Ryan

Ryan is...funny. He's the class clown of the family. He loves to boss us all around when he's pretending. "Mom, you say..." and so forth. He quotes movie lines a lot, which real emotion. I can imagine him getting into drama someday.

He's pretty athletic although he hasn't been in any organized sport yet.

He's my fashionista, so far anyway. He is quite creative. For example, he often wears his cowboy books with shorts. The cutest part is that he doesn't know that it's weird or whatever. I love this about him.

Ryan is very musically inclined. Since he was a baby I have thought this. Sometimes I wonder if I should get him into some kind of lessons now (he's only 4) but mostly I think that we'll wait until he's a little older. He loves listening to music and memorizes songs really fast. Just like with the movie quotes, his singing gets pretty intense. He makes serious or sad faces and then gets a little embarrassed when I watch him. In the car he is always asking for me to turn on the music, which means the CDs we've made. Some of his favorites are: Pop! Goes my Heart from the movie Music and Lyrics, Come to my window by Melissa Etheridge, The Great Beyond by REM and Free Falling by Tom Petty. He also sits at the piano and sings Primary songs with me. Love that.

Speaking of primary, he LOVES it and is the kid that raises his hand for everything, just to talk about something. His teachers love him and even when we visit, the teachers say how good he was.

Ryan's birthday is August 9th, so he will barely be old enough for Kindergarten this fall, but we decided to put him in because he's been reading for about a month now. It makes me a little nervous because he'll be the little guy, but he is very social and smart so I think he'll be fine. He is super excited about going to school.

Ryan loves to figure out someone's relationship to another person. For example, if I say something about Grandma Aitchison, he says, "You mean Dad's mom?" Little nerd.

Oh yes, he STILL sucks his thumb but only with his blankie so I try to have him keep that on his bed. It doesn't always work. Luckily, he doesn't push on his front teeth so it's not causing any of those problems.

He's getting to be a screamer. He's loud and yells at his brothers a lot, but being the middle boy is hard for him sometimes I think. I'm trying to teach him to talk nicely when he has a problem, but he's 4 so it's a slow process.

When Ryan laughs, you can't help but laugh too. And his smile is adorable.

I could go on and on about this kid. He has such an interesting personality. I'm glad he's my boy!