Funny Rhino

I am sure all parents think their child is the best and Jay and I are no exception. We think that Ryan is the funniest kid with the best personality. A few funny/cute things have happened lately and while I don't know if they are each deserving of their own posts, I don't want to forget them either.

1. For a long time, Ryan waved goodbye and blew kisses, but would not say "Bye". In the last 2 weeks, he has started saying it all the time. It is cute enough when he says it when Jay or I leave for work. It is even cuter to hear him on the phone saying bye and giving the person on the other end a kiss, especially when Ryan decides the conversation is over, says bye and puts the phone down while the other person is still talking. It is really funny though when Ryan says goodbye to someone when Ryan decides HE is leaving. Sometimes, we will be sitting on the couch watching tv and Ryan will put his basket on his arm, wave and say "Bye" and head for the door. Other times, he will say bye to one of us and try to lead the other one in to a different room. Finally, there are times when he will go over and climb in to his stroller and will attempt to strap himself in. (By the way, to get in to the stroller, he has to stand on the foot rest, climb over the cup tray, turn around and sit down) How's that for a hint that he wants to go out?

2. Everyday is Ryan's birthday at Grandma and Grandpa's house. When Ryan turned one, I wanted to get him a first birthday party hat for the pictures, but when I put them on him, he would cry and pull them off. Then I found this:

For whatever reason, the headband didn't bother Ryan and he wore it for awhile. We left it at my parent's house where Ryan found it about 2 months ago. Since then, every time he sees it (note to self to hide it next time we are there), he starts blowing, as in blowing out the candles, and tries to put the headband on. We then have to sing him happy birthday, candles and all. As soon as the candles are blown out, Ryan yells "more, more". This past weekend we used a portabello mushroom as his cake.

3. We have a webcam on the computer and occasionally, we use it to say hi to Erika and Richie. We have only used the webcam a handful of times with Ryan, but the other day, he climbed up on the computer chair, turned on the monitor, stuck his face right in front of the webcam and said "Eka, Cheese!!!". I felt so bad that Erika wasn't home so Ryan could see her, so we called her instead and Ryan spent the next 5 minutes walking around the apartment, telling Erika who knows what while he twirled his hair. Eventually, he left the room and I found him sitting on his chair in his room still gabbing away.

4. Michael was over yesterday and we were playing hide-and-seek with Ryan. I saw Ryan hide in his Spiderman tent and I knew he wanted me to find him. So I started walking around saying "Ryan where are you, where are you, are you in your room?" and Ryan said "no" from inside his tent.

5. Ryan's favorite color is "Bu". Actually, it is the only color. Anytime you ask Ryan "What color is this?", the answer is bu. We are working on learning our colors and finally got him to learn another color: pink. The problem is when you ask him what color it is, he snorts like a pig. Pig, pink - its all the same right?

Who's tired?

As the weather gets nicer, Ryan has been more active than ever, although if you asked me last month if Ryan could be more active, I would have said no. The weather has been great here lately and Ryan has been to the park everyday running all around, going down the slide and on the swings, playing with any ball he can get his hands on, and pushing the stroller around for what seems like miles. I watch Ryan playing sometimes and wonder how it is possible that he never seems to get worn out - I get worn out just watching him. Because Ryan is so wound up all the time, it sometimes is hard to get him to relax for nap time. Ryan hates taking a nap - i think that he is worried that he is going to miss out on some fun while he is sleeping, so getting him to nap usually involves one of the following: rocking him to sleep, taking him for a ride in the car or stroller, or someone lying down with him. Except for one time when he was sick and one time when he was a baby, Ryan has never closed his eyes and just fallen asleep for a nap. The other day, Elizabeth called me laughing so hard at first I couldn't understand her. When she told me that Ryan was falling asleep while he was eating, I didn't believe her.


I guess he must have been REALLY tired. Elizabeth of course didn't want to leave Ryan sleeping like this, so she tried to pick him up to put him in his crib. Ryan woke up as soon as she put him down and he was ready to go again - just a 5 minute power nap was all he needed.

Pickles

Ryan loves pickles. Dill, sour, half-sour...he really doesn't care - he just loves them and would eat a whole jar if we let him. Ryan's dinner last night: quesadillas, french fries and pickles!

Celebrating the Bride-to-be in Raleigh, N.C.

This past weekend, Ryan and I went with Grandma, Aunt Carrie and Tracy to Raleigh to see Aunt Erika. The July 12th wedding is fast approaching and there is nothing to get you more in the mood for a wedding than a bridal shower and bachelorette party. We were lucky enough to be able to host the shower on Saturday at Erika's good friend Mandy's beautiful house and I think that everyone had a great time (Kelly, Mandy and Tracy - if you are reading this, you guys are the best!) It was so great to meet some of Erika's friends and see Erika so happy.

After the shower and a little rest, we got ready for the bachelorette party. I loved hanging out with all of the girls but I was reminded how old and lame I am getting when I tried to do a shot with Erika and instead threw half of it in my face. Yep, I am that cool. I think that we were all very thankful when grandma took Ryan for breakfast and let us all sleep for another 2 hours.

Ryan's new word from our trip? "Emmy" which means airplane. I can get him to say air and I can get him to say port, as in airport, but as soon as I say plane or airplane, he says Emmy. Grandma thinks it is the funniest thing and I am pretty sure she bought him a toy airplane at the airport just so he would keep saying it. Interesting that they sell United planes in the American terminal.

When we got back from NC, Michael said that it is time for me to start practicing for the wedding with with Ryan so that he will be able to carry out his Ring Bearer duties. Good thing we still have three months to go - practice did not go too well but that could be partly because we used a big bird lunch box as the ring pillow. Erika, any chance you want to use that at the wedding?

Time Out

Ryan is usually a pretty good boy, but there are a few things we need to work on, especially biting and throwing things. After he bit a friend, Ryan started getting "time out". We always use the same corner in our apartment so that he understands, and Ryan is normally pretty good about sitting there until we come back to get him (usually about a minute). This weekend at Erika's house, Ryan bit me once and I warned him that he was going to get time out if he did it again. Maybe he thought that he wouldn't get it since we were not at home or maybe he just felt like biting me, but he did it again and he got time out. I sat him in the corner, explained why he had time out and as I was walking away, he started calling "Eka, Eka, Eka". He called for Erika the entire time he was in time out, I guess hoping that she would come and rescue him. Pretty much for the rest of the weekend, whenever Ryan did something "bad", as soon as he saw I was looking at him, he ran off to find "eka"

Kaykey and Rhiney

Ryan and I had a play date over the weekend with our friends Katie and Colleen. Katie and Ryan are 6 weeks apart and Katie was Ryan's first friend. I love watching the two of them play together - sometimes, they are all over each other and are so nice, and other times, they want nothing to do with each other. After it seemed clear that they were soon going to start fighting over toys (because Ryan didn't want to share even though the toys were Katie's), Colleen and I decided to take the kids to the park, after a cookie run for the kids and a Starbucks run for us. Once we got to the park, Katie went in one direction and Ryan in another and that was pretty much it for Colleen and I having a chance to catch-up. They did call for each other a few times though: Katie was Ryan's "Kaykey" and Ryan was her "Rhiney" and it was very adorable. I have a feeling that these two are going to have some fun adventures together this summer!
I have no idea what Ryan said to Katie, but I guess it was pretty funny.

"If you put the whole cookie in your mouth, you won't have to share"

Healthy Eating

I never gave Ryan jarred baby food. I decided to make all of Ryan's baby food ("Just give it a try" my mom and dad said) and I think that it was one of the best parenting decisions I made. I completely understand why people buy jarred baby food and had it not been for my parent's suggestion, I would have give it to Ryan. But, I figured it would be worth a try, I would get overwhelmed and would give up and go to Gerber like everyone else and would be able to say "I tried". I found a great website about making your own baby food and was hooked. It was much easier than I expected and there were many online resources that had great ideas to make the process easier, more cost-effective and more convenient. There are many foods that are baby-appropriate that do not come in jars (avocado, kiwi, winter squash to name a few) and Ryan had all of them in his diet before he was 1. I truly believe it is part of the reason why Ryan is such a great eater today - there is not a fruit or vegetable he won't eat and he would rather eat a plum than have ice cream. Here is some proof:

Night Night

For months, we had a VERY hard time getting Ryan to go to sleep on his own. I really didn't want to let him "cry it out" (cio) but I was spending hours trying to get Ryan to fall asleep every night. We made a half-hearted attempt at cio a few times, but I think both Jay and I just couldn't stand to let Ryan cry. Finally, at 15 months, Ryan's sleep habits were deteriorating and we decided to really try cio. The first night was truly awful - Ryan cried for a pretty long time and I cried almost the whole time too. The second night, it took 5 minutes and the third night, Ryan went to bed without a peep. We now have a pretty set bedtime routine that we all enjoy and Ryan has been sleeping much better for the past 3 months. Each night, we read books, sing songs, kiss night night and then Ryan gets in bed. I usually read Ryan the books and one of my favorite parts of the day is when we finish the last book, Ryan says "Dada", jumps off my lap, and runs to find Jay to give him a kiss and hug good night - I just love watching his little tush run out of the room knowing that he can't wait to find his dad.

The first day we started the cio, we gave Ryan a stuffed animal to sleep with thinking that maybe it would make him feel less alone- the doll's name is Mr. Freak and he was a gift for Ryan's first Chrismas from my cousin Neil. Freak is an UglyDoll and his real name is Wedgehead (not sure when we changed his name to freak). Ryan still sleeps with Freak every night but he has added a few more nighttime buddies (2 monkeys, Mr. O who is also an uglydoll, and most recently Grover). Usually, Ryan puts each animal in a very specific spot, always the same for each one, pats each one and says night night, then coves Freak (yes, freak gets his own blanket), and then lies down. Guess he felt like changing it up for the video

Mr. O is the green one and Mr. Freak is the blue one and this is how the crib normally looks when the lights go off.

A few hours later...

Don't you just want to crawl in that crib and cuddle with him?

Go put your shirt away

Last night, we were getting ready for bedtime and Jay was helping Ryan put on his pajamas in the living room. After his pjs were on, Ryan was standing there holding his shirt and jeans and Jay said "Ryan, can you help Daddy and put those away?". Ryan ran out of the room and came back a few minutes later without the jeans or the shirt. We have told Ryan before to put his toys away, but never really his clothes so we were interested to see where he put them. I was pretty sure we were going to find them on the floor. Instead, we found


Maybe they were in the wrong drawer, but I was so proud of Ryan that he tried to put them away. Jay said that he did a better job than I do with my clothes.
(on a side note, the only drawer that Ryan really knows well is the bib/sock drawer. I don't know why I have those two things together so don't ask. Cute story about the socks: I was getting ready one morning and Ryan brought me my shoes and I told him, I have to put my socks on first. A few seconds later, he came back smiling and gave me a pair of his socks. Story about bibs: I don't know why but we start calling the bibs "bibbies" and if we tell Ryan, "Time to eat, go get your bibby", he will go in his room and get one not just for himself, but for everyone else too)

18 months

Ryan had his 18 month appointment with the pediatrician yesterday and he looks great. He weighs 25 pounds 14 oz. and is 32 3/4 inches. He had 2 get two shots which always stinks but other than flu shots, the doctor said he won't need more shots until he is 5 - yippeee!! I still can't believe that Ryan is 1 1/2!! Since I hate posting without a picture, here is a flashback for all of you. Here is Ryan last April when he went on the slide for the first time:

And more recently:

Strength

I have talked before about how strong Ryan is and how it never ceases to amaze us. Yesterday, Ryan and I went to meet Jay at work and had some time to kill so we found a park in Stamford (CT) and played there for a while. All the big kids wanted to hang from the rings and swing - Ryan watched them for a while, and then walked over and tried to hang too. Ryan just has no fear: he has only seen rings like this once before and all of the kids playing on them were at least 3 years older than him. Ryan was too short to reach the rings so I lifted him up, but I let go to see if he could hold himself. I was standing right there and really didn't think Ryan could hold on, but amazingly:

he could. He held on for about a minute before it became obvious he was going to slip, so I took him off before he fell. He took a rest for about 30 seconds before he said "up-a, up-a" (up) and pointed up to the rings. He did it about 5 more times and had a blast. I guess the day at the park tired him out because he took a 3 hour nap today - i will have to remember that park!!