Mediocre, I Love You, Fake Death

We all know that Ryder likes to be the best and he never misses an opportunity to let me know how much better he is at being a person then Chase is. 

 

The other night, I woke up to my 4 year old laying next to me in bed in only his hand-me-down SpongeBob underwear that are a little too stretched out in all of the wrong places.  He leaned over to me and groggily asked, “Mom, is Chase mediocre?”  He then clapped his hands together and fell back asleep.  

 

One day this week, Chase was being a real jackhole before getting on the school bus.  He decided that he was mad at me and refused to say he loved me before he started walking to the bus so I did the adult thing and kept yelling, “I love you” over and over again until he was loaded on the bus and it drove off.  Ryder witnessed this but didn’t say anything. The next day, Ryder waited in the car while I stood outside and got Chase on the bus.  When I got back in the car to take Ryder to daycare, he asked me, “Well how did that go? Did he even say he loves you? Because I love you.” 

This kid knows how to make you feel loved and unloved at the same time.  That’s talent.  

On an unrelated note- this morning Ryder brought me an apple slice that he had left over from breakfast. After he stood in front of me while I devoured the apple I didn’t even want, he asked, “Did that taste normal?”  I said, “Yes.”  He simply replied with a faint, “Ok...” as he walked out of the room backwards while maintaining eye contact until he wasn’t visible in the doorway anymore.  I still don’t know if he did anything to that apple and I can’t stop thinking about it.  

 

  

Happy Holidays from our family to yours!

So, I know that I give Ryder a lot of grief for being a tad bit "extra."  But I'm starting to think that maybe he gets some of this quality from me.  The other day, Ryder was sitting on our kitchen island and let me have the first bite of his diced peaches.  He asked me how they tasted.  So of course, being the stellar Mother that I am, I couldn't just say that the peaches tasted good and thanked him for sharing a bite of his tasty, tasty snack. I had to put my hands up to my throat, roll my eyes back in my head, make a gurgling sound and fall to the ground pretending to die.  Apparently, I'm quite the actress because when I looked up at Ryder from my death position on the ground, he was sobbing.  I don't think I'll be winning any "Mother of the Year" awards anytime soon.

Watch, Voice Recordings, Tired Mama

Just when I think I have parenting Ryder down, he throws me for a loop…

The other morning before Preschool, I saw Ryder slip something sneakily into the pocket of his pants with his tiny syrup and fuzz filled fingers. It’s important to him right now that all of his pants have pockets and I try my best to remember to check his pockets before leaving for school because he has been known to sneak a thing or two to school.

Well, when I checked his pockets this particular morning, I found a little blue watch that I had forgotten all about.  Chase saved his money last year and bought the watch because it could take pictures and record short voice messages but had long forgotten about it since a few days after he purchased it, our dog chewed off one side of the band.  Luckily for Ryder, he is no stranger to hand-me downs and defects in things intrigue him more, so I should have known this is an item that Ryder would enjoy.

I knew there must be some odd reason Ryder wanted to bring the watch to school (ya know, because he can’t actually tell time) so I scanned through the pictures and all seemed innocent.  There was a picture of Chase smiling, a picture of half of Ryder’s face and a few blurry ones.  All seemed fine.  Then I remembered about the voice recording feature.  I pressed the little orange button to play the first voice recording and to no surprise I hear a squeaky, 4 year old voice yelling, “Boobies!”

With one eyebrow raised, I look to Ryder for a response and he just smiled at me and stated, "That's funny."

Apparently, Ryder spent the morning, while I was blow drying my hair, creating many, many short voice recordings that all consisted of nothing except him yelling, “Boobies” in different voices. (With the exception of a few giggles here and there.)

And not just a few voice recording. I deleted 51 of them.

Upon questioning, Ryder informed me that he was going to show his watch, and its magnificent features, to his friends at lunchtime. 

Long story short, he went to school empty handed and I went to work feeling like a hero for shielding the world from being subjected to Ryder’s voice recordings.

When I picked Ryder up from school that afternoon, as he was walking down the hallway towards me he asks loudly, “Mom, guess what I snuck in my sock today?” And I shrugged my shoulders, because at this point I couldn’t even guess what kind of contraband my 4 year old might have smuggled in his sock, after I was pretty sure I did a good pat-down earlier that morning.

He then hands me a toy cockroach and simply says, “I pranked everyone all day” as if it were all in a day’s work.

I love my child, but damn this mama is tired.

Ryder likes to add his own sprinkles to cake now.