Reading

Almost everyday since Ryan was born, we have read him books at bedtime. We love the quiet cuddle time with him and he loves looking at the pictures and asking questions about the books. Ryan has really been paying attention while we read to him, and we have recently found him more frequently trying to read the books on his own. I don't think that he really looks at the words but I think that probably will come with time. I recently found out that many of the New York city library branches have a story time and I mentioned it to Elizabeth and she has started taking Ryan at least once a week. Jay and I have yet to have the chance to go, but Elizabeth says Ryan loves it and sits very quietly as the librarian reads to the group. After the first story time, Ryan and Elizabeth walked around the children's book section and read some more books in the children's section. Ryan was very unhappy when he could not take any of the books home so we decided to get him a library card and told him when he behaves at story time, he can borrow some books. Ryan was so happy and excited when he got his card

Elizabeth helped Ryan pick out some books and everyday since he brought them home, Ryan has sat at his table and read his books.

I didn't ask but I am guessing that Ryan picked out the book about Engines and Elizabeth picked out the books "Baby on Board" and "Mommy/Daddy love their baby". I LOVE the mommy/daddy book and Ryan loved the engine book and in theory, the baby on board book should have been perfect for continuing to prepare Ryan for the new baby to come. I am sure that is why Elizabeth picked it out but I am guessing she didn't read the book first. It goes through the different stages of pregnancy and changes that happen to mommy over 9 months. I was not surprised to discover the book was written by a man when I read the lines "Mom gets cranky a lot at the moment", "Mom says dad should practice sleeping on the sofa", and that dad brought sports magazines and his game boy in mommy's hospital bag. It is lies, all lies that mommys would do any of the above things, I have had wonderful behavior for the past 9 months and Jay I am sure has no interest in looking at sports magazines in the hospital. As a result, this book will be heading back to the library asap. (just in case any readers think I am being serious, the entire time I was in labor with Ryan, SportsCenter was on the tv and on more than one occassion over the past 9 months, I have told Jay he better bring home cupcakes or else!!)

The Bathtub Artist

A while ago, Jay came home with a present for Ryan that I immediately hid in the closet - a bathtub paint set called "Rub-a-dub-dub, Let's paint in the tub". Based on the box alone, it looked like it would be more trouble than it would be worth and when I saw the warning "May permanently stain tile and grout", I pushed it farther in to the closet. I came across it the other day, and after being too lazy to go out of the house all day, I felt guilty. I thought maybe Ryan was bored and he deserved a little fun, even if it would be a huge mess. I learned an important lesson: sometimes the biggest messes can be the most fun! Ryan was very excited to get something new and loved the paints. He was a little hesitant at first until I started filling up the paint tray and then he demanded that I put paint in each of the fingers.

I stripped Ryan down to the diaper, plopped him in the tub and let him paint away. It didn't take Ryan long to ditch the tray and instead used his hands as the palette, often informing me I was not giving him enough paint. For more than an hour, Ryan had a blast alternating between painting the wall and himself.

Every time I tried to put an end to painting time, Ryan would say "No mommy, one more time please". We definitely would have used all of the paint in one day if Ryan had his way and he was not a happy camper when I finally put the paints away.

Surprisingly, the paint was very easy to get off the wall and turned into bubbles when it was scrubbed. As a result, Ryan had almost as much fun cleaning off the wall as he did painting. We will definitely play with our bathtub paints again soon, although we are not doing it as frequently as Ryan would like: he has asked to paint everyday since.

Will you be my Valentine??

Ryan says:

I may be sticky and I sure am sweet,

With you, I will share my lollipop treat

I am lucky to have such a great family,

you all make me as happy as can be.

I love all of you, that is for sure,

you make my life far from a bore.

So here is the message I am trying to convey,

I hope you have a Happy Valentine's Day!

Love always,

Ryan

Saturday in the City

I think that this is the coldest winter I can remember - it has been below 20 degrees on more than enough days and it has snowed quite a bit too. Normally, I don't really mind the snow or cold but this year, I am already wishing for spring - maybe it is due to trying to navigate around a slippery, slushy sidewalk with an extra 30 pounds weighing me down. We finally had good weather this weekend (in the low 50's) and luckily, Jay was off all day Saturday and Sunday so we decided to enjoy the weather while it lasted and have some fun in the city. On Saturday, we took Ryan to the Children's Museum of Manhattan and Ryan had a blast. One whole floor was set up to help Dora and Diego (from the Nickelodeon shows) with an animal rescue mission - since Ryan loves both Dora and Diego, he had a great time playing with the musical instruments, helping build the Rainbow Bridge, and searching for Swiper and Baby Jaguar (Ryan loves to say he is a jaguar lately and roars, after which you must pretend to be afraid so Ryan can say "don't worry", haha).

Jay said he wanted to take my picture although I think he just wanted to show you all that true to mom's song, I AM so fat that I am bumping in to trees.

On a different floor, there were different play areas and Ryan's two favorites were the supermarket and the sand table. In the supermarket, Ryan would only play with the vegetables - as we went through the bins of food, I offered him pizza and a taco which he would not put in his basket, but he searched everywhere for a pepper, cauliflower, zucchini and an apple.

At the sand table, he would pour the sand from one cup to another until he realized it was more fun to pour it on his shirt and bury his hand. Ryan was nice enough though to make me a "dirt cake" which was delicious. (Pictures to follow)

After the museum, we had some lunch and then decided to walk back to the East Side through Central Park. Even though there are plenty of parks in our neighborhood, I do sometimes wish we lived closer to Central Park since there is a lot to do there. There was a big playground right at the entrance we went in so we let Ryan play there for a while. It is funny - for some reason, Ryan does not like going on any slides that are covered, but the tallest slide in the park doesn't scare him at all. He even told the kids on line ahead of him to go faster so he could get his turn.

We had a really great day and it was nice to do something different. Hopefully the weather will be just as nice next weekend.

Friday Funnies

1. For the past two weeks, Ryan has two new sayings, both of which he uses often: "I so sad" and "I so happy". Both make Jay and I smile equally. Ryan always says "I so sad" for the same reason - he is trying to avoid doing something. Most often, he says it at bed time. He scrunches up his eyebrows and looks at me very seriously and says "Mommy, I sooooo sad", each time filling his voice with Oscar-worthy despair. When I ask why he is so sad, the answer is almost always the same "I need water, please". Oh, to have such sadness in life. After he drinks the water, he takes a deep breath and says "Ah, I so happy" and lies back down. Ryan is really though one of the happiest children I ever saw and even strangers notice it. Ryan has been telling us lately how happy he is which, as a parent, is really the best thing to hear. If he is having fun, he will say "Ryan so happy" and if he sees us smiling at him, he will ask us if we are happy too. You bet we are Ryan - We love you so much!!

2. We are trying to teach Ryan his full name and where he lives - We now have a son who thinks his name is "Ryan Jungle" and he lives in Newark.


3. Jay and I are really trying to prepare Ryan for the new baby although I am guessing that nothing we could do could make him really get it. Ryan got a book from Omi and Poppy that we read to him about being a big brother so now, whenever a conversation comes up about the baby, Ryan says "I brother", haha. The other night, Ryan insisted on laying across my belly because to quote Ryan "Baby need ABC's, Baby need twinkle" and proceeded to sing the baby all of these songs. It was so absolutely cute and when Ryan was done, even gave the baby a night night kiss (of course, he then stepped on my stomach to try and climb out of the bed).

4. Speaking of songs, Ryan has become much more interested in singing along with whoever is singing. As previously mentioned, we sing to Ryan every night after books and one song we sing is the ABCs. While I knew that Ryan could sing part of it, I was totally caught off guard when he started singing it on his own the other day. I love it!!

His other current favorites: Where is Thumbkin (but he only sings about "Pumpkin", "Snowman" and Pinkie"), Emily (from Thomas and Friends), and You are My Sunshine.


5. Because we don't have a train table at the house, we set up the tracks either on our coffee table or floor. I am getting much better at making elaborate, twisty tracks but Jay is still the best. Generally, Ryan will play with the trains on the track and doesn't try to destroy it, but every once in a while, he decides to break the tracks. When he does, the conversation is almost always the same:
Ryan: "Uh Oh Mommy/Daddy. Tracks all a mess"
Me/Jay: "Oh no. How did that happen?"
Ryan: "Ryan do it. Track all broken"
Me/Jay: "Why did you do that Ryan? Do you not want to play with your trains anymore? We can put the tracks away"
Ryan: "No, Ryan play trains. Ryan fix track - I do self." and he usually does a pretty good job fixing it.


Bonus video: I meant to put this video in last Friday's post, but I accidentally put it here and decided to just leave it. 7:30 pm in our house can only mean one thing: time for Diego!