Ladies and Gentlemen, here's the Ryan Fleming I wanted Mrs. Eppard to know:
Ryan is, quite frankly, the brightest
kid I know, and I'm not saying that just because I'm his mother! He
shows an unwavering interest in how things are made, how they
operate, and how quickly he can take them apart and put them back
together. He is my little engineer, always constructing something –
usually out of unorthodox materials. This morning he figured out how
to build a marble run using a length of curtain rod, the stair case
banister, and some cardboard bricks. Even though he got frustrated a
number of times, he kept at it until he successfully built it the way
he wanted it.
Over the summer we transitioned from
Duplo blocks to Legos and Ryan has come up with really elaborate
constructions. He still plays Duplos with his brother but is starting
to enjoy figuring out how to manipulate the tiny Lego pieces (and I'm
quick to reinforce the importance of storing all those tiny pieces
properly!).
He follows his dad around as they work
on projects around the house – last summer our sprinkler system
needed extensive repairs and Ryan was right there, leaning over Dad's
shoulder and absorbing all the details of sprinkler maintenance. Sam
gave him his own bucket of spare sprinkler parts and he delighted in
arranging the pieces this way and that until he assembled his own
working sprinkler head.
Dad is also a big “train geek” and
Ryan is following in his footsteps. Our guest bedroom has been turned
over to the “control train”, an electric train Grandpa gave us
that has quickly expanded to fill the room. Ryan knows how to operate
all of the controls, how to make the various whistles blow and how to
return the cars to the tracks when they invariably get knocked over.
Much to my husband's dismay, the official train accessories have been
joined by plastic counting bears, cardboard bricks, miniature palm
trees and other items the children view as essential to the train's
environment.
Ryan is also quite helpful around the
house, and he enjoys helping me cook and work in our garden. We're
big on healthy eating and making food fun; my little sous-chef is
quite the baker (he'll tell you that the secret ingredient is always
LOVE). He is an adventuresome eater in some respects – he loves
tekka maki (ahi tuna sushi) and seaweed salad, but won't eat eggs or
the tomatoes and zucchini he was so eager to help me plant in the
garden. I did get him to eat a lemon cucumber yesterday – he picked
them out at the farmer's market and was intrigued by the color and
shape.
We don't watch TV – an episode of
Dinosaur Train now and again, and Ryan loves to get John Deere kid
documentaries from the library. He can tell you the difference
between a forest harvester and a feller buncher, and don't you mix up
the two of them! We also watch train videos and he really enjoyed one
about garbage trucks he picked out at the library. I heard all about
side loaders and rear loaders for a week...
Ryan is also interested in music –
Dad plays guitar and I am a classically trained singer, so there's
always music playing or being made in our house. Ryan received an
electric guitar, microphone and amplifier for Christmas last year and
he likes to use the Thomas train table as a stage. His latest
“composition” went like this: “BEER! TRUCKS! GIRLS! DIRT!”
(we listen to a lot of country music, obviously!). We attended Music
Together classes when he was younger and we still listen to the CDs
in the car.
We are all avid readers – Grandma
works for Scholastic book fairs so our bookshelves are well
stocked. Ryan enjoys picture books with interesting stories or
elaborate rhyming structures. We've read through most of the
Berenstain Bears stories and he's a fan of SkippyJon Jones, Pete the
Cat and Splat the Cat. We've started reading the Magic Tree House
series, but Ryan finds many of the plot lines “scary.”
For that reason we haven't watched many
feature films. The boys were terrified by Finding Nemo,
Frozen, Despicable Me and the Incredibles; I had
to turn off Toy Story after a few minutes because I didn't
appreciate how Woody spoke to his friends (telling them to shut up
and calling people stupid – we don't talk to our friends that way).
They do, however, love Disney's Planes and we went to see
Planes: Fire and Rescue a few weeks ago as their first trip to
a movie theater. They've been playing “wildland firefighter”
ever since (we drove through the Hayman burn area on a recent camping
trip so they've seen first hand what a forest fire can do). He is
not terribly interested in superheroes, Ninja Turtles and the like as those
are not something we watch/buy/play with
.
You met “old Honu” last week –
that turtle has been his constant companion since his brother was
born – it goes EVERYWHERE with him. Ryan scratches the turtle's
eyes when he's nervous; we've been talking about how Honu doesn't get
to go to Kindergarten so we'll see how that separation goes!
Speaking of honus (which, as Ryan told
you, is the Hawaiian word for green sea turtles), Ryan has been to
the Hawaiian island of Kauai three times now. He taught himself how
to snorkel in our hot tub last summer and enjoyed seeing what lurked
beneath the waves last September in Hanalei. We have an 11-day trip
to Maui planned in February that we're all very excited about
(it's prime whale season!).
Ryan took swim lessons this summer and
did very well. He prefers to swim with a snorkel mask on (don't we
all?) but started to pick up the concept of kicking his legs and
moving his arms in tandem to move through the water. He also took
rock climbing lessons and just scooted right up to the top of the
wall at Link Rec Center.
Ryan is THISCLOSE to riding his bike
without pedals (we have two pedal bikes, one with training wheels and
one without, that he alternates between), but we have not put much
emphasis on organized sports. Neither of his parents is terribly
athletically gifted and we're not keen on giving up our Saturday
mornings for peewee anything... Ryan did have his first ski lesson
last March and enjoyed it, so we'll enroll him and his brother in
lessons again this winter.
We like to spend our weekends having adventures as a family – we enjoy hiking and geocaching and we've been camping four times this summer - the boys really enjoyed it. It's so great to watch them go “free-range” with our friends' kids in the campground – we figured out if we gave them headlamps we could keep track of them more easily after dark!
On these outings with groups of familiar kids we've seen how other children just seem naturally intrigued by whatever Ryan is doing, and join in his scenarios. He is still learning the difference between being a leader and being bossy (as are many adults I know...) but he seems very capable in a variety of social settings. He is not as physical as some boys his age, usually preferring to walk around a big rock, fence, etc rather than climb over or through it. I have told him “be gentle” with our cat, with his baby brother, with friends' babies since he was very small, and I think that has resulted in a pretty gentle child! That's not to say he won't let loose with an ear-piercing shriek and a feeble punch when extraordinarily annoyed or frustrated with another child, but it's usually a rare occurrence. Ryan loves to be around people so the greatest punishment for him is to send him to his room for a cooling off period.
***
I meant to write more about his preschool experience at Red Rocks Children's Center but even I realize that going over two pages would have just been nutso. I did, however, also give her a copy of Ryan's last assessment from Anita.
Ryan has since learned to ride his bike without pedals.
Mrs. Eppard told me that once she had time to read the essay all the way through, she really enjoyed learning so much about him so quickly. I realize that she'll see a side of him that we don't get to see and that he'll develop into a big kid with different interests soon enough, but this is the Ryan we know and love at this exact moment in time.
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