Happy Birthday, Ryan!

prelude
I'm not very good at birthday posts. I tend to be overwhelmed by the expectations set forth by other bloggy moms. I don't want to sound all braggy even though I am very proud of my kiddies. I guess I'll have to just put that aside and write so Ryan can know when he reads this he knows what he was up to at age 5. So if you don't want to read about how great my kid you can skip this post.

begin post
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Ryan is 5! It's hard to believe that 5 years ago I gave birth to my first child. 5 YEARS! He's getting so big. He's very inquisitive. People keep telling me that asking questions is a sign of intelligence. Let's just say that if the number of questions someone asks is directly correlated to that person's intelligence my child is a stinkin' genius. I usually don't mind all the questions, but I can tell other people get frustrated when there is at least one question for every answer. It can seem rather endless. It's all good natured, he is just genuinely curious, but it can be exhausting. It takes him a little while to warm up to people, but once you're his friend he is devoted and loyal. He likes school and loves riding the bus. Every day when I ask him what he did in school he says I played and had fun. He usually remembers something specific to tell me later. He really seems to like art and PE. He is such a handsome little guy. He has worn polos about 90% of the time and almost always wears khaki shorts. I was a little surprised that he didn't argue with me about wearing the athletic shorts I put out for him on PE day. He was probably okay with it because I coupled it with his soccer jersey. He loves that jersey. He had so much fun at soccer camp. I love when I see little bits of me in him. I love soccer, but I didn't discover it until much later in life than Ryan. He has also discovered his love of photography a lot sooner than I did. He likes taking pictures so much we decided to replace his Fisher Price camera that's designed for little kids with our old Cannon G2. The fisher price camera is a cool idea, but the pictures just didn't turn out great. Since the G2 has been sitting in a closet unused for years we decided it would make a good camera for Ryan and at least it would be getting used. We gave it to him for his birthday. We also gave him Hyper Dash which is really cool. We had some technical difficulties with his party, so I need to figure out exactly when I'm going to do for him. I'm thinking It's going to have to be pushed back to the 20th. I'm sure he will survive, but I hate feeling like the mom who can't get it together enough to have her kid's birthday parties in a timely fashion. On his actually birthday we celebrated by letting him watch Star Wars for the first time. We were going to have a marathon of IV-VI, but we had so much fun doing other stuff that day we didn't have time. We had some family rounds of Hyper Dash. Grandma and Grandpa were here and good sports that they are they played too. Lily even got in on the action. Then we made a town with the Legos Grandma and Grandpa gave him. He took pictures with his new camera. I think he really enjoyed his birthday. It was a good day.

There is so much about Ryan I thought lists would be a good way to share.
likes...
playing soccer
watching swimming in the Olympics(especially Phelps)
reading
having chapter books read to him (especially Magic School Bus)
school
doing math problems
playing math bingo
teasing his sister (you didn't think they were all going to be good, did you?)
chocolate milk
ketchup
cars
getting money to do chores
playing Wii
playing dolls with Lily
Rush Hour game
building (Legos, Brio, blocks, etc.)
playing tickle and chase games with Daddy

dislikes...
eggplant
any kind of melon
getting punished for teasing his sister
when people at unfair
cleaning up
being the center of attention

Obviously I can't contain everything about Ryan in one post, but I think this captures the essence of who he is and what he likes.