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.