life touch :: first grade

cayden jacob moore
1st grade
mrs. thornock's class (she's 25 and a byu fan. he tells me this often.)

cayden is proud of his smile. he felt like it was appropriate to show off his missing teeth.

isn't he handsome? my son. my firstborn. my ticket to the loony bin.

as mothers, i think we earn the right to brag about our kids. and brag i shall do. but, i also think i've earned the right to record, for cayden's future knowledge, what a pain in the butt he is.

this kid. mr. know-it-all. mr. stubborn, lazy, attitude-giving first grader.

he rolls his eyes at me constantly. i say get your shoes on, we're going to the store. and he'll yell YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!! like i'm the worst person in the world for buying food that he'll eat.

i ask him to clean his room - which is an impressive disaster all the time and he'll spend hours in there, then he'll come out with it looking semi decent only for me to find, two days later, dirty clothes shoved in the drawers with his clean clothes, books hidden in his toy bin, everything under the sun shoved under his bed (so meticulously i cannot see it without getting down on my stomach). he spends so much time avoiding doing what he's supposed to be doing. it's amazing.

the other day he took toys in the shower and left them on the bathroom floor when he was done. i took him in there and said i'm not your maid, these are not my responsibility and walked away. he came out and said sorry mom, he always says sorry mom. like it is so hard to remember to flush the toilet. so anyway, i go back in the bathroom to help brooklyn in the shower and he's shoved all the toys under the bathmat. like seriously? do you think that's a sufficient hiding spot. c'mon son. you can do better than that!

his new thing this week is his ipod. he always has his headphones on with a hoodie so i can't see them. i don't care that he listens to his ipod. i don't know why he tries hiding it. but i do care when he yells his breakfast of choice and then doesn't hear me when i respond telling him to quit yelling at 7:00 a.m. the thing about the ipod obsession is it only started after he dropped his nintendo ds in a pond at the mall. it is officially, completely unusable and i can't decide is this is more devastating for him or for me. i have no leverage anymore. he got a yellow card for trying to trip someone at school yesterday (teacher thinks i tried to trip my friend but i didn't, i just needed to stretch my legs and he walked by), usually, i strip him of his ds privileges and he green-cards it for at least another week but yesterday, i had nothing! it was terrible.

so, he's a pain. he argues with me and i annoy him but he's my pain and i love him to bunches.

i am certain that one day (and probably very soon), cayden will be one of the smartest people i know. he's already on his way. ask him is favorite subject in school and he'll tell you he prefers art center and math center. and reading center. and p.e. and music. and of course, lunch and recess. so far, he has aced every spelling test +5 for knowing the weekly bonus words. words like explore and pumpkin. i'm continuously impressed.

cayden's a good kid. he's a great big brother, especially to gavin because he has yet to take and hide his things or argue about what and how they're playing. he helps me when i really need help. he has a big heart and a super sensitive side.

he thinks underwear is overrated and can almost flash the rock on sign without looking like he's thinking too hard about it. he speaks spanglish and will get really mad if you use his stuff without asking. if you ask, he'll tell you no. he likes to see how many grass and dirt stains he can get on his jeans during one school day. the madder i am about it, the better. he is an inventor. he lives to invent. so don't get mad when he uses someones spit out gum from off the street to adhere one peice of bark to another. he's just successfully invented the walky-talky, dontcha know?

he loves everyone. he wants to know everyone and where they live and what their favorite things are and what they're doing and why they're doing that and what kind of car they drive and how many brothers and sisters they have and what color hair their grandma has and what kind of dog they have and if they have ever been to the green park with the big hill. he doesn't even care if you ask him anything about himself. he just genuinely wants to know all about you.

i learn a lot from cayden.