The Young and the Restless

Seven

Happy birthday to Ryder. My baby. My little caboose. My perfect caboose, mostly because I don't think I would have enough energy to keep up with another little monkey! This kid is on the go from the minute he wakes up until his head finally hits the pillow at the end of the day. His level of energy is the stuff legends are made of. He wants to own a donut factory when he grows up. He will pay the workers with donuts so that he doesn't have to give away his money. He said I can have one free donut a week. He once asked me what his middle name was. I told him Bryce. Later I found a paper with his name carefully written out "Ryder Rice Young". Bless his heart, he must have thought we were fully embracing his Asian heritage with a middle name like that. Once we were at the dollar store and as we were checking out I had a major coughing attack, the kind where the cashier is discreetly reaching for a few squirts of hand sanitizer. Ryder takes one look at me and said, "Jesus don't let my mom die!". This kid is addicted to sugar. Like he needs an intervention. He will do anything for candy. He kept coming home with his behavior in the yellow. The only way I could get him to keep it in the green was to bribe him with starbursts. Which I realize is only enabling the addiction. But 2 starbursts for a green and 4 for a blue and he hasn't had a yellow since. This kid is smart. He's reading at a 4th grade level but does not have the attention span to sit and read a book. He does, however, have the attention span to watch youtube for hours. Fourth child problems. He is still the friendliest kid I know and feels entitled to have friends over everyday. Thankfully we have a neighborhood full of little boys to play with. He still loves tickles and back scratches, but his cuddles are harder to come by. He is NOT allowed to ever outgrow that. His dream was to go to the car wash on his birthday. Jason ruined the surprise by taking him a few weeks before when I was gone, but the video he sent me was priceless. I love that he gets so excited about the little things. So instead of the car wash, he chose to have a party and invite some friends to Uptown Jungle. He had very specific instructions for his birthday. He picked out a V-Tech smart watch for his present, but even though he knew what it was, he still wanted it wrapped up and hidden so that he could play the hot/cold game. He wanted donuts in bed, and even though he had been up since the crack of dawn, he crawled back into bed in his clothes so that we could sing to him and serve him his donuts like a proper birthday prince. 

He wanted to take a selfie with his friends on his new watch, it was pretty much the cutest thing ever.

Instead of giving out goodie bags, I gave them each $2 and a 10 minute timer to pick out what they wanted in the dollar store. They thought it was the greatest thing ever.

That night he got to have a sleepover with his cousins since Jason was out of town and I had to head up to girl's camp. Kylie and Jayden were both already gone to camps too, so it was sad we couldn't all be together. Maddox and I sure had fun celebrating with this party animal. So grateful to have him in our family, I can't decide if he keeps me young and makes me old and tired, but either way he sure adds some excitement and spunk to our lives! Happy birthday Ryder, we love you!