I often wonder what Brendon will be like as an adult. I imagine his personality will carry through until then, but I wonder how his personality will affect relationships with people, his job, his home life, his diabetes management.

Brendon is one tenacious kid. He never backs down, he holds his ground even when he's wrong about something, and he rides me when he wants something until I give in from sheer exhaustion or until I blow up at him because sending him to his room or taking away his favorite thing doesn't work.

When he comes home from school, he immediately wants me to help him with his homework and will actually perform extra tasks to supplement his homework. For instance, he'll take home 15 spelling words that he needs to practice. Perhaps the teacher will say draw 5 pumpkins and pick 5 words to write in the inside of the pumpkins. He'll instead draw 15 pumpkins to fit all 15 words. He told me he wanted to write a book about patterns because they'll be learning about patterns today and wanted to show the class his book. He wrote a 20 page book with a different pattern on each page. He enjoys every subject he's taught and does extremely well in all of them. Last year, his kindergarten teacher said that if they offered advanced classes in that grade, he would've been in every one of them.

He's certainly passionate about the things that interest him. He loves baseball. He loves to watch it on TV and to play it as well. He'll ask everyone, including me, to play catch with him or to pitch so that he can hit. I have to stop him after a while because he could literally play for hours without taking a break.

When it comes to managing his diabetes, he's enthusiastic. He lectures me about giving him too much junk food (no, I don't, but he feels the need to remind me). He loves to test his blood sugars and we play a game to see who can guess what the number will be. He's the most competitive person I've ever met and will proceed to dance around if he guessed the closest number, and then will proceed to rub his win in my face. He doses himself, and if there is something I need to do like cut back his basal rate, or give him an extended bolus, he wants to observe so that he can learn how to do it.

As a toddler, no more than 2 years old, there were instances that gave me a peak into his future and how relationships with people would work for him:

He and I were at the supermarket. He was sitting in the front seat of the cart and as I was checking out the dairy case, a woman approached us and started to comment on what a beautiful boy he was. She got close to his face to start coochie-cooing him. He reached out and started to caress her cheek...you could see her melting under his touch. Then, to me it looked to be in slow motion, he reached back and slapped the daylights out of her. She stood ramrod straight with a big bright red spot on her cheek, her eyes wide, her face stunned. I was completely mortified and began to reprimand him, pretty badly considering he wasn't yet two. The woman smiled again and said "Oh don't worry, he's so cute he could slap me anytime." I thought to myself, "My god, this kid is going to get away with murder when he's older."

Another instance was when we were at a library story hour. Before the stories began, there would be play time. There was an area set up with paper and crayons and Brendon waddled over, layed on his stomach, and started coloring away. A little boy came over sat across from Brendon and was being pretty bratty...taking crayons away from kids, generally disturbing everyone. Brendon reached across and offered him a crayon, but the kid brushed his hand away, knocking the crayon out of Brendon's hand. Being the tenacious kid that he is, Brendon calmly, and slowly began to push the crayon toward the boy, inch by inch. Brendon would look at the crayon, push it, and then he'd look at the boy. He repeated this over and over until the crayon lay in front of the boy. Everyone, including the boy, watched this whole process....no one said a word....we were mesmerized. The boy then quietly picked up the crayon and began coloring, calmly, quietly. I thought "Damn, this kid might make a great police negotiator (or whatever those people are called) to subdue a crazed maniac holding up a bank."

A third instance happened when we were at a play group. Typically toddlers, when they see something they want, just go over and take it, no matter where it is or who is using it at the time. Brendon saw a toy he wanted, but a boy was already playing with it. Brendon tried to grab it, but the kid held on and wouldn't let go. Brendon walked away and came back with another toy. He held it out to the boy and then pointed to the toy the boy held. The boy's mother exclaimed "Brendon wants to make a trade! I've never seen a kid do that before!" And the boy traded toys with him. I thought "He's going to make a good business man...getting people to do what he wants."

I don't know how many times perfect strangers would walk up to him to comment on his cuteness and every time, Brendon would offer his hand to shake. Interestingly enough, every stranger would say "This kid is going to be President someday."

I know that whatever he does, it'll be done because he's passionate about it and it will make him happy and that he'll be just fine.