Sunday, June 1, 2014

Ryan: 4 years, 8 months

Our curious, talkative, wild-and-crazy boy is keeping us on our toes! From his funny questions to his declarations that "I know everything about...(planets, dinosaurs, animals, farms, bugs, etc.)," and then attempts to prove it, we know it'll never be quiet with him around. This picture is from Kingdom Kids where he loves it when I am the "teacher". He gets to do all sorts of things like play playdoh, color, do crafts, listen to stories, sing songs, have animal crackers, and run around with 20 other 3-4 year olds!
He has been using his imagination a lot lately, coming up with storylines and roles for everyone to play, whether it's exploring space in the rocketship at Kinderspeeland park, creating a band out of buckets and spoons, or playing "castle" at home (he is the knight, I am the princess, Cohen is the baby king, and either Daddy or Nika is the dragon, depending on who is a more willing participant), there's always something going on.

Ryan still likes coloring and was pretty excited about a box of 64 crayons I brought home one day (I was getting tired of hunting for the tiny stub of red and peach). He's branching out from the usual people, sky, flowers drawings to include things like an Angry Birds/piggy setup. His favorite things to draw with chalk are always a big pirate ship and a mermaid (with my help). He also begs to do "experiments" all the time, so we have a few science experiment books for kids and lots of things pinned on Pinterest. Anything involving baking soda and vinegar is usually a hit.

One funny story from this month was an afternoon I attempted to take a nap after the boys were down for their's. I vaguely heard movement in the kitchen, but ignored it for a while. After a good hour, I discovered a very purple-sticky face Ryan washing his hands in the sink. After much prompting, he kept lying and making up stories about what he was doing. I finally sent him to his room for not telling the truth and lo-and-behold he fell asleep. Nika's constant whining under his dresser clued me in to the box of mini Fruit Roll-ups and scissors stashed there. That along with purple mess on his sheets and face gave me the ammo to finally get him to fess up that he'd snuck upstairs, gotten the new box of treats, opened 3 of them with an adult scissors, and ate them in his bed. He was completely amazed at how I knew. Moms are geniuses, I tell you.

Another one of Ryan's favorite things about Spring is that the bugs are back. Yay! : /  We let him bring his net and bug box on a walk around the hospital pond and Puddle Jumper trail and he was totally in his element, acting like Wild Kratt. This is where he is most happy:




Here's our happy, silly, ticklish, ready-to-wrestle Ryan!

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