Saturday, October 4, 2014

Ryan is 4 years old!

We recently celebrated Ryan's 4th birthday with two Disney Cars themed parties (plus he had a celebration with his primary class at school). Ryan has been really into the Disney Cars characters for a long while now, and this year he insisted on having it for his theme. Lightning McQueen and Francesco Bernoulli have practically become members of our family, parts of our identity, etc, considering the number of activities and conversations that we have about these race cars, haha!

Looking back on this past year, Ryan has changed and grown so much. From a shy and dependent 3 year old to a confident and rambunctious 4 year old, I couldn't be any more proud of this little man. I wish that I had a video camera running constantly, so that I could catch all of the quirky/hilarious things that come out of his mouth. On occasion, I have been able to jot down some of these things on my phone, but this is only a small fraction of what I get to experience on a regular basis.


I'm guessing that some of these traits (issues?) are common for pre-schoolers, but anyways, I think that most of them are pretty funny/cute!

1. Grammar confusion: "Where is him?" "That's she's food." "Look! There's two ones!" "Today is the goodest best day."

2. Shows kindness / affection: "Does your tooth feel better now, mommy?" "I love you, mommy. I care about you. I need my mommy." "That looks pretty on you" (even when it's an old t-shirt).

3. Remembers everything better than I can (seriously!): Before we leave the house, "Don't forget to bring the cupcakes." When we are at the market, "Mommy, you need to buy more vitamins, remember, you said that?"

4. Notices every detail: "I know that building over there is Henry's doctor because it says 888, see?" (I didn't even realize that we could see that building from where we were).

5. Obsessed with his little brother: "Henry said balloon! Henry said goy goy!" "Hey, this is Henry's first time doing that. Good job, Henry!" "Henry can't handle these big boy toys because he can only play with baby toys because we want him to be safe." "Did you know that all babies are God-gifts? Like surprises you don't know!"

6. Mispronounces words: "reggaly" for regular, "aminals" for animals, "ghostesses" for ghosts.

7. Thinks about the future: "Mommy, will you let me know when I'm a grown-up, in case I don't know?" "I can feel that my teeth are starting to get looser, so that means that I'm getting really big." "One day, I'll be the boss."

8. Takes things literally:  "Wow, Ryan, you're as fast as lightning!" "No mommy, I'm so much faster than Lightning!" (meaning the race car, Lightning McQueen.)  Ryan calls tank tops "muscle shirts", so at church he announced that "Mommy is wearing a muscle dress!"

9. Tries to get his way: Puts a toy in my hand and whispers, "playyyy". Since he's not allowed to say "potty words", he decides to go into the bathroom, calmly says the words aloud, and then comes back out. He asks for "gluten-free" water (he has no idea what gluten-free means, but decided that it was a cool thing to say.)  I told him that he couldn't have a cookie before dinner because it would spoil his appetite. He narrowed his eyes and said, "I don't like appetites."

10. Tells stories: "I'm going to tell you a scary story. One time I went into my closet and I closed the door and it was really dark and really spooky and then... the fear came. Wasn't that scary, mommy?" "The ducks went into the hole when it rained because they didn't want their friends to see their fur all messed up. The end."

11. Makes sure that people are doing (what he thinks is) the right thing: "Why is that lady wearing a swimsuit in a restaurant? It's supposed to be ONLY for the beach or the pool." (It was actually a very revealing shirt, but I can see how he could mistake it for a swimsuit). To me, he says, "Honey, honey, why aren't you eating your food and sitting the proper way?"

12. Loves repetition: He wants to read the same books over and over again. Danny and the Dinosaur, the Richard Scarry books, and Meet the Cars characters book. It's amazing how much he still enjoys every detail of these books, even after the hundredth time.


Birthday Party Pictures








Thanks to all of our family and friends who celebrated with us this year. I still can't believe that our sweet boy is already 4 years old. It really feels like just the other day I was on here writing blog posts about him as a baby, posting a video of him crawling and then taking his first steps, trying to figure out potty-training, etc. Time flies and every single day that I have with these boys is precious to me. Nobody knows what the future holds and I feel very blessed to even be here today after everything that we have been through. Always praising God for this beautiful life!

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I thought that it would be an interesting experiment to give Ryan a list of things and ask him whether he thinks that they are "real" or "pretend". It will be interesting to see how his perspective changes each year. Here are his answers as a just-turned-4-year-old:

He knows that these things are real:
Hippopotamus
Fireflies
Dinosaurs ("they were real a long, long time ago")
Dragonflies
God ("yeah, he's in heaven!")  <------------ This answer made me smile!
Presidents
Policemen and Policewomen
Alligators
Castles
George Washington
Buffaloes
California

He knows that these things are pretend:
Dragons
Magic
Unicorns
Monsters

He thinks that these (real) things are pretend:
Princesses
Robots
Hearts
Kings and Queens
China
Egypt

He didn't think that any of the pretend things on the list were real.

He couldn't pick an answer for these things:
Rapunzel- "I don't know. What's that?"
Goldilocks and the Three Bears- "Huh? Well, bears are real, but I don't know about the other thing."

I love the way his mind works. It looks like we are going to need some geography lessons and to read some classic fairy tales, haha! I'm surprised that he said that hearts are pretend, because he definitely knows how to draw hearts, and often reads books about the inside of the body that explain the function of the heart. I guess you just never know what to expect from a pre-schooler!

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Btw, Ryan and his friends had a blast racing in these Cars characters that I made. (And I let them crash and "destroy" them at the end of the birthday party, which was probably even more fun!) The cars were super easy to make, made of recycled cardboard boxes, and definitely the highlight of the party!


More and more each year, I'm thinking that fall is becoming my favorite season. My favorite used to be summer, but now I look forward to the slightly cooler days, pumpkin picking, comfy boots, and the festive holidays coming up! Happy beginning of fall!


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