The Baby

A couple weeks ago as part of my duties on the PTA, I had to be at the boys' school all morning to help out with some weeding and landscaping on the school grounds, and I decided to take Rylan with me. I packed a survival bag with the Kindle, iphone, coloring books and crayons, snacks, etc., assuming that he would spend an hour entertaining himself at a picnic table before I'd have to whip out my back-up plan of running him over to Michael's work. Instead, the morning went like this:

Rylan says...

(following me around the school grounds) "What kind of tree is that? What are you doing? Why are you putting mulch on it? Who planted that tree there? Who are those guys with the wheelbarrows?"

(to a guy with a wheelbarrow) "What's your name? My name is Rylan. I expect you to remember that. I'll remember your name. What does your shirt say? What's that? You make computers? My dad works on computers."

(to a random lady) "Look at this bug I found. Now look at this caterpillar I found. The caterpillar and the bug are fighting. Have you seen any worms? Tell me if you find a worm. Ooooh, that's a big fat worm. Do you want to hold my worm?"

(to the guy with the wheelbarrow as he walked past) "Hi, Bob. See I remembered your name. Do you remember my name?"

For three hours!

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Later that same week, Rylan had his five-year-old well check-up, aka kindergarten shots day, aka "It will be over in a minute and then I'll buy you a treat" day.

After chatting with the doctor about macaroni and cheese with ketchup versus macaroni and cheese without ketchup, Rylan laid down on the table like a brave boy for his shots. Somehow, we ended up with the slowest nurse in the world, so by the fourth shot, Rylan was screaming as if we were slowly torturing him to death, and I was on the verge of tears myself.

We both deserved a cookie.

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I have very strict opinions about movies and age appropriateness, which can make movie-watching as a family a bit of a challenge. Tonight, the four oldest members of the Peters Family Band wanted to finish watching a movie that I did not deem appropriate for the baby of the family, so we stuck Rylan in the master bedroom with the computer while the rest of us settled on the couch in the livingroom.

Just before the movie started, I peeked in on Rylan, who was contentedly playing Wild Kratts games while blaring Jimmy Eat World from the computer speakers.

Oh, how I love this boy!