What Joshua is like...

At 6.5yrs old, Joshua is:
1)  really into Lego Ninjago these days.  He can spend hours pouring over his Lego catalog, studying what each set contains--the figures, the weapons they use, how much they cost, how many more stars he needs to earn in order to buy one.  He also creates his own sets, using cannabalized Lego parts to create new vehicles, which he boxes up into "new sets."
2) he is still passionate about cars, but a little less than he was 6 months ago.  He is a car spotter.  Doesn't like to ride cars and know how cars works.  Just likes identifying them.  He'll spot a car a block away, and tell me the make and model. "That's a Dodge Charger dad"  or, "Oo, that's the 4th BMW M6 I've seen."  We went to the Boston Auto Show in January, and he wanted to go around and look at the cars, check out their exhaust pipes, and then he was done.
3) he loves to learn. We were planning a trip out to Vermont, but he said he didn't want to miss the last day of school.  He's flourishing in math, doing addition and subtraction of multiple 2 digit numbers.  His teacher encourages him to write, write, write and not worry about spelling. So his spelling is atrocious, but stories are great.  He spontaneously speaks Mandarin every once in a while, and actually does know how to read more Chinese characters than I do.  Amazing.
4) he loves to please us.  Sometimes out of the blue, he'll say, "I don't like video games, just natural games" because he knows we don't like him to spend a lot of time on the computer or his iPad.
5) he's almost learned how to swim.  At the YMCA, he's down to just one floatation pad.  Has made a lot of progress this year.  He's been playing soccer afterschool on Wednesdays, and also plays in a league on Saturdays.  I saw him dribble and score a goal a couple of weeks ago, which was incredible to watch.  He has baseball afterschool on Tuesday, which he doesn't like so much.  He says it's hard.
6) his best friends are still us:  Mommy, me and Samuel.
7) no longer gets carsick in the car or airplane.  Thank goodness.
8) is a good walker.  Afterschool, he'll walk a mile home with Carmen, picking up Samuel along the way.
9) doesn't bike yet without training wheels--sorts of leans over on one side still.  Getting better with the scooter, especially after seeing Samuel do it.
10) is still a sensitive guy.  Can get hurt by words, like when Samuel told him that he hates his legos.  But we've been talking to him about where he can put mean words that people say--he makes a trashcan with his hand, and pretends to put the words there.  It's funny watching him actually do that.
11)  He prays every single night:  "Thank you God for no scary dreams last night, and I hope I don't have any scary dreams tonight!"
12)  Dry overnight now.  Thank God almighty!  He was getting really heavy to carry to the bathroom every night.