I've done the birth story before, I won't make you all relive it. But my sweet boy is 4 years old today.
He looks so GROWN to me all the sudden. He's been getting so much taller the last few months, and losing the baby-chubbiness.
Here's a rundown of this moment in Rykerdom, for posterity's sake.
He's the sweetest thing - loves giving hugs and kisses, tells me often that I look beautiful as I'm getting ready in the morning, and genuinely worries about his big brother. He STILL cries when he thinks Jack is getting in trouble or is upset about something.
He's also hilarious. He loves cracking people up - making funny faces and dancing all around, even in public. He's a complete ham and, so far, very outgoing.
He asks very strange questions all the time that keep me on my toes. His latest was on the way to school on Friday. Out of the clear blue, he asks "What would happen if a giant baby sat on our car?" I was sure I hadn't heard him right. Jack stared at him for a sec, and then goes "A giant baby? That'd be YOU!" and cracked up laughing. Ryker laughed too, then paused, and then asked it again completely seriously.
He is convinced he saw a camel at Fort Snelling State Park yesterday.
He loves cookies and ice cream and pancakes and mac n cheese and Jimmy Johns (his birthday lunch). He loves baths and cleaning and playing with Lincoln Logs and watching movies and getting up at 4 in the morning. I approve of 4 out of 5 of those.
I'm completely mesmerized by how adorable he is - I could stare at him all day and be perfectly content. I often do, actually. He has beautiful eyes and a sweet sweet face.
So happy birthday to my sweet guy. I love you lots.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Shopping
I posted part of this on Facebook, but I'll do it again because is was THAT good.
Last night I got home before Chuck and the boys. They came running in -- Jack first, waving $15 in the air; Ryker following, wearing shoes, a tshirt and an oversized sweatshirt. No pants.
Jack screams "I got $15!!!!" and Ryker screams "I'm not wearing any PANTS!!!"
I got Ryk into pants, verified that Jack came by that money honestly, and we headed off to Target to SPEND IT! I remembered that Grandmommy had given Ryker $3 during a recent visit, so I gave that to him to spend too.
We spent 20 minutes in the dollar section picking 3 items. Ryker emerged with a squishy ball, a Superman book and a pack of Airheads.
Jack picked another Pokemon set. He's obsessed. It cost $20 but he told me he brought an additional $5 of his money to cover it. (The $15 was a graduation present from his former preschool teacher. He's back there this summer.)
We got to the 10 Items or Less check out lane and Jack wanted to be rung out separately. Fine. Ryker and I stepped up. I had added a few items, because who can go to Target and NOT come out with a piece of clothing and a new sheet set? Honestly...
So anyway, I tried to convince Ryker to give ME his $3 so I could pay with a credit card. He thought I was scamming him and refused, so the nice checkout man said he'd take the $3 and put the rest on the card. Ryker proudly handed over his money, and then asked him where it went and kept asking him for it back. We got all checked out, so it was Jack's turn.
By now we have a half a dozen people queued up behind us. Jack's total was $21. He put the $15 in cash out there, then dumped $4 and something in change on the counter. The line of people cracked up (some rolled their eyes but I chose to ignore them). He only had a total of $19 and I only had a one dollar bill and a twenty. So I handed over the twenty and the dude gave us change and I made the kids say sorry to the line and thank them for their patience, and off we went.
Just another Friday.
Last night I got home before Chuck and the boys. They came running in -- Jack first, waving $15 in the air; Ryker following, wearing shoes, a tshirt and an oversized sweatshirt. No pants.
Jack screams "I got $15!!!!" and Ryker screams "I'm not wearing any PANTS!!!"
I got Ryk into pants, verified that Jack came by that money honestly, and we headed off to Target to SPEND IT! I remembered that Grandmommy had given Ryker $3 during a recent visit, so I gave that to him to spend too.
We spent 20 minutes in the dollar section picking 3 items. Ryker emerged with a squishy ball, a Superman book and a pack of Airheads.
Jack picked another Pokemon set. He's obsessed. It cost $20 but he told me he brought an additional $5 of his money to cover it. (The $15 was a graduation present from his former preschool teacher. He's back there this summer.)
We got to the 10 Items or Less check out lane and Jack wanted to be rung out separately. Fine. Ryker and I stepped up. I had added a few items, because who can go to Target and NOT come out with a piece of clothing and a new sheet set? Honestly...
So anyway, I tried to convince Ryker to give ME his $3 so I could pay with a credit card. He thought I was scamming him and refused, so the nice checkout man said he'd take the $3 and put the rest on the card. Ryker proudly handed over his money, and then asked him where it went and kept asking him for it back. We got all checked out, so it was Jack's turn.
By now we have a half a dozen people queued up behind us. Jack's total was $21. He put the $15 in cash out there, then dumped $4 and something in change on the counter. The line of people cracked up (some rolled their eyes but I chose to ignore them). He only had a total of $19 and I only had a one dollar bill and a twenty. So I handed over the twenty and the dude gave us change and I made the kids say sorry to the line and thank them for their patience, and off we went.
Just another Friday.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Graduation
I love Kindergarten Graduation. What a hilarious concept. I think he stops graduating now until high school, right? As the principal kindly pointed out to all of us, Jack's class is the graduating class of 2024. The whole room gasped.
Today we all took our seats in the cafeteria and the kindergarteners all filed in. Jack was BEAMING. It was adorable.
They marched right up to the risers on stage and all stood there fidgeting and smiling and waving and swaying. They sang two songs and then got called one by one to receive their diplomas. Jack was the very last child called, and looked so proud walking to get his diploma, and then anxious to get the heck off the stage.
After that we had a reception in his room. His teacher made a slideshow of pics of them from the entire year, which she showed us but also gave to everyone as a present. It was so sweet to see the kids through the year, and even more sweet to see them sitting on the ground together WATCHING themselves, and singing along with the songs.
All of his work and his artwork were nicely put together for us to take home, and we started to look at that, but got distracted by taking pictures together, and with his teacher, and with Izzy, of course.
And then we were out of there.
It's been a big year. He's learned a lot - is a much better reader and writer and has found a love of math. He's also worked a lot on his emotions and controlling them.
I'm so proud of my big man. In 2024, do you think we'll all be sitting together watching our graduates fidget and sing This Little Light of Mine, then eat cookies and look at their artwork? It's a nice image, no?
Today we all took our seats in the cafeteria and the kindergarteners all filed in. Jack was BEAMING. It was adorable.
They marched right up to the risers on stage and all stood there fidgeting and smiling and waving and swaying. They sang two songs and then got called one by one to receive their diplomas. Jack was the very last child called, and looked so proud walking to get his diploma, and then anxious to get the heck off the stage.
After that we had a reception in his room. His teacher made a slideshow of pics of them from the entire year, which she showed us but also gave to everyone as a present. It was so sweet to see the kids through the year, and even more sweet to see them sitting on the ground together WATCHING themselves, and singing along with the songs.
All of his work and his artwork were nicely put together for us to take home, and we started to look at that, but got distracted by taking pictures together, and with his teacher, and with Izzy, of course.
And then we were out of there.
It's been a big year. He's learned a lot - is a much better reader and writer and has found a love of math. He's also worked a lot on his emotions and controlling them.
I'm so proud of my big man. In 2024, do you think we'll all be sitting together watching our graduates fidget and sing This Little Light of Mine, then eat cookies and look at their artwork? It's a nice image, no?
Thursday, May 31, 2012
3am Wake Up Calls, and the Reasons Why
If you're ever struck with a case of insomnia around 3am, call my cell. I'll be there. And awake.
Two nights in a row. The kids are 6 and 3 (almost four) - why are we still getting up in the night???
Tuesday night I woke up at 3:15am to the sound of Jack and Ryker talking to each other. Jack has a habit of waking up in the night and moving all of his bedding into Ryker's room and sleeping the rest of the night in there. We don't like this particularly, but we are picking our battles, and that's not one of them.
I woke up, dazed, and prepared to launch myself into Ryker's room, scare the daylights out of both of them, threaten them with death if they didn't go back to sleep, and hobble back to bed. I opened my door, ready to storm down the hallway, and almost tripped right over Jack. He was sitting in the middle of the hallway, lights on, tub of batteries in his lap, putting fresh ones in the Leap Pad, while carrying on a conversation with Ryker, who was sleepily thrashing around in his bed.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING???"
Scared them, yes.
Threaten certain death, yes.
Only at 3:45 it happened again. Not the batteries, but the waking up and the talking. I sent Jack to his room, whisper-yelling at both of them.
Fast forward to last night. I had a whole conversation with Jack, imploring him to be a big boy and stay in his own bed. He did GREAT. Ryker did not. Wanna know why? Because his lip is busted. He hurt it at school Wednesday afternoon and I spent all of last night trying not to look at him. Christi (my cousin-like-a-sister) made me look, and I'm holding her solely responsible for the knots in my stomach.
You all can thank me later for not getting an actual picture of his lip. Except my mom, who had to look at it via Facetime last night.
Chuck thought he was fine and that we shouldn't take him in. I went along with that and put myself to bed at 9pm - figuring unconscious was a better state than awake and trying not to think about my baby's lip.
Ryk awoke at 3am. What is it about 3am? He awoke, mumbling "mama" through a severely swollen lip.
"My wip is hurtin."
I had a moment of Mommy Genius - 3 in the morning - and got him a soda can to hold against it. No edges, no bumps. Gold Star to me. I patted his head until he fell asleep again.
This morning I looked sideways at him, averting my eyes but trying to gauge the severity. Then I left the room and made Chuck take a closer look. Then I demanded he take him somewhere. Most of you know about my aversion to blood and hospitals. I have fainted more than once because of those two things.
We spent the morning trying to call the clinic, talk to the triage nurse, keep ice (or Popsicles) against his lip, and telling him to "be kind to your face." I tried to quickly make Jack's lunch, which ended with him locked in the bathroom sobbing and refusing to go to school because I hadn't put raspberries in there. We actually DID put raspberries in there, on the second attempt, but that wasn't good enough to overcome the first error (read: the lack of attention he was getting). I told him, through the bathroom door, that he was, in fact, going to school - because one parent was taking his little brother to the hospital for his busted lip and the other had to go to work to earn money to paid for said raspberries and the medical bills. So there.
Back to Ryk. He's out of Children's Hospital - no stitches. Wash with saline and he'll be fine. Whew.
So anyway, call me at 3.
Two nights in a row. The kids are 6 and 3 (almost four) - why are we still getting up in the night???
Tuesday night I woke up at 3:15am to the sound of Jack and Ryker talking to each other. Jack has a habit of waking up in the night and moving all of his bedding into Ryker's room and sleeping the rest of the night in there. We don't like this particularly, but we are picking our battles, and that's not one of them.
I woke up, dazed, and prepared to launch myself into Ryker's room, scare the daylights out of both of them, threaten them with death if they didn't go back to sleep, and hobble back to bed. I opened my door, ready to storm down the hallway, and almost tripped right over Jack. He was sitting in the middle of the hallway, lights on, tub of batteries in his lap, putting fresh ones in the Leap Pad, while carrying on a conversation with Ryker, who was sleepily thrashing around in his bed.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING???"
Scared them, yes.
Threaten certain death, yes.
Only at 3:45 it happened again. Not the batteries, but the waking up and the talking. I sent Jack to his room, whisper-yelling at both of them.
Fast forward to last night. I had a whole conversation with Jack, imploring him to be a big boy and stay in his own bed. He did GREAT. Ryker did not. Wanna know why? Because his lip is busted. He hurt it at school Wednesday afternoon and I spent all of last night trying not to look at him. Christi (my cousin-like-a-sister) made me look, and I'm holding her solely responsible for the knots in my stomach.
You all can thank me later for not getting an actual picture of his lip. Except my mom, who had to look at it via Facetime last night.
Chuck thought he was fine and that we shouldn't take him in. I went along with that and put myself to bed at 9pm - figuring unconscious was a better state than awake and trying not to think about my baby's lip.
Ryk awoke at 3am. What is it about 3am? He awoke, mumbling "mama" through a severely swollen lip.
"My wip is hurtin."
I had a moment of Mommy Genius - 3 in the morning - and got him a soda can to hold against it. No edges, no bumps. Gold Star to me. I patted his head until he fell asleep again.
This morning I looked sideways at him, averting my eyes but trying to gauge the severity. Then I left the room and made Chuck take a closer look. Then I demanded he take him somewhere. Most of you know about my aversion to blood and hospitals. I have fainted more than once because of those two things.
We spent the morning trying to call the clinic, talk to the triage nurse, keep ice (or Popsicles) against his lip, and telling him to "be kind to your face." I tried to quickly make Jack's lunch, which ended with him locked in the bathroom sobbing and refusing to go to school because I hadn't put raspberries in there. We actually DID put raspberries in there, on the second attempt, but that wasn't good enough to overcome the first error (read: the lack of attention he was getting). I told him, through the bathroom door, that he was, in fact, going to school - because one parent was taking his little brother to the hospital for his busted lip and the other had to go to work to earn money to paid for said raspberries and the medical bills. So there.
Back to Ryk. He's out of Children's Hospital - no stitches. Wash with saline and he'll be fine. Whew.
So anyway, call me at 3.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
The Garage Sale
First and Only.
Awhile back Chuck decided we should have a garage sale. I said no. I wanted to just donate it all and be done. Everyone I knew that had had a garage sale had only had A garage sale. Singular. I took that to mean it wasn't a very good idea.
We did it anyway.
I should back up a sec. I have a little tendency towards hoarding important things. Like everything ever associated with my kids. We have a fourth bedroom in the basement, and I have been using it to store all of the old kids toys and clothes. I have clothes back from when they were infants. I have hats, coats, mittens, boots, onesies, sleep sacks, overalls. SO MANY OVERALLS. I have car seats, three strollers, a crib, a race car bed, a highchair, baby swings, bouncy seats.
We also have hoarded books, computer stuff, cords, cameras, alarm clocks, vases. We have a set of bar stools. I'll stop now. You get the point.
Okay, so we decided to join the rest of the city of Bloomington in the city-wide garage sale.
I worked for weeks to get things thrown away, sorted, and cleaned. The last week was spent in the garage - setting up the tables and pricing everything. Nicki joined in our efforts, so I got to hang with her quite a bit, which was fun.
We started with a goal in mind of paying off the tires we had to put on the van last week. Not cheap, and I was scared we wouldn't make it.
We paid them off by 3pm on the first day, and doubled it by the end. WHEEE!
I also met some very interesting people. There was the woman who was negotiating with me about the toys and seemed kind of gruff, until she softened and told me she buys toys and then takes them to Mexico to give to children there on Christmas. There was the man who got me to take half off my price for kids' clothes and made me button every button and fold them "nicely," who I was about ready to kick to the curb. Then I asked what he does with all of these clothes (he took over 40 pieces), and he told me he sends them back to his country, Kenya, for the children. His wife and kids still live there.
All in all I'd call it a success. We got rid of most of the major items we wanted to get rid of, made some extra money, and got a good lesson in not judging a garage-sale-attendee by its cover.
Awhile back Chuck decided we should have a garage sale. I said no. I wanted to just donate it all and be done. Everyone I knew that had had a garage sale had only had A garage sale. Singular. I took that to mean it wasn't a very good idea.
We did it anyway.
I should back up a sec. I have a little tendency towards hoarding important things. Like everything ever associated with my kids. We have a fourth bedroom in the basement, and I have been using it to store all of the old kids toys and clothes. I have clothes back from when they were infants. I have hats, coats, mittens, boots, onesies, sleep sacks, overalls. SO MANY OVERALLS. I have car seats, three strollers, a crib, a race car bed, a highchair, baby swings, bouncy seats.
We also have hoarded books, computer stuff, cords, cameras, alarm clocks, vases. We have a set of bar stools. I'll stop now. You get the point.
Okay, so we decided to join the rest of the city of Bloomington in the city-wide garage sale.
I worked for weeks to get things thrown away, sorted, and cleaned. The last week was spent in the garage - setting up the tables and pricing everything. Nicki joined in our efforts, so I got to hang with her quite a bit, which was fun.
We started with a goal in mind of paying off the tires we had to put on the van last week. Not cheap, and I was scared we wouldn't make it.
We paid them off by 3pm on the first day, and doubled it by the end. WHEEE!
I also met some very interesting people. There was the woman who was negotiating with me about the toys and seemed kind of gruff, until she softened and told me she buys toys and then takes them to Mexico to give to children there on Christmas. There was the man who got me to take half off my price for kids' clothes and made me button every button and fold them "nicely," who I was about ready to kick to the curb. Then I asked what he does with all of these clothes (he took over 40 pieces), and he told me he sends them back to his country, Kenya, for the children. His wife and kids still live there.
All in all I'd call it a success. We got rid of most of the major items we wanted to get rid of, made some extra money, and got a good lesson in not judging a garage-sale-attendee by its cover.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Help For Jack
Oh man do I feel better. It's not about me, but I'm just sayin'. In case you're wondering how *I'm* doing.
We had our first appointment with Jack's new therapist today. She was great. We're in good hands. Jack was perfectly adorable, as usual. Her office was at the end of a long corridor, which he spotted quickly. When she came to get us, he said "is that your office?" and she said yes and he took off running to get into it. Not the response I was expecting.
She got medical histories from us, asked his history with frustration and anger, and asked him a bunch of questions.
At one point she asked what he liked to do most when he wasn't in school. He goes "umm...cuddling with Momma..." and then he listed other stuff but honestly I stopped listening then because I was grinning so hard I couldn't hear anything.
Anyway, she will have two more appointments with him, alone, and then she'll have one with just Chuck and me to give us her assessment. We'll go from there, but she made it sound like she thinks she might be able to teach us some good ways to help him ourselves without him needing to be in therapy for an extended period of time. As she put it, "6 year olds have better things to do than sit in therapy."
It felt good to take the first step towards helping my Jack Attack feel better.
We had our first appointment with Jack's new therapist today. She was great. We're in good hands. Jack was perfectly adorable, as usual. Her office was at the end of a long corridor, which he spotted quickly. When she came to get us, he said "is that your office?" and she said yes and he took off running to get into it. Not the response I was expecting.
She got medical histories from us, asked his history with frustration and anger, and asked him a bunch of questions.
At one point she asked what he liked to do most when he wasn't in school. He goes "umm...cuddling with Momma..." and then he listed other stuff but honestly I stopped listening then because I was grinning so hard I couldn't hear anything.
Anyway, she will have two more appointments with him, alone, and then she'll have one with just Chuck and me to give us her assessment. We'll go from there, but she made it sound like she thinks she might be able to teach us some good ways to help him ourselves without him needing to be in therapy for an extended period of time. As she put it, "6 year olds have better things to do than sit in therapy."
It felt good to take the first step towards helping my Jack Attack feel better.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Dinner Date
Tonight Chuck was putting Jackson in bed and they got talking about the fact that Chuck and I are going to dinner tomorrow night.
Jack asked if he and Ryker were going too and Chuck said "nope, just Momma and me." And Jack asked why. Chuck said that we just want to have dinner together and Jack goes "peaceandquiet?" kinda as one big word.
Chuck said "yes, peace and quiet" and Jack said "inner peace" and then went on a Kung Fu Panda rant.
Jack asked if he and Ryker were going too and Chuck said "nope, just Momma and me." And Jack asked why. Chuck said that we just want to have dinner together and Jack goes "peaceandquiet?" kinda as one big word.
Chuck said "yes, peace and quiet" and Jack said "inner peace" and then went on a Kung Fu Panda rant.
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