Life with Seth

Seth is a little bit of a character now -- an interesting combination of the best Hill and Star personality traits*, all expressed in 7-year-old ways. For instance, he gets stressed by new situations (like: new school) and responds by ritualizing features of those situations  (like: walking from the front door of the school back to his classroom, which, until soccer card bribes were applied, involved a carefully choreographed handoff with a teacher or the school's vice-principal). Or, at soccer practice, requiring a translator (Jon) be present on the field with him during practices and games.

Recently, Seth has been locked in battle with Jon over who will cut up his (Seth's) pancakes. Riding the third-child/accommodating-parents party train, Seth has until now been able to avoid the use of a knife -- first because knives were scary, but now, apparently, because he cannot cut his food exactly into squares. For instance, here are this morning's pancakes:

Cut up by Seth, and unacceptably trapezoidal, according to him. This provoked an hour-long tantrum (Seth), the throwing out of the pictured pancakes (Jon), and the grudging consumption of Rice Krispies (Seth) around 11 AM.

It amuses us that our children continue to have some of their biggest tantrums over math-related issues. For instance, here's Nora's tantrum over the number of meatballs on her plate:

And here is Nathan's tantrum about carrots:

One can only hope that this fixation with number and shape results in later-life mathematical success. We'll see.

*I will leave you all to figure out which of these are Star and which are Hill personality traits.