Brent...er...Ryan!

For some reason, I regularly call Ryan by his biggest brother's name. I almost never make that mistake with Logan. I do get Ryan and Logan mixed up all the time, but I think that is to be expected. After all, they're both 5 years old, short, and Chinese. But Brent and Ryan? They are as different as night and day! I mean really--Brent is TALL, almost 21, and fair skinned; Ryan is teeny tiny, just barely 5, and so dark skinned many people think he's Hispanic. But they have similar temperaments, similar personalities, and similar mannerisms, so I guess it makes a little sense. Ryan laughs when I call him "short Brent." This afternoon, though, I think I figured it out...

Logan goes to preschool in the afternoon (long story, and I cannot WAIT until preschool is finally over!). While he's gone, I typically spend some time with Ryan 'doing school,' in part to occupy his time constructively, in part to start the formal learning process, and in part to get him used to being taught by Mom. (They'll both be homeschooled for Kindergarten in the fall.) Today I pulled out a whole stack of math papers for Ryan to work through while Logan was gone. The stack was large--something like 2o or 22 pages--and while we took Logan to school, we talked about our afternoon. I mentioned some schoolwork to be done at the kitchen table. Ryan got all excited for a minute. Then he asked me how much work he would have to do. I told him there were lots of papers, but we didn't have to finish them all today, that we'd only work for a while and could quit when he got tired. (I knew that these math papers would present NO challenge to him at all and the exercise was more for practicing left-to-right processing than it was for learning math.) After a moment of pensive thought he looked at me and said,

"Mom, I am tired now. And I will be tired until school is out. What time is school over again? That's when I'll be not tired any more. Can I play on the Wii?"

Oh. my. goodness. I nearly choked trying not to laugh. It was like listening to Brent many years ago. So much so that I wondered if Brent was somewhere nearby feeding Ryan the words. Then it hit me: These two are so alike because Ryan is channeling a young Brent!! :)

So, for my "short Brent" and my "tall Ryan," you can't fool me any more. I'm on to your game. I'll still probably call you the wrong names. But I guess it really doesn't matter. I love you both!