5 years old

If you've seen Ryan in the past few weeks, you already know that he's 5 because that is pretty much the first thing that he tells everybody he meets these days.  He is 5, and proud of it!

Mason and I have joked since before we had kids that I would raise them until they turned 5, and then I would pass them over to him.  It is so true that younger ones are really my comfort zone, and I am seeing already that I have a harder time relating to Ryan these days.  This year, he has really begun to spread his wings, and he's not always the strictly obedient little boy that I once knew.  I'm amazed by the sheer amount of energy that he has and his sudden inability to control it.  And the silliness can be, well, excessively silly at times.  But he will always be my baby and there are so many things that I love about his 5-year-old self.

(And since we've had a particularly rough couple of days stuck at home with various boys being rather sick, I think writing these things out will be a helpful reminder to me too!)

 

Ryan loves to love, and he loves to be loved.   He can't stand it if he thinks that Mason or I are angry with him.  He has definitely inherited his mother's people pleaser gene.  He gives the best hugs. Recently, I asked him if he would always hug me, even when he grew up and was too cool for his Mommy.  So now, every couple of days, he randomly comes over to me, gives me a hug, and says, "I will always hug you, Mommy."  Love it.

Apparently, though, there is someone he loves more than me.  The other day, he turned to me and said, "Guess who I like best in this family?"  I hesitantly answered, "Who?" and he said, "Daddy.  But I still like you a lot.  I just love Daddy more."  Thanks, buddy.  He also said that he loves Jesus as much as the tallest tree, so I'm okay with his hierarchy :)

The real favorite in the family, however, would probably have to be Ethan.  Ryan adores him.  I guess he got over the whole little sister thing, because he cannot get enough of his baby brother... so much so that I sometimes have to force him to stop playing with Ethan because Ethan gets tired of all the attention.  For the most part, though, Ethan loves it, and I am thrilled that these two already have such a special bond.   

 

 Ryan and Kaeden have hit a rough patch lately, but I'm hoping a summer of forced time together will help.  It's probably at least as likely to drive us all crazy, but it can't hurt to be optimistic.  They still have their sweet moments, but the last few days have taught me that when Ryan gets bored (which, as a first child, still happens most of the time unless he is being entertained by somebody), his default is to antagonize Kaeden.  But, what are siblings for?  Lucky for Ryan, Kaeden is quick to forgive and resume his roll of side kick and playmate.

 

Ryan's favorite age seems to be one, because whenever he is around one-year-olds (especially girls), he takes on a protector role, and it's pretty darn adorable.

Playing ball with Cathen

   Ryan is a builder.  He spent most of the winter rearranging our furniture into forts.  It got so bad that I had to make a one-fort-at-a-time rule.

 

He also still enjoys building with more traditional materials, like blocks.  He got his first Legos for Christmas and hasn't turned back.  He said that was all he wanted for his birthday, and his grandparents were good to him!

 

New building materials at the museum!

I went up to get Ryan from rest time in his room one day, and he proudly showed me his day's work - numbers made out of Legos!  He had copied a picture for the first few, and then decided to just keep going. 

... and then he decided to try the alphabet with duplos, but he only had enough to make it to P before he ran out.

 Ryan is a rabbit.  Okay, I know, that's a strange one.  But seriously, he could eat raw veggies all day and be happy.  And he is obsessed with gardens.  His class had a little garden at preschool, and his teacher told me that he was always the first to ask if they could check on it and beg to pick things (and then beg to eat them immediately).  Neither Mason or I are really into gardening, but since Ryan has been talking about "the garden we'll have next spring" for a year, we put one in for him. Yesterday, we got our first broccoli out of the garden.  He was one happy camper!

Just eating a leaf of lettuce as though it's a totally normal thing to do.

 Ryan loves electronics. This one I can blame on his father :-)  But he is drawn to anything with a screen like a moth to a flame.   Don't play a video game near him unless you want him literally on top of you!

 

 

Ryan loves to learn.  One of his favorite parts of preschool was "lovin' letters", and until he actually started getting homework, he frequently pretended to "do homework" while I cooked dinner.

 

He & Mason have started doing experiments together on the weekends, and he loves it.  Coloring is also a favorite activity, and he loves to create in many ways.  This was a book he made about things that made him happy:

It's heart-shaped, and it says "Ethan stopped crying" :)

 Back to that whole homework thing... Ryan has started speech therapy twice a week.  While I have no trouble understanding him, people who don't know him well sometimes do, and his preschool teacher encouraged us to pursue it.  I figured it would come eventually, but I was waiting it out until kindergarten.  It does seem good to get started sooner, though, so that he'll be well on his way by the time kindergarten starts.  Anyway, his teacher is wonderful, and he loves it, but it does come with (very minimal) homework, and it's just amazing how having to do something makes it completely undesirable. 

 Other things that Ryan likes: swinging, riding his balance bike, dancing, chasing/catching bubbles, and most of all, playing with his friends.

According to him, he's very excited for kindergarten, but also a little bit scared.  He'll be going to a year-round school, so he starts in less than 2 short months.  Amazing.

Turns out that 5 is also a challenging age to photograph - Most of the time, I either get a cheesy smile or if I can make him smile/laugh, he refuses to look at the camera.  But we did our annual trip to Duke Gardens anyway.  Here is my big, 5-year-old boy.  I love him so much.