Wow! Atlas is 9! And for the first time since I've been doing birthday blog posts, I am 8 months behind in writing this... So it's going to be interesting to try to remember back to when Atlas had just turned 9. There's been a lot of experiences and growth in the last 8 months. It's going to be tough to remember if it all happened before or after he turned 9. Some of this might end up being super similar to a 10 year old birthday post. I will keep it shorter than previous birthday blog posts because of this fact and try to focus on only what I am pretty positive was true by the end of February 2025. One thing I can tell you about right now is I wrote the first line. "Wow, Atlas is 9!" back in February. Sitting here in November I do feel like his age feels right and I'm not going to be surprised to call him a 10 year old in 4 months. For his last birthday post I said that I kept calling him 7 for a while when he was already 8 because it still sounded surreal for him to be that old. Maybe it's because I've seen a lot of maturing this year or maybe I just finally came around to the fact that his not one of the little kids around the park anymore. He's middle of the pack now!
Atlas has been levitating while playing video games since he was 4. Haha! He can't resist the urge to jump up and down while playing video games. Hey, it keeps him moving and fit because he plays a lot of video games!! ;) He still wanting to be a video game maker of some kind and getting to play video games is still a the biggest motivator for Atlas to finish school. He is soooo logical when it comes to school. As soon as he understands a math rule he is set and barely gets anything wrong unless he gets distracted. Grammar is fine too because it's focused on rules. As soon as he has to do creative writing it's like I am purposefully trying to make school terrible for him! There are not exact rules to follow and he can get super stumped. We're working on it! But I also know that not every kid has to like writing or be super good at it. I will be surprised if he's chosen vocation turns out to be writing focused. Although he's not a writer at this point, he is a super reader!! If I don't have anything new for him to read at bedtime that he's interested in he's so disappointed! Graphic Novels are his favorite. He started reading Manga this year which I love! I'll go over more of that in the favorite books section.
Super Friday was good for the first semester and he enjoyed his classes but for the second semester when he took Chess, Rubik's Cube and Spanish it didn't pan out. He stopped wanting to go all together. I'm not sure exactly the reason other than he did complain of his stomach feeling uncomfortable most mornings we needed to leave for SF. I know this is due to anxiety because I had the same problem growing up. Not sure why it took until the second semester to come up. Maybe because something in those classes was stressing him. He told me in Rubik's cube if he wasn't getting the algorithm he wasn't really helped and fell behind and in chess they weren't really learning any strategy or moves to try just playing each other each week. I never heard anything negative about Spanish though. He had the same teacher for Rubik's cube and Chess so I wonder if the teacher for those classes was just having trouble with the student load and Atlas was getting lost in the mix. Any way with about 6 weeks left. (Like halfway) He said he wanted to stop going. My mom, who was helping pay for tuition said she was fine if he wanted to stop. I decided not to force it and let him stop going. He didn't seem to be learning much and he was miserable going. At least this reaffirms to me homeschooling is definitely the way Atlas will learn best!! We also started Brains & Brawn club around the time he decided he was ready to stop Super Friday and he loves it so much more than he ever liked Super Friday. WIN!
This is where I'm not going to remember how he was acting with his siblings back in February. I will say he really does love his siblings and being with them. The only distinct difference from my last blog post that I know of that happened was Atlas and Alexandria figured out how to play video games together and not fight. It still happens from time to time but more often than not their enjoying the time together instead of ending up screaming. Atlas still needs to work on some sportsmanship while playing with his siblings, but overall they have a great time together!
Atlas continues to have a stellar friend group! His birthday hang out in February was such a fun time!! He asked for body bumpers for his birthday and I got a couple of extra sets and we had a blast doing a body bumper tournament! They played a bunch of video games too. This was also the last time we all got to hang out at our house with our friends, the Wilsons, before they moved away. It was a special day! We miss them, but we are happy they are doing so well in their new town and we enjoy keeping up by sending each other pictures and writing letters. Atlas has a big group of boys around his age he hangs out with at park day, some of which include, Elliott, Calvin, Kyden, AJ, Amari, Gabriel and Caleb. (he's made even more friends this year but these are the ones I remember most from last year) I am a fan of all of these boys and so glad they also come to Brains & Brawn to play games with us. I'm super grateful for such good homeschool friends!
Sam and Atlas continue to have many similarities! Ever since we started our Brains & Brawn club event Atlas has showed greater interest in watching sports with Sam. He's definitely not to Sam's level yet, but the spark has been kindled. Some of Atlas's anxious feeling and his response to it remind me a bit of Sam as well. I don't remember if this started happening before or after Atlas turned 9, but sometimes at night Atlas's brain won't let him relax and the only one that can help him calm down is Sam. I seem to only make it worse! It's a sweet connection, but I do wish they didn't have to deal with that strong night time anxiety. I'm glad they have each other!!
Weight
Birth: 8lbs 7oz
1 Year Old: 22 lbs
2 Years Old: 27 lbs
3 Years Old: 32 lbs
4 Years Old: 35 1/2 lbs
5 Years Old: 37 3/4 lbs
6 Years Old: 42 lbs
7 Years Old: 47 lbs
8 Years Old: 48 lbs
9 Years Old: 54 lbs
Atlas is still a lightweight. He's getting a bit better about his pickiness, but still not great. He finally has a bit of motivation to build some muscle since we play sports every week now, so he is understanding the need to eat protein more. We're still working on better eating habits!
Height
Birth: 21 1/2"
1 Year Old: 29"
2 Years Old: 33"
3 Years Old: 36"
4 Years Old: 3' 2.5" (38.5")
5 Years Old: 3' 6.25"
6 Years Old: 3' 8.75"
7 Years Old: 3’ 10”
8 Years Old: 4’ 1/2”
9 Years Old: 4' 2"
Atlas is still on the shorter side as well. I don't have much else to say about it other than his height doesn't seem to bother him! So I'm glad he doesn't put any of his value into his height.
A Year in Pictures: Firsts & Favorite Moments
 | ||
March 2024 - Upgraded bike! 
|
 | ||
June 2024 - Book it reading reward
|
 |
| July 2024 - visiting the Riedels! |
 | ||
August 2024 - Tejas Trip!
|
 |
| September 2024 - Laser tag! |
 |
September 2024 - Reward for finishing a novel |
 |
| December 2025 - Helping finish a 5000 piece puzzle |
 |
| December 2025 - Finishing Explode the Code |
 |
| January 2025 - Sweater arm gorilla |
 |
| January 2025 - First requested hairstyle |
 |
| January 2025 - Mounted Patrol Barn field trip |
 |
| January 2025 - Making a real snowman! |
 |
| February 2025 - Eating the apple to the very core! |
February 2025 - Great Wolf Lodge
Favorites
Oof! I think the favorites section going to be the hardest part to remember. I usually ask their favorites when I do this section. If I ask him now it's going more similar to 10 years old than 9. For his favorite foods, at least this picture reminds me that he was already in love with wings!!! I started making baked wings last year and it has become his favorite meal that I make! He also loves burgers, especially ones that Sam grills. His favorite restaurant is Hacienda Palomas and fast food is Canes or Crust.
Again my picture is helping me with favorite toys here! He asked for a Lego for his birthday and He really did enjoy building it. I'm not sure it's his favorite thing though. He built one of the arms backwards and he was definitely not interested in trying to rebuild it. Now that Kirby stuffy next to him he does love and it sleeps next to him each night. Otherwise he enjoys his door basketball hoop we got him for Christmas and his monster trucks too when he remembers them.
Atlas is still the biggest video game player in our family! He has Sam beat just because Sam has to work all day. ;) Gosh, I'm trying to remember his favs from last year. He definitely played a lot of Super Mario 3D All Stars last year and was very proud to get all 120 stars in Mario 64 which is the game in the picture above. He also enjoyed Super Mario RPG for the switch. I love it because it was my favorite video game around his age. He also enjoyed his WarioWare games Get it together and Move it and found a WarioWare game he liked on the Advance virtual system. Sonic, Mario and Kirby games are all favorite franchises. He'll always go back and play what the golf when they release new content. Rayman Legends comes back around a lot too. He got really into My Hero: One's Justice 2 after he got it for Christmas! It also goes along with the books he's been reading recently! I'll go more into that shortly. He really honed his skills in Mario Tennis to be able to beat Sam from time to time. We still work on sportsmanship with playing competitively with family but there is improvement! Oh I almost forgot about Untitled Goose Game! He did even did all the extra tasks after you finish the game. He asks all the time if that developer will release another game like it.
Atlas's favorite movies or TV hasn't changed. He did absolutely love Sonic 3 when it . He also loves the other Sonic movies and Mario movie of course. Definitely not surprising that he favorite movies are related to video games. He still loves Bluey too! Oh and he enjoys watching America's Got Talent and Kaiju #8 with me when the older 3 get to stay up.
Atlas is a super reader!! He doesn't usually choose to read during the day at all, unless it's required for school. BUT he is always reading at night. He will read until after 11pm most nights. So he gets a lot of reading in! He went through all of the Branches series and moved on to bigger things! Press Start stayed his favorite of those books. He completed his first novel, Trapped in a Video Game and he liked it but it wasn't his favorite. His favorite things to read are manga or graphic novels. I'm a big manga fan so I LOVE that he's enjoying some of the same manga I do! He has read everything in the My Hero Academia and Kaiju #8 series to current. He finished the Promised Neverland series twice. (one of my favs!!) He read some One Piece but definitely did NOT finish. It's so long. He finished the Bad Guys series twice as well and says Aaron Blabey is his favorite author.
Atlas is equal parts relaxed and active when it comes to favorite activities. Of course, he loves videos games and enjoys playing chess, but he will willingly go outside to play almost anytime. He enjoys hitting a whiffle ball in the backyard with a bat and throwing dodgeballs around in the trampoline. He likes to walk around the park and talk to his friends about video games too. He still loves swimming, swinging and jumping on the trampoline as well! He LOVES most of the games we play at Brains & Brawn. His top 3 are Dodgeball, Sharks and Minnows and Bricket Ball. He will definitely let me know when he didn't like a game! Haha!
When Piper was an infant we watched a video on indoor water parks (like Great Wolf Lodge and Kalahari) and Atlas was enthralled. Immediately he asked when we could go! I told him not for a while and probably not until Piper was really good at walking. That was very disappointing to him at the time. To the point that he expressed distaste for having a baby sister right then. He did realize having Piper was more important than going to an indoor water park as soon as he would like. So time went on and he only asked about it again once or twice in the whole 2 1/2 years since the discussion and then the day finally came! Thanks to awesome discount homeschooling booking codes and my parents gifting us the trip as a Christmas present, we finally made it to Great Wolf Lodge right before Atlas turned 9! It is definitely one of Atlas’s favorite places now!! He loved it all. I would say it didn’t quite knock Tejas out of the top spot, but it came close. He loves all the same places we did last year, although he is very concerned with germs since he hates getting sick. So his favorite places are ones that are outside or that he feels are appropriately cleaned. Some of which include the park(especially the new elementary school playgrounds & MS ninja parks we started going to right after his 9th birthday), the fields, the library, Open Gym, Tejas, the beach, friends’ houses, Big Rivers, Cidercade, restaurants, and home!
Finish
Atlas has really gained some athletic confidence this past year! Excelling at video games was the first thing Atlas felt really confident in and I loved that for him! He definitely still finds confidence in video games, but I was so happy to see him put himself out there with athletics and play new games at Brains & Brawn club and continue to improve each week. Right after his 9th birthday, we went to a ninja inspired obstacle course at a local middle school to try it out and he loved it!! He kept trying to beat his own time and improve on each obstacle while we were there. We're still working on him not getting too upset when he doesn't get it after several failed attempts, but even if he's upset and tired he doesn't give up! I love to see his determination to conquer these obstacles and his joy and pride when he finally does!! For example, in the picture above, he tried multiple times to get the technique right on these spinning wheels and when he did get it down, it became his favorite obstacle of that course. He asks when the next time we can go to a ninja park is all the time. :D He's still my chill, loveable, goofball and is developing some pretty fun comedic timing and making me truly laugh out loud. I love this age when there starts to be more moments when I can put my mom mode in the backseat for a bit and we can grow more in our friendship. I consider it such a privilege to have a front seat to watch him grow into the man God has created him to be.
Happy 9th Birthday Atlas! We love you so much!
Romans 5:1-4
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope
