The Burkett Bundle: Kyran

Shopping for Christmas and birthday presents for Karyssa and Gemma is very easy. Shopping for Kyran is a lot harder. Likewise, for some reason, beginning to write about Kyran is harder than it was for the girls.

It's not that I don't know him as well, and I certainly love him the same amount, but he is different.

He is truly different than anyone I've ever met.

As far as presents go, he gave up playing with toys at four years old, as soon as he discovered the Wii and learned to read. He will occasionally play dolls with Karyssa so that she'll play on the Wii with him, but he doesn't get much enjoyment out of toys.

He is a straight A student, in AAP classes, who doesn't have to work very hard to maintain his grades. He does have to pay attention during tests and not skip questions, which is the only time he gets anything wrong. If he hears something or reads something, he generally remembers it. He does tend to space out when things aren't interesting to him, so we're working on that.

He is possibly the most sensitive person I've ever met. I never believed in the empath personality type until him, and I've learned a lot about what it truly means to be an empath through listening to him. Most of what I know of the personality type is those who post about the struggles they have because they are an empath. What I've learned from Kyran is that if they truly were an empath, they would never post about it because they would know how it would make others feel when they did.

Kyran: "She was mean to me. She wouldn't let me play with her and my other friends."
Me: "Did you say anything to her about it?"
Kyran: "No, I didn't want to hurt her feelings."

That was in the first grade, but he still has that mentality. He just sort of knows how other people will be affected by things, and seems to pick up on feelings somehow. I can't count the number of times someone has told me that Kyran said just the right thing, or gave them a hug or a card right when they needed it.

That same gift can be used against his sisters, though. Especially Karyssa. He always knows just what to say or do to drive her crazy. It's usually little things that no one else notices, but we have learned to pick up on it, and we're working on that as well.

Kyran loves anything Mario, and spends as much time as we let him playing video games. (Recently he has been very into a game on his laptop that he can play against his schoolmates.) He has "friends" on Mario Kart that he does battles with, and he also likes to see if he can re-create their Miis. He is actually pretty good at that, too.

Even more than playing the Wii, Kyran's true passion is theatre. He was a hun and a villager in Mulan Jr. this weekend and will be a narrator in Aladdin Jr. in April. This fall, he was Harry Finfer in Miracle on 34th Street. This was his first mainstage production (with mostly adults), and he loved it! He learned so much by watching the older actors and actresses, and loved having a speaking part and being on stage so much. Although he is only one year younger than some of the other kids, he was at least a head shorter than all of them. Where this isn't a great thing in children's theatre when the children are supposed to be adults, it bodes well for him with adults when he can play much younger than he is (his character in Miracle was 6 years old).

His audition for Miracle blew me away, and even though he was getting over a cold when he auditioned for Aladdin, he still did a great job. I love hearing him sing, and have written alternate lyrics to One Direction's "That's What Makes You Beautiful" for him to sing for an event I'm planning.

He likes watching sports with us, but never really had an interest in playing until this year when he started playing kickball at recess. He loves it and even had a great friend, Garrett, take him aside a couple of days a week to help him get better. This has been great for his self-confidence and shows me how far he has come with his physical therapy.

Speaking of PT, we were very sad when his physical therapist of five years left for another job, but his new one is fantastic too. I know the relationship will be different (Ms. Danielle loved him so much!), but Ms. Ashley challenges him and is continuing the excellent progress that we saw before.

This kid just never gives up on anything or anyone. We love him so much!