Eva is the big time reader in our family. She has been reading all the Harry Potter books for years and she was resistant to reading the Percy Jackson series. Then we went to see The Lightning Thief The Musical almost a year ago. Once she saw the musical she feel in love with the character of Annabeth. Then she dove head first into Rick Riordan’s world of Greek and Roman demigods.
I had read the Percy Jackson series and started the second series with all new characters as well as those we’ve come to know and love. Once that was finished we started the third series called The Trials of Apollo and this is where Rick really threw us and emotional knuckle-ball. I had been listening to the 3rd book through Audible as Eva read the book. I was ahead of Eva and I learned that a major character dies. I had to prepare myself for when Eva read that chapter. She read the chapter this morning and stopped reading the book. She had to leave it alone for a while because she was quite sad about the fate of the character. When we discussed it together she has decided that this series doesn’t count and that the character is happy and alive. If only.
I have noticed that he has been starting to mature in some ways and is as playful and immature as ever in others. For instance, the photo above. Eva cleared everything off her bed to change the sheets and Andrew hid in the stuffed animals E.T. style to scare her. It worked.
Then we come to Karate. He’s still got a big old wiggle in his step all through class but when he learned that he may be in danger of not progressing to the next belt he began to really dig in and try very hard to keep his focus in the classes. His instructors have been fantastic and have helped him remember that focus and to help him when he starts to slack on technique. He’s showing his maturity in that he recognizes that he’s got to work hard to continue to achieve in this program.
As all of this is happening Andrew has decided that he will be going by Andy from now on. He likes how it sounds and wants that to be what he is called. This is going to take some getting used to for everyone. He’s been Andrew for eight years and I know I’m going to be catching myself over and over again. It’ll take some time and I hope that he’s going to have patience with us. I did tell his Karate teacher but I said not to call him Andy until Andy tells him that is what he wants to be called. He’s gotta speak up for himself in this.
