Ryder Three Years and Eight Months

We are currently in Buenos Aires, having been dumped off of our cruise ship and then feeling slightly exhausted from 2015, we’ve been recuperating and taking it easy.
Ryder is so easy to take it easy with. In general, Jacob and I both agree, we never get tired of his company. FIrst of all, he is hilarious. Toddlers have to be the funniest creatures on earth—almost human, but not all the way. Second of all, he’s extremely cuddly and affectionate-like a teddy bear come to life. And third of all, he’s quite independent and can entertain himself pretty well.
He loves his daddy as much as ever. He calls him his best friend and his twin.

He makes friends very easily, still. Apparently imitation is the sincerest form of flattery even with toddlers. They love it, and it’s Ryder’s number one play trick. Along with chasing. He made a friend on the playground yesterday. “Say como te llamas!” I encouraged him. “She’s a girl, I don’t need to know her name,” Ryder said. OK then.
Thanks to the cruise, however, all waiters are now his friend. Old ladies, though, are not-and they’re the ones who all want to come over and coo over him. “She’s not my friend!” he’ll announce. Good thing their English isn’t very good usually and so no offense taken.
Swinging is still his favorite thing to do on the park. Now Christmas songs are what he loves to sing. He only got four Christmas presents this year-three from Jacob and one from Santa Claus. (My present was taking him on the cruise in the first place.) Shhh he doesn’t know any better. He loved Christmas anyway and wants to sing about Santa Claus, reindeer, and Frosty every day.

He now has been to all the continents except Africa.
He was thrilled to get to talk to his best friend from Japan on Skype the other day. Earlier, he was chanting “water…water…remember Roderick?” I knew then that he probably needed to talk to him. It’s been almost a year since he’d last seen him-I think he’ll always remember him now.
If you do talk to Ryder on Skype, he’ll be happy to either A) imitate animals walking for you or B) dance This is Halloween, Katy Perry, or What the Fox Say for you. He is starting to want to call people by himself. He loves Skyping and is always down for a session.
When he does something to make him nervous, like climbing the jungle gum, he says “Oy…oy….oy” when I mimic him he laughs like crazy.
HIs schedule is very fluid right now, like ours. He liked school and I’d put him in one again depending on the situation. We don’t have any plans set in stone for this year so we’ll see.
He is obsessed with downloading new apps on his ipad “cause it make me so happy” of course, any app with a dinosaur in it is his preferred request.

He also draws a lot. He likes to draw dinosaur parks, which are either closed or open. You can guess that often I take him places not knowing the hours and they are closed.

We sit on the couch next to each other and he keeps one hand in my hair. The little monkey.

Christmas Day, 2015