boys have to give me a "thumbs up" or a "thumbs down" about the suggestion. This way, Luke won't have a chance to see what the other boys want before he makes his decision. I thought it was a brilliant idea. I gave them a yes or no question, counted to three, and THIS is what Luke gave me.


Of course, I cracked up... because, really, I should have known better. Since then, Aaron and I have used the sideways thumb sign several times when the other asks a question. Looks like Luke has set a new trend in our house. If it's not a life or death situation, it doesn't really matter.

When it comes to homeschooling Luke, I throw my hands up in the air. Ben is the biggest teacher's pet you'll ever see. He LOVES worksheets, grading, stickers, drills, tests, etc. Luke, on the other hand, could care less about anything that documents your progress. Surprise, surprise! He is actually much smarter than Ben in most areas. He doesn't say much, but he knows what's going on in the world around him. I never taught him his alphabet or the letter sounds. He just picked up reading without any official lessons. Math comes easy for him. A few months ago, while driving in the car, I asked him if he knew what 8X8 was. He responded, "You mean, 8 squared?" Not only did he know what a square root was, but he had memorized all of them, all on his own. He really is a smarty-pants, but getting him to complete a worksheet is like pulling teeth. He doesn't see the point in writing out his work on paper. He thinks it's boring and pointless. Nevertheless, I try to get him to do it every once in a while. Yesterday, I corrected a worksheet that he took an hour to complete. Then we had this conversation.

Me: Luke, I know you know the answer to this problem.
Luke: I do.
Me: Then why did you write zero?
Luke: Because the answer is zero.
Me: 12 divided by 4 is not zero.
Luke: I know.
Me: Then why did you write that?
Luke: Because that's the answer. Read the question.
Me: Julia, Sam, Kyle and Jane made a dozen cupcakes. They shared the cupcakes equally. How many cookies did they each eat?
Luke: See. The answer is zero. Worksheets are so dumb, Mom.