Santa Success!!

Jay and I decided we would try and finish all of our Christmas shopping today, so bright and early (9:30 am) we packed up Ryan and headed to the Palisades Mall. It had snowed last night so the streets were a slushy mess and it was freezing out so we decided comfort was key, especially since the mall would be crowded and we would probably have a long day. It is the first time in a month that I have not dressed Ryan in something "Christmasy" when we were going any where that Santa might be because (a) I have had no success in the past attempts to get the picture (as previously mentioned) so I figured Ryan might as well be comfortable, (b) I was sure the line to see Santa would be super long since this was the last weekend to put your requests in for Christmas, and (c) I really needed to focus on finishing shopping, not making Ryan like Santa.

We started on the first floor of the mall which also happened to be where Santa was. Of course, there was only one child on line to meet Santa and of course, Ryan started yelling "Santa Santa" as soon as he saw him. We asked Ryan if he wanted to wait and talk to Santa and he said yes so we waited, although I suspected when it was our turn, Ryan would not go near Santa. You see where this is going right?? When our turn came, Ryan walked right over to Santa and said "Book please" since Santa gave out a coloring book at the other mall. I am sure Santa thought I made Ryan say he wanted books for Christmas but when he asked Ryan what he wanted, Ryan said "Trains, cars, books, crayons and markers". While I wish I had my camera with me and that Ryan was dressed differently, I am so happy that he got over his Santa fear and had a good time - I think the lollipop Santa gave him didn't hurt though because he talked about it for the rest of the day.

After 6 hours of shopping, I still have a few presents left to buy and am a little panicked about that, but I finally have the Santa picture and am thrilled about that.

Funny Ryan

(Edited on 12/11 to add more funnies)
Once again, I am back to write about how funny Ryan is. The more talkative he gets, the easier he is to understand, and I can't help but laugh at the things he comes up with.

1. While I take a shower in the morning, Ryan usually watches a movie and eats cheerios or corn pops. Recently, he came running in the bathroom with his bowl and yelled "Mommy, pops all gone!" so I said "Wow, where did they go, in your belly?" and he looked at me, totally confused and said "No, in mouth".

2. Ryan and Grandma went to the park and met a boy and his Grandma there. The boy and the Grandma were talking in another language and Ryan went up to the boy and said "What you talking about?" (this is his new favorite phrase, not sure where he learned it).

3. 2nd favorite phrase "I can't" as in "Ryan, please clean up your toys" "Mommy, I can't".

4. Ryan still loves playing hide and go seek - of course we always have to find him, but he has come up with some pretty good hiding spots lately. His favorite spots are: the dark, cold refrigerator at subway, the closet in my parent's bedroom or by their front door, and the closet in Jay's old room at his parent's house. Here are some of his favorite spots in our apartment:

5. Last night we called Aunt Erika to say hello and she asked Ryan what he had for dinner and he said "Bones and Ketchup". Bones are lamb chops - yes, Ryan will not eat a chicken nugget, but give him a lamb chop and he will go to town.

6. When I was putting Ryan's pajamas on, I saw he had a red spot on his belly. I called Jay to come look at it and see what he thought it was. I said "Do you think it is anything bad?" and Ryan said "Mommy, Don't worry". How smart is my son??

Rocking around the Christmas tree..

On Sunday, Jay went and picked out a tree for the apartment and came back with one of the fattest trees I have ever seen. As soon as Ryan saw the tree, he started jumping up and down saying "Wow!!!" When we cut the netting off, he was even more in awe as the tree opened up and I was thinking, this is going to be SO much fun to decorate as a family. After Ryan went to bed, Jay and I put the lights up so that we would all be able to put on the decorations the next night.

Last night, while Ryan and I waited for Jay to get home, I took all of the ornaments out and put hooks on them to save some time. I had bought a 5 pack of Sesame Street character ornaments thinking that Ryan would like those better than plain balls. The only thing Ryan wanted to do though was take those 5 off the tree and play with them in his room.


Later that night, Ryan even insisted on sleeping with them by letting me know that they needed to go "in freaky cover" (his doll, freak, gets his own cover/blanket and he sleeps on Ryan's pillow with him). After seeing my disappointment that Ryan was not in to decorating the tree (or posing for pictures in front of the tree), Jay kindly said "Don't worry, honey, I will decorate the tree with you" (which meant "give it up and stop torturing Ryan") and we let Ryan play in his room while we decorated the tree. Jay even indulged me and put on Christmas music. I was just starting to enjoy myself when I realized that Ryan was being too quiet. I went to check on him and saw on the floor a Santa with no legs and a Mickey mouse with no legs, or arms, or head and realized perhaps I should have not left ANY of the ornaments lying around. Thank goodness for Martha Stewart shatterproof ornaments because Ryan LOVED playing with/throwing those. Too bad we all will be covered in glitter from now until next Christmas.
(this picture is for the person who loves Ryan's "rakes" - xoxoxo)

4 broken ornaments and 10 tantrums later (1 was mine), I guess the shirt says it all!


Ironically, Ryan loves to look at the tree now and has been very good about not touching it - he even tells Elizabeth (he calls her beebet) every morning when she arrives "Beebet, tree no touch"

Meeting Santa

Last year, after waiting on line for an hour for Ryan to get his picture with Santa, Ryan refused to sit on his lap and screamed until we took him off. I was hoping that this year would be different, but the one day we were in the mall and there was no line, Ryan would not go near Santa. I bought him a few books about Santa/Christmas and talk to him all the time about how he should like Santa and that if you are a good boy and if you sit on Santa's lap and tell him what you want, he will leave you presents at your house. He doesn't care - all he is interested in are the trains that are in the Santa book. Anyway, Jay and I were shopping today and there was a Santa in front of one of the stores so I asked Ryan if he wanted to say hi. To my surprise, he said yes and while it was not the "ideal" Santa and Ryan picture, I would take what I could get. Of course, as soon as Ryan got out of the stroller, he would not go near Santa unless he was holding my hand.

He did give Santa a high five though and to my delight, actually had a semi-conversation with Santa.

Santa: Well Hello little boy. What would you like for Christmas?

Ryan: (just stared)

Me: Ryan, tell Santa what you want for Christmas (not really expecting him to say anything)

Ryan: Um, trains.

Santa: Oh you want some trains?

Ryan: (screaming) yes, and cars.

LOL. Because he doesn't have enough of either of those. This was one of the most patient Santas ever so thanks to him, here is my one and only Ryan and Santa picture. (kind of wish I brushed my hair a bit).

Thanksgiving

I did not take one picture on Thanksgiving - not one, which is so unlike me. We celebrated with my family on Thanksgiving day and with Jay's family on Saturday, where Ryan put on quite a show. He would not eat any of his dinner except the corn and I kept telling him that he could not get out of his chair until he ate some of his sweet potatoes. About 100 "out, please"s later, Ryan noticed the candles (unlit) on the table. Not being above bribery, we lit the candles and told him he could blow them out if he ate some potato first. At first, he didn't go for it until I pretended I was going to blow out the candle and then Ryan couldn't shove them in his mouth fast enough - so fast, he ended up gagging himself. After blowing out 10 candles and eating 10 huge bites of potato, Ryan had enough - I think he was more tired from his blowing efforts though since he really put a lot of energy in to it, as you can see by his facial expressions.

Where did he learn to make faces like that??

Washington, DC

Jay and I both took off from work on Friday and took a long weekend trip with Ryan to Washington, DC. We just wanted to get away for a few days and do something fun and luckily, we were able to stay at one of the Hyatt hotels in DC on short notice. The hotel was in a great location, right by the Capitol and Union Station so right after we got settled in, we headed over to the Station and took the Metro to the DC zoo. The weather was not great, but we had a good time walking around and especially seeing the pandas.

Well, in reality, Ryan was only interested in this panda statue. When we got to the living pandas, Ryan was more interested in showing the boy next to him that his sneakers lit up, yelling "Boy, look. Wait, look".

The highlight of our trip was having the surprise chance to meet up with Jay's Grandpa Ken. Saturday morning, Omi called us to let us know that Grandpa Ken was in DC with the Columbia, SC chapter of WWII Veterans Association, so we decided to head to the WWII Memorial to see if we could surprise him. After stopping by the Washington Monument and walking along the Mall while Ryan napped, we got to the memorial just as 3 tour buses were arriving. Just our luck that they were the South Carolina Chapter buses so we waited for Grandpa Ken and even saw Bob Dole who was there greeting all of the veterans. Eventually, we found Grandpa Ken and he was so happy and surprised to see us. The last time we saw him was the summer of 2007 so we were happy that he got to see how big Ryan got.

We all walked around together for about an hour, explored the memorial and caught up on how everyone was doing and what we have been up to recently. When Ryan woke up from the nap, we stopped and fed the ducks for a while - who knew that ducks liked pretzels so much?

When it was time for Grandpa to go, the boys had a few laughs together before we headed out to visit some other monuments.

After visiting the Korean War Memorial and the Vietnam Memorial, we headed over to the Lincoln Memorial. As soon as Ryan saw the steps, he took off running and did not stop until he got to the top. He was so fast climbing up there (I figured he would slow down eventually), that we had to run to catch him.

He did turn around at one point in his ascent and I was able to snap this picture

(see his head, right by the man with the orange shirt?) I didn't think anything of this picture until I zoomed in to see my son mocking us as we ate his dust!

There must have been sound effects included with his face by the way the lady next to him is laughing. After a failed attempt to get a nice family picture in the Memorial, partially due to both Jay and me sweating after running up the steps, and partially due to Ryan refusing to take his finger out of his ear, we were able to get this one as we left.

Guess I will just have to deal with the finger in the ear. As soon as I put Ryan down, he stayed still long enough for one more picure, and then was off running again. I wish I had half of his energy .

I didn't take too many pictures on the trip, and neither of the next 2 came out clearly, but I love them anyway. Our hotel room had a huge bathroom (sidetrack -the toilet was in it's own separate room, which Ryan managed to sneak in to and clog the toilet before we found him saying "Peepee potty mommy. Paper. Flush" - Yes, thanks Ryan, good job. Now, if you only did go in the potty, that would be great.) complete with a plasma tv and huge bathtub. Ryan loved the tub and went "swimming" in it everyday we were there. I wish we had a tub like this in our house

Ryan was having so much fun swimming in the tub that Jay said he would take him swimming in the hotel pool. While we were at the pool, I discovered that something was wrong with my camera, hence the blurry picture. I wish I had just put the camera away instead of trying to fix it because when I finally gave up, I realized how much fun Ryan was having and that I was missing out on watching him play.

He had the best time holding on to the side and going from one side of the pool to the other with Jay there as only the spotter. I continue to be amazed by Ryan's strength and I am sure his arm workout was a key factor in the great sleep he got that night.

We had a great weekend away and I can't wait for our next one - hopefully soon!

Go Jets, Round 2

Ryan got to go to his second Jets game today. The Jets played the Rams and I was glad we had a chance to bring Ryan to one more game this year so Jay could see Ryan cheering and before it got too cold.


For the first half of the game, we sat in our seats so that we could be closer to the field and then at halftime, walked over and sat with Grandma and Grandpa.

By the time halftime began, with the score already at 40-0 Jets, Ryan had lost all interest in the game and just wanted to walk around. Luckily for Jay and I, Grandma was about as interested as Ryan was so they went to go play who knows where, but Ryan came back yelling "Spin the wheel", haha.

Once again, Ryan helped lead the team to victory as the Jets won easily by the score of 47-3. As we left, it was hard not to wonder, could this be the year that the Jets finally do it? Next up is New England and if we can win that one, it would be huge. Go JETS!!!

Halloween

On Halloween, we took Ryan to the annual Halloween Party in the Stuy Town Oval behind our building. We were disappointed that they didn't have the corn maze this year since Ryan loved it so much last year but we still had a great time. We arrived right as the party was starting so the line for the hayride was not long and Grandma and Aunt Carrie went on with Ryan.

He loved the ride and did not sit the whole time. While going around the oval though, he spotted tractors, I guess which were meant to replace the maze, and as soon as he got off the hayride, started running to one of the tractors. Of course, the line was very long, Ryan was not at all patient, and spent most of his turn inside making sure no other kids were near the door or trying to get in. Ryan was very disappointed when his turn was over and the only way we could get him to stop crying was to take him to the candy - that is what Halloween is all about anyway, right? Even though you were supposed to wait for the vendor to put the candy in your basket, Ryan had his own ideas.

Since he hadn't eaten dinner yet, we really didn't want him to eat too much candy so we told him he could pick one out and we would save the rest for later. What did he choose? A Blue Air Head Taffy Bar, which in my eyes was the grossest thing he got. He loved it though and while I ate all of his sour patch kids, he drooled blue taffy all over his costume and ran around screaming.


After Halloween, Ryan wanted to eat candy every day, all day long so we told him that he could only have one if he finished all of his lunch and dinner. He quickly learned, much to my dismay, that Reese's peanut butter cups and kit kats are much better than taffy and when he finally lost interest in his pumpkin basket, the only candy left was the taffy. Smart kid. I think that this was the last year that I will be able to choose Ryan's costume and I can't wait to see what he will want to be next year!

Pumpkin carving

I love family traditions. Since we don't have one for Halloween other than trick-or-treating, Jay and I decided to have a new one for our family starting this year- from now on, the night before Halloween, our family will carve a pumpkin together. Ryan and Jay went and picked one out yesterday, and Ryan was so excited about it, he told me about it the second I got home for work. Tonight, as soon as Ryan was done with his dinner, we put on a Halloween video and started carving the pumpkin. When Jay started to scoop out the seeds, Ryan was fascinated but did not want to touch them at all.

He did want to "mix soup" though (thanks Ratatouille) and took 2 huge spoons and mixed the seeds, first in the pumpkin and then in a big bowl while Jay and I finished carving the pumpkin.

I did most of the carving and I obviously need more practice since it was not my intention to make a one-toothed jack-o-lantern.

When it was Ryan's bed time, we turned off all of the lights and showed him the lit jack-o-lantern and he started screaming "OOOOOOHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!Happy day, punkin" and started trying to blow out the candles.

He even gave the pumpkin a kiss goodnight before bed. (neither Jay or I got one)

The next morning, the first thing Ryan started talking about was the pumpkin and had to go in the kitchen before we did anything to check on it. We will definitely do this again next year and I think Ryan will even get his own to paint so that he can be more involved. Can't wait for trick-or-treating tomorrow!!! Happy Halloween

Pumpkin Patch Halloween Party at Gymboree

Last night, Jay and I took Ryan to a Halloween party at Gymboree. While there was a lot of free gym time, there were also some structured activities in the gym room, an art project and pizza and cupcakes. All the kids dressed up in costumes and Ryan was sweating in his within the first 30 minutes (the party was 90 minutes).

Knowing he would be hot and we would probably take his top off, we put him in a Halloween shirt underneath his costume and frankly, I think the shirt was more appropriate anyway.

We had brought one of Ryan's jack-o-lantern trick-or-treat baskets with us because if they were giving out candy, I wanted him to have someplace to put it. As we were leaving, each child received a treat and Ryan was SUPER excited about it even though he obviously had no idea what it was. I told him to go over to the teacher and say "Trick-or-treat" and she would put something in his basket and he came running right back to us to show us what he got. We decided to walk the 20 blocks home (Ryan was in the stroller) after the party and Ryan would not let go of his basket the whole way home.

At one point I asked him if I could hold the basket so he could rest and he said "No, I got it". If that wasn't funny enough, a few blocks later we asked him if he wanted to have some fruit snacks and he said yes so I said "let's trade. I will hold your basket and give you the fruit snacks". He looked at me, thought about it for a minute and then took his treat out of his basket, tucked it under his arm and handed me the empty basket and said "snack please". Hilarious that he thought I might take his treat and brilliant that he knew to take it out so I couldn't get it. Guess this means he is not going to share any candy he gets tomorrow.