My Enoch-Such a Great Kid!

This is my Enoch AKA Mr. Enoch, Enie (his cousin Olivia used to call him that when she was little and he loved it), the KING of Deduction and Enoch man. We pretty much just call him Enoch though most of the time. We aren't really big on nicknames for some reason at our house. My boy is handsome, introspective, intelligent, fun, silly, a tease, helpful, and deductive. He is also naughty and sneaky sometimes :) We LOVE our Enoch. We just couldn't get by without him. Every day I am amazed at what a smart kid he is. He soaks up everything around him good and bad and then filters out the bad thank heavens. I have to be VERY careful what he is around because he will pick it up in a moment without even understanding it. Needless to say we don't watch a lot of movies or cartoons at our house. We stick with the basics: Charlie and Lola, Veggie Tales, Signing Time, and certain movies. Unfortunately one of his favorites-"I Love Lucy" is starting to have a negative influence. He is now old enough to pick up on more and Ezra is facinated with smoking now-How did we miss that one :(

Anyway, back to Enoch. He is big into family tradition and rules. It is important to him to find ways and ideas to support our family culture and mores. For instance, one of the very important parts of our family is education. Everything is a learning opportunity for us. When we sing, dance, play, read and do activities we are always learning. Enoch knows this, not because we have told him, but because it has been a part of his life in our family since birth. When we first told him we were moving to New Zealand his first question was "Will I get to learn a new language?" . Then once we got here his focus was what can we do that will be new and unique to this culture. What can we do that will teach us something. He also uses this to his advatage as leverage for things. Mom, can we go to the museum so we can learn more about the colossal squid? Mom can we try this candy, because it's a kind we have never had before? Mom, that's a new kind of ice cream. I don't think they have that in the United States. We should try it. Healthy eating is another part of our family and Enoch is very good at this all by himself. When he was 4 at my brother's wedding he was off at another table visiting with some family members. My brother-in-law later told me that Enoch was refusing wedding cake because there was too much sugar and calories in it :) He has a lot of self-control and cares about his body and his health. The other day he told me he wasn't going to have any sugar for a while because he was concerned about cavitys.

Enoch is a little OCD about germs. He is working hard to NOT wash his hands too much and to not cry and get upset when another child doesn't wash their hands. He has the idea in his head that his cousin Sammy and his brother Ezra need to be watched VERY closely when they go to the bathroom because "they never wash their hands". He feels it is his duty to be the germ police, but he is working on it so that he doesn't grow up to be an unhappy, but clean adult :)