Bath Time

Alright, I need some ideas... Ryan has suddenly developed a paralyzing fear of the bath. He refuses to sit down and just stands there and cries the whole time we're washing him. We have tons of bath toys and I'm pretty sure the water temperature is fine. Any thoughts? I don't think he's ever LOVED the bath, but he's tolerated it fairly well up until now. It could be that he's just starting to express himself, lucky for us. Anyone go through this? Any ideas on how to make bathtime fun?

AHHHHH!

I decided not to use the screaming Ryan with Santa picture as our holiday card, so as promised, here's the pic. I still feel bad for laughing at him while he's being traumatized, but really, it's too funny.

A Battle Victory

As I mentioned before, Ryan is suddenly not interested in milk. And he's even less interested in it now that it's in a cup. I think he gets plenty of calcium from yogurt and cheese, but I've still been concerned with his liquid intake. He likes water, but the doctor told us to withhold it from him for now and give him milk instead. The last couple of days, he's probably had a total of 4 oz per day, tops. I beg and plead with him to take the milk, but he just hands it back.

Last night we tried chocolate milk. Now I really did not want to do chocolate milk because I became addicted to it as a kid myself, but I felt desperate. I went back and forth in my mind, and decided to just try it. Didn't matter, he still wouldn't take it. I did some online research and found parents who have tried and succeeded with strawbery milk, nesquik, and get this, OJ and milk combined. They say it curdles and looks gross but the kids love it. Eww. This morning I decided to get creative and made Ryan a yogurt shake. I took 4 oz of blueberry Yo Baby yogurt (which he loves) and blended it with 4 oz of whole milk. Tada! He drank almost the whole thing! Yay for small victories!

Welcome to Whinytown

Does some switch go off in a 1 year old's brain that tells them now to act like a toddler? This morning Ryan whined on and off for 2 hours. Didn't cry, didn't seem horribly upset by the lack of bottle, just really whiny. Every time I picked him up, he'd stop and cuddle, which is nice and cute and all, but mommy has to get ready for work! As soon as he was back on the floor, the whining started all over again. The weird/funny part was at point he was about 5 feet away from me, and instead of just walking over, he laid his head down on the floor and started whining again. This stalemate went on for about 3 minutes until I gave in and picked him up. Of course when I took him to daycare, he was totally happy and lunged for Ana. Humph.

So mothers of toddlers out there... did this happen to you? Did your cute and easygoing baby turn into a whiny toddler seemingly overnight?

1 Year Check Up

We took Ryan in for his 1 year check up today. My little baby is now a toddler.

Ryan is growing pretty much on track although I worry a little about his weight. He's on the skinny side and has steadily dropped percentiles. The doctor wasn't worried though and said that they usually see toddlers start to drop percentiles around 1 year and then stabilize on a curve around 15 months. He's very happy and active and eats when he's hungry, so I guess I'll have to trust the doctor. Here are the other stats:

Height: 31 inches (84%)
Weight: 21 lbs 4 oz (26%)
Head: 46 cm (38%)

The 1 year mark also means some big changes. We've introduced whole milk which he seems to like. We're also going cold turkey today on bottles and switching completely to a cup. Right now Ryan associates sippy cups with water and bottles with milk so if we put milk in a sippy cup, he takes a sip, looks at me funny, and hands it back. Today we're going to forgo the bottles completely and only offer milk in the cups. We'll see what happens. I'm hoping some extra yogurt and cheese will make up for the milk he won't drink. I'm not too worried about taking the bottle away since he doesn't seem too attached to it. Also, we can slowly introduce any and all foods now since we have no history of allergies in either of our families. Justin seems eager to give him shellfish, so we'll see how that goes too.

We also joined the coop at Ryan's daycare, which means we bring breakfast, lunch, and snack for all the kids on Mondays. So now he'll be eating what all the other kids eat (they were pretty much already giving him the food, but this way I don't feel guilty about mooching).

We had a great weekend celebrating Ryan's birthday. I will post about the festivities later this week...

Remembering Ryan's Birth

A year ago today I checked into Brigham and Women’s hospital for a scheduled induction (although Ryan’s birthday isn’t until tomorrow). I can’t believe it’s been that long already. For the sake of posterity, and for my own purposes, I’ve decided to document Ryan’s birth story and the aftermath. Most of you know what happened so feel free to skip this post – it’s going to be a long one… And also a warning: Do not read if pregnant. Avoid at all costs like you would sushi or hottubs.

My due date was November 24th. That day came and went without any fanfare. 10 days later on Monday, December 3rd, I checked into the hospital for a scheduled induction. I was given a Pitocin drip around 9:00 am and labored until about 1:00 pm when I decided that I had enough labor pain experience and requested an epidural. It took two tries to get the epidural in, but once it was there, I was golden. I “labored” for 6 more hours thinking this was not only a piece of cake, but kinda fun! Justin was having a good time watching the readouts of the contraction monitor. My mom was chitchatting with me and patiently waiting for our new bundle of joy to arrive. Everything was good. Partway through this “fun” time, my OB started to notice that my contractions were abnormal. Instead of steadily increasing, they were sporadic. I’d have a bunch of little ones, and then boom, a huge contraction. Her gut was telling her we would end up with a C-section, but every time she checked my cervix, I was progressing, so she said we should keep going.

Around 7:00 pm, as we were watching the Pats game (vs. Baltimore), I flipped on to my left side. I felt a sharp pain in my side, flipped back over, and notified the anesthesiologists. They told me that sometimes there’s a “block” where the epidural won’t work. I was not happy about this, but since baby and I were doing fine, I didn’t see any reason to worry.

At 11:00pm, I was fully dilated and ready to push. I still had the pain in my side, but was managing through it. Justin and my mom each grabbed a leg and as anyone who has ever been through childbirth will tell you, it was more than a little intimate. I tried pushing for about 10 minutes to no avail. I couldn’t feel anything down there due to the epidural, so they turned it down. The problem with this was that the pain in my side grew more and more uncomfortable. I then proceeded to push for 90 minutes through the worst pain of my life. Every time I pushed, that pain in my side got worse. I screamed, cried, and basically thought I was the wimpiest woman that ever existed. After 90 minutes, my OB decided it was time to stop. Baby was just not interested in coming out that way. As much as I just wanted it to be over, I was relieved. The pain was finally going to stop!

We prepped for the C-section and took the obligatory “father-to-be in scrubs” picture. I was rolled into the OR uneventfully. I was pretty nervous and exhausted, and just ready for the whole thing to be over. At 2:48 am (20 hours after checking into the hospital), Ryan was born. They took him over to the scale, and Justin brought him over to me so I could see him and kiss him. Justin left the room with Ryan and we all figured I’d be out 15 minutes later.

Shortly after Justin and Ryan left, my OB asked me where Justin was and I knew something was wrong. There was suddenly a lot of commotion in the room as bags of blood were being brought in. My OB told me that she had never seen anything like this before, but apparently my uterus ruptured during labor. There was a giant T shaped hole in the back of my uterus, she didn’t know if they’d be able to fix it, and I might never have kids again. She asked all the interns to leave and called every Attending OB in the hospital to my OR. There was suddenly A LOT of people in that room. One of the top specialists took over and once I was stabilized, started brainstorming with the other doctors on ways to save my uterus. Brainstorming! I felt like I was in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. These things don’t happen to real people! How can these top notch, best in their field, doctors be brainstorming about my uterus!??!

I laid awake for 4 hours listening to them brainstorm, try different techniques, have those techniques fail, brainstorm some more, and eventually sew me back up. At one point, the lead doctor was yelling to the nurses “get me more clamps, find them anywhere, raid the other ORs!” It was terrifying. I never thought I was going to die, but I did think they were going to give up and give me a hysterectomy. I spent a lot of time trying to convince myself how lucky I was that Ryan was healthy, how we could always adopt a second child…but I knew I couldn’t freak out, I had to give them time to fix it.

During the surgery, I had 4 anesthesiologists on my side of the curtain administering drugs to me and keeping me up-to-date on what was going on. One doctor in particular kept patting my head, telling me everything was going to be ok. All I could do was ask her to ask the doctors to please keep trying. I could hear frustration in their voices, and I was afraid they would give up.

Around 6:30 am, they wheeled me back to my L&D room. I had lost a lot of blood and had a total of 4 transfusions, so I guess I didn’t look that great. I was wearing an oxygen mask and had a blanket pumping hot air on top of me. Justin was overcome with emotion when he saw me. As bad as my night had been, I wouldn’t have wished his night on anyone either. The doctors kept him updated throughout my surgery, but at one point, our brilliant lead doctor showed his very bad bedside manner. He came and said to Justin “Mr. Wade, please sit down” and then proceeded to tell him I was fine.

My OB came to talk to us and was pretty gloomy at this point. She said they had found a solution to fix my uterus, but they weren’t sure it was going to hold. They attached drains to me, and we would watch them throughout the day to see if I was bleeding/leaking fluid. If this didn’t work, we would try a laser procedure, and then if that didn’t work, we would remove my uterus. At this point, as bad as I looked, I felt great (probably all those drugs). I wasn’t worried, somehow I knew it was going to work. They assigned me a nurse who didn’t leave my room, and every half hour she checked the drains and my vitals to make sure I was ok. I finally got to see Ryan around 2:00 pm (almost 12 hours after he was born) to start nursing and enjoy my new baby. Around 5:00pm, I was given the thumbs up and moved onto the post-partum floor to recuperate.

My recovery was slower than most due to the blood loss, and we finally left the hospital 1 week after we had arrived. Our story is really a miracle. The doctors think that the reason Ryan wouldn’t come out when I was pushing was because he was using his head to cork the hole in my uterus, saving us both. There’s a 1 in 15,000 chance of a ruptured uterus during labor and in a lot of cases, the baby and sometimes the mother are lost. We are very lucky to be alive and healthy, and I’m very lucky to have kept my uterus. And I’m grateful to the brilliant doctors at Brigham and Women’s for not giving up on my future family.

After I tell my story, most people ask if I can have more kids. The answer is yes, but the doctors want me to wait at least 3 years post Ryan and they will schedule me for a C-section 1 month prior to my due date.

Haircut and Santa

I took Ryan for his first haircut today and his first posed picture with Santa Claus. One of these events was a huge success, the other not so much. Our first stop was Snip-its, a local chain specializing in baby/kiddie haircuts. I opted for the "first haircut package" complete with photo, certificate, and lock of hair. I know, I'm a sucker, but I can't help myself. When we got there, we only had to wait 5 minutes (weekdays are awesome for errands!). During those 5 minutes we noticed all the other kids were crying, squirming, and generally unhappy. I prepared myself for the worst but was pleasantly surprised. Ryan didn't mind at all! He happily sat in the chair and was very still and quiet during his haircut which is completely unlike him. He was staring at the crying kids with a look on his face that said "calm down, it's only a haircut". Anyway, here is a photo of Ryan getting his haircut.

Afterwards, I decided to press my luck and take him to get his photo done with Santa. Yesterday Justin and I stopped by the mall and noticed that Santa was already posing for pictures. It seems a little early, but I figured it'd be a good use of my time off and we could avoid the lines. Sure enough we got to the mall and Santa was looking a little bored and ready to pose. We walked up and Ryan eyed him cautiously. I tried warming him up by having him give Santa high-fives which he did without a problem. The second I sat him on Santa's lap though, he started screaming. Not really a "I want my mommy" cry, but more of "who the hell is this?!?!?" terror wail. It was kinda hilarious although I hope he doesn't have nightmares. We didn't get our happy smiling kid with Santa picture, but we ended up with a much funnier screaming baby with Santa picture. I'm not going to post it here cause I'm thinking about using it as our Christmas card...

My Mama's for Obama!

Heehee! I just couldn't help myself...

P.S. Ryan and his mama will be hanging out this week while she takes some time off in between jobs so you can expect more posts soon.

Family Time

In October, we went to Chicago to visit my family and the meet the newest addition, Aria. We learned during our trip that Ryan is a big fan of dancing and Avani is quite the talker. Click here for pictures from our trip.

Ryan's First Halloween

Ryan had a very busy month. He enjoyed his first Halloween complete with costume parties and trick or treating (well 2 houses anyway). He got over his ear infection just in time to get another cold and another ear infection. The good news is that he likes this medicine better than the previous kind so we don't have to hold his head and torture him like before. It's a small win, but we'll take it. Ryan has about 6 teeth coming in all at once, but is handling it pretty well. He's much whinier than normal, but it hasn't affected his sleep much.

I finally got around to downloading all the pictures we've taken in the past month or so. Click here to view more pics...

Grrr Argh

This picture of Ryan after a spoonful of peas pretty much says it all. We've been incommunicado because Ryan has had a pretty bad month. We've been through brochiolitis, a cold, and a double ear infection. At one point, Ryan's temperature reached 104.7 which I thought was past the point of no return and subsequently caused me to panic, but apparently babies can run temps up to 107. Who knew?

Anyway, Ryan is now thankfully healthy, has finished his course of antiobiotics, and has returned to his normal happy self! He's still cruising around like crazy and can now walk about 5-6 steps without falling. He's not quite walking yet, but he's getting close! I'll post a video soon.

The really cool thing is watching him understand stuff. He waves bye-bye when we ask him to, and doles out kisses to the right parent based on our request. He's becoming a real person!

Due to sickness and laziness on our part, there are not a whole lot of pictures in this album, but for those of you who have been dying for new photos (hi Gi-Gi!), it will have to hold you over until we can get clicking again. Click here for photos from the last couple of months.

Ryan's First Wedding

As promised, here are pictures from Ashley and Jake's wedding. Ryan attended the rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, and ceremony and as far as we can tell enjoyed himself. One of my sorority sisters was an angel and watched Ryan at our hotel during the reception. While it would have been nice to get him all dressed up and show him off, it was REALLY nice to go out as adults and not parents. We had a great time hanging out with our friends from college and for once not talking about babies.

On Sunday, we went to brunch with a bunch of friends and took Ryan to CMU for the first time. I was really bummed that the store was closed and I couldn't buy all sorts of cute CMU clothes for him, but we had fun showing him the campus anyway. CMU class of 2029?

For pictures of the wedding and our visit to CMU, click here.

Vacation

It's been a busy couple of weeks, but we've finally gone through all the photos on our camera. Last month we went on vacation with the Summerses to Arizona. We spent a couple of days hanging out at the pool, went on several hikes, and had great visits to Sedona and the Grand Canyon. All I can say about the Grand Canyon is it's well named. I'm not much of a nature girl and even I was completely in awe. Here I am with Ryan at the Canyon:



For more pics of our family vacation, click here.

Ryan Update

I promise that pictures and videos are coming soon, just not now... We're behind and it's going to take some time to catch up. In the meantime, here's an update on the life of Ryan:

Ryan is still a speed crawler. He loves to follow you as you walk from room to room and then climb up on your legs. It's adorable.

Ryan is cruising around the table as fast as he can and he's starting to take a couple of steps between the table and couch. He can stand for 10-15 seconds at a time without holding anything and we're guessing he's going to be full on walking any day now.

Ryan gives high fives! Take that new pediatrician!

Ryan went to his first wedding last weekend. His Aunt Ashley got married in a beautiful ceremony outside Soldiers and Sailors and Ryan looked quite dapper in his argyle sweater vest. Pictures to come...

Ryan has a busy travel schedule ahead of him. We're going to visit my family in Chicago in October, Gi-Gi (Justin's mom) in St. Louis for Thanksgiving, and the rest of the Wade clan in Austin for Christmas. Phew! We're certainly getting our money's worth out of flying with a lap infant.

9 month appointment

Ryan had his 9 month appointment today and the new doctor sucked. We've been through 4 doctors now at the pediatrician's office... the first one we picked and interviewed decided to move to Connecticut and her replacement was not first rate. She seemed really unsure of herself and just read down a list of development questions. When we got to something that Ryan hasn't done yet, like wave bye-bye, she kind of shrugged like she wasn't sure if it's a big deal or not (I'm pretty sure it's not.)

The other 2 doctors weren't that bad though, so I think we're going to stay and see the one that looks like Santa Clause and blinks a lot. At least he seemed to know what he was doing...

As for stats, Ryan is now 20 lbs even! He's gone down to the 30th percentile in weight, but we're told not to be concerned since it wasn't a drastic drop. Plus he probably just takes after his daddy with a great metabolism. He's still really tall for his age and his head seemed normal. Yay!

We'll post soon with pictures from our trip to the Grand Canyon. Stay tuned...

Great News!

Phil (formerly known as Woogie) and Danielle adopted a baby boy on Friday! According to Phil's facebook post: Michael Lee Alexander Lychak "Cael" was born on August 19th at 12:13pm...he weighed in at 6 lbs 9 oz...and 19 inches long. We could not be more thrilled, congratulations!

A Rude Awakening

So here was our morning...


Alarm goes off at 7:15.

Me: "Wow he slept late again great! What a good boy. You want to wake him up?"

Saru, after coming back from a 2 day business trip, "sure!"

30 seconds pass...

Through the monitor and down the hall I hear, "Oh my god." Not in an alarming way, but more of a surprise.

Then 5 seconds later, "Oh my god."

[Pause]

"Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god." Again, all said more in a surprised way than alarming. I still wasn't sure at this point if something was wrong, or if maybe he had done something new, like he was doing a handstand on the back of the crib. (I'm just waking up here, so cut me some slack)

Me: "What?"

Saru: "Oh my god." (x6)

Reluctantly, I ask, "Need me to come in?"

Saru: "Oh my god." (x10)

I think....guess I better get in there because this is going nowhere.

I walk in and Saru is standing back from the crib just staring at Ryan who is quite happily standing with his little hands on the rail and peeking over the top.

I take a closer look, and realize there is poop.

"Where?" you may ask? And I would say, "Yes."

It was everywhere. An area on the sheets with about an 8" diameter was clearly 'ground zero'. From there he had rolled, stepped, and mashed his hands in it multiple times. It was all over the sheets, his book, 2 stuffed animals, a rattle, his feet, hands, face, back, shirt, pants, crib railings, mesh bumper, and probably several other places we will discover over the next week.

Nasty.

So, instead of our usual routine of feeding him, showering and setting off for work/day care, Ryan got a couple of baths, we did a load of laundry and I attacked the nursery reminiscent of Tony Soprano's crew after a murder scene clean up. 45 minutes later, Ryan was clean, the poop covered items finishing up in the washer, and the crib lavendar fresh and with new sheets. And I managed to get to work just 10-15 minutes late after dropping him off at day care - not bad. It's like it never happened, or so we wish to believe.

But it did. And will forever be remembered The Great Poop Incident of '08.


Lessons learned:

1. Use bigger/night time diapers, especially if over the last month he's had a smidge of poop sneek out once or twice.

2. Don't voluntarily come in until specifically asked, no matter how many "Oh my gods" you hear.

3. If your kid is quiet, it's not because he is behaving properly. If it's too quiet, its a clear indication that something is wrong.


Sorry, no pictures for this post! Though for a split second I did consider grabbing the camera.

Standing and Pictures

This picture pretty much encompasses everything Ryan is doing these days - gnawing on everything and standing. Ryan loves to pull himself up to standing, which is nice and all for him, but I swear it's giving me angina. See, he doesn't know how to fall yet. I've been trying to teach him to bend his knees and fall on his butt, but he doesn't get it. So no matter where you put him in the living room, he will automatically crawl over to the table, pull himself up, stand there looking all proud for long enough that you have a false sense of security, and then topple over banging his head on the floor. "What to Expect in the First Year" says to let him fall as he's learning to stand and walk but seriously, am I supposed to keep letting him bang his head? Won't he damage his brain? Justin and I can cushion his fall in the living room, but he does the same thing in his crib, and I can't stand there all night making sure he doesn't fall over. Ugh. And he's so manipulative already too. Justin swears he only cries after falling when I'm in the room. Cause I'm the sucker.

Anyway, we've been delinquent in taking and posting pictures, mostly cause we're too busy trying to catch Ryan. But here are some pictures from the last couple of months: http://picasaweb.google.com/jmwade/Ryan7And8Months. Enjoy!

Random Musings

Ryan is officially crawling. On his 8th month birthday yesterday, he crawled halfway across our living room which is the farthest we've seen him go. Justin is in the full swing of baby-proofing, installing cabinet latches, gates, etc. We tried the magnet locks for the cabinet yesterday and like them so far. I guess we'll find out what works and doesn't work after Ryan gets his little hands on everything. We'll also have to have Jace, one of Ryan's friends, over to test us out. Jace just turned 1 and I'm assured he'll be able to let us know if we missed something. We've decided to only babyproof the downstairs and just not let Ryan roam free upstairs. We were originally going to do the nursery, but since it also doubles as our office, it's just a bit too difficult. Plus we need somewhere to put all the stuff from downstairs like multiple laptops and DVD towers. It's funny, we went from having so much extra stuff downstairs to it being very clean and empty.

Ryan also likes to stand at the living room table recently, but can't seem to figure out how to get down. Yesterday he stood there for what seemed liked hours until his little legs started to shake and he got all upset. I wanted him to learn to fall on his butt, but I guess that will come in due time.

I know it's a cliche, but he really is growing up so fast. I look at the pictures of all the newborns and can barely remember when Ryan was that small (not that he was ever really THAT small). We're having such a great time with him now: he thinks we're absolutely hysterical, he reaches for us when we go to daycare to pick him up, and he stares so intently when we try to teach him something. I keep hearing from people that it's only going to get better, but I really can't imagine it better than this.

Welcome Aria!

I am very excited to announce the newest member of our family, Aria Bharadwa! My sister Anjali delivered Aria on August 3rd. She was born at 5:37am weighing 6lbs 11 oz and 20.25 inches.



The picture is showing up really small so I'll have to ask my sister for more photos. But for now... yay! Ryan is totally excited that he gets to be bigger than someone now. Or he would if he could understand it.

Welcome Lucas Orlando Milliken!

Congratulations to our good friends Jamie and Cate Milliken on the birth of their beautiful baby boy Lucas. Yay! Here is the happy mother and baby:

Incidentally, the name Lucas was on our list for a while. When we found out Baby Milliken's name, Justin became very jealous of Jamie that he gets to say "Luke I am your father". Oh boy.

For more Lucas pics, check out his blog (his parents are way more on top of things than we were) at http://millikenbaby.blogspot.com/.

Not Quite Crawling...

A month ago Ryan could roll over but generally stayed in the same place where you left him. A lot has changed in a month. While he's not quite crawling yet, he has figured out how to sit up, roll to the side, get up on all fours, lunge forward, then sit up again in a completely new place. We're still faster than him (for now) but we have a lot of babyproofing ahead of us. Let the fun begin...!

Here's a video of Ryan at the starting gate getting ready to crawl...

A Day in the Life

We haven't posted a video in a long time, so here's one of Ryan and Daddy playing...

The end of breastfeeding...

I stopped nursing Ryan this week. Due to my milk supply (or lack there of) I had been nursing him in the mornings and evenings, but giving him formula at daycare. We started doing this around 2 months ago because no matter what I tried, I could not pump more than a couple of ounces. And the bigger he gets, the more he wants of course. I kept doing the morning and nighttime nursings because 1) I wanted to give him as much breast milk as I could and 2) once I got past those first hard weeks, I had really come to enjoy it. We were going pretty well, but lately he has been so hungry that after I nurse him, I have to give him a bottle too because he's just not getting enough. Then on top of it I had a business trip to Houston this week so I decided to stop. I'm happy because I made it past my goal of 6 months, but I'm sad because I really loved cuddling with him in the mornings as he ate. I can cuddle with him as he takes his bottle, but it's just not the same.

On a positive note, I drank 4 cups of caffeinated beverages on Wednesday just because I could. It's nice to have my body back for the first time in a year and a half!

Ocean City

Last week we took our first family vacation to Ocean City, NJ! We've been on weekend trips with Ryan, but this was the first time we went away for an entire week. We rented a place on the boardwalk and it was a full house - a total of 9 adults and 5 kids ranging from 7 months to 5 years old. Ryan had a great time watching all the other kids play and got to do a number of things for the first time: first time at the beach, first dip in the ocean, first ferris wheel ride, first birthday party, first water park, and first lazy river. It was a jam packed week!

Going on vacation with a 7 month old wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We drove down to Ocean City and Ryan was great in the car. And eventhough we had to be back at the house in the afternoons for his nap (he doesn't nap well if he's not in a crib or pack n play) it was kinda nice. It gave us a chance to unwind and get out of the sun during the really hot part of the day. The only thing that was hard was that we got a lot less sleep than we're used to. We all shared a room and Ryan woke up more during the night than he normally does, probably because he could hear me snoring. Plus Ryan STILL does not understand the concept of sleeping in! So we would go to bed late after hanging out and he would insist on waking up at 7:00 (or earlier).

But all in all, it was great getting to do all these fun things with Ryan and made us excited for when he's older and can really enjoy places like the beach and waterparks.

Click here for more photos from our trip!

The Boys are Sick...

We just got back from a great vacation at the Jersey shore which I promise to post about and upload pictures from later this week. Right now I'm busy taking care of my boys... :-( Ryan and Justin both caught a bug from one of the other kids on vacation. While Ryan has had the occasional cold here and there, this is his first true illness. He has a bad cough, mild temperature, and an ear infection. He's absolutely miserable although the one positive side effect is that all he seems to want to do is cuddle in my arms.

The one thing we've learned so far is that Ryan HATES medicine. (Which by the way is "medicina" in Spanish and not "drogas" as I learned when I apparently told one of the daycare assistants that I was picking up hard drugs for Ryan.) Last night we tried to give Ryan antibiotics for his ear infection with a spoon which resulted in pink sticky stuff everywhere except in his mouth. So this morning we tried to mix it into 1 oz of formula. Ryan, who eats everything, refused it. Since they only give you enough medicina to give the entire 10 day dose, we had to get him to take it. If you haven't had to do this yet, let me say that holding your baby down while you dropper in an ounce of pink formula .8mL at a time is NOT fun. The poor guy screamed the whole time but managed to get it all down.

So, not a fun "baby first" but I guess we should be glad he waited until 7 months to get sick.

5 Years Later...

Justin and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary this past weekend with a trip to the movies and a nice dinner out. It was so nice to go to the movies even though the movie was really, really bad (do not under any circumstances see The Love Guru). Uncle Josh and Aunt Rachel watched Ryan for us and were fantastic babysitters, even helping him make us this adorable anniversary present. Thanks guys!

Slimed

The grossest thing that has ever happened to me happened yesterday. Stop reading now if you have a weak stomach...

I was playing with Ryan, twirling him around, flying him over my head, having a grand old time. It had been 2 hours since he ate so you would think his food was settled. Guess not. I was flying him over my head with my mouth WIDE OPEN when, well, you know what he did. I sat there dumbfounded and when Justin came in the room he said it looked like I was hit in the face with a pie. It was that much. A shower and multiple teeth brushings later and I was fine, but ewwww! The funny part was that Ryan looked horrified cause he saw this clown where his mom had been. Yuck.

Happy Father's Day!

We spent a wonderful weekend in New Hampshire with friends and took Ryan on his first hike. Here Ryan shows his appreciation for having the best dad ever with a big hug. Happy Father's Day!

We have finally posted 6 months pictures. Click here to view. Enjoy!

6 months old!

Happy half-birthday to you
Happy half-birthday to you
Happy half-birthday dear Ryaaaaaaannnnnn
Happy half-birthday to you!

I can't believe it's already been 6 months. They are not kidding when they say time flies. My sister said today that we only have 35 more of these to go before he goes to college. Nooooooo!

Note - yes I know this post is 1 day late. I DO know my own son's birthday thank you very much. I was just busy yesterday, that's all.

Road Trip!

Ryan had his first road trip this weekend to my brother Arjun's high school graduation in Lakeville, Connecticut. A two hour drive each way is apparently perfect for a 6 month old as he slept pretty much the entire time both ways. He gets a solid A (even Daddy the hard grader agrees) for the car rides. He didn't fair as well at the graduation festivities which included a dinner and awards ceremony that lasted about 4 hours during fussy time, but that was to be expected. (Changing Ryan's diaper in the girl's locker room was apparently HILARIOUS to the giggly high school girls that walked in. I can only imagine their reaction had they seen me breastfeeding minutes earlier. I walked around a bit looking for a changing table only to realize that there wouldn't be one in a high school gym cause that would send the wrong message.)

The trip was short, but we did get to spend some time with my parents and brothers and Ryan got to stay in his first hotel - the Holiday Inn (way to travel in style buddy!). Here's Ryan sitting on the ginormous hotel bed.

An interesting factoid of the trip is that we were served dinner at the awards ceremony by a sophomore with the last name of Ford. As in Henry Ford, Model T Ford, family owns the Detroit Lions Ford. Apparently if you watch the Lions Thanksgiving football game, and they show the owner's box, you will see our little teenaged server sitting there enjoying the game.

Bless You!

Everyday Ryan discovers something new that's funny to him. But he's fickle...whatever was funny will only be funny for about a day and then it's up to us to come up with new material. Here the simple act of saying "Bless You" is HYSTERICAL.

What Goes Around Comes Around

This afternoon, Justin, Ryan, and I just took our first walk around the lake near our house. Seeing as we were only going for a short walk, we didn't bring the diaper bag. I mean why would we need to? What could possibly go wrong? Well...

Halfway through our walk, a bird pooped on Ryan. It got everywhere... his hand, his leg, his sleeve, the stroller. It was quite the bird poop. I used his sock to wipe everything down and convinced him the whole way home NOT to stick his hand in his mouth which if you've met Ryan, you know is quite difficult. I guess it makes sense though, he's pooped on us enough, it was about time someone pooped on him.

A Perfect Day

Last Saturday Justin, Ryan, myself, Joshua, Rachel, Zach, and Bhuvana spent the day in Lexington. We went for a nice walk on the bikepath, got fro yo and yummy iced beverages, and then sprawled out on a blanket in the middle of the park. We topped it off with an impromptu bbq at Bhuv and Hyder's. In essence, the perfect spring outing. During this time, Rachel took this beautiful photo of Ryan which I completely adore.

My Kind of Town

Ryan had a great time meeting all of his Chicago relatives last weekend including my dad and grandmother (Umagi). Here Ryan is testing out Umagi's oxygen supply. Weeeeee! Ryan also enjoyed getting lots of kisses from his cousin Avani. On Saturday my sister and I took my mom and the babies to the portrait studio to get a picture of all of them for Mother's Day. Ryan had his first studio shoot and did pretty well. The harder part was getting him and Avani to sit still at the same time. All in all we had a lot of fun and can't wait to go back for another visit!

First Attempt at Solids

This has been a busy week for Ryan - first plane trip, Ferberization, and now the first step towards eating real food: rice cereal. As you can see by the look on Ryan's face, he didn't exactly find it appetizing. Or maybe it just freaked him out. Today we mixed it with water instead of formula and he may have swallowed a teaspoon full. Not sure since about a tablespoon went in and slightly less than a tablespoon ended up on his bib. Next week we're going to try pureed carrots and see how that goes.


Click here for more pictures from Ryan's First Solids and our recent trip to Chicago.

Ferber - Night #2

Ferberization is going well... Ryan cried for about 10 minutes last night before falling asleep and then stayed asleep all night. He woke up about an hour early, but instead of crying, he just rolled over and whined a bit. All in all, a very successful evening!

Ferber - Night #1

Ryan has always been a good sleeper, particularly for his age. At the risk of being shunned by all of our fellow new parents, I'll tell you that by 1 month he was sleeping 6 hour stretches and now goes about 8 hours before waking up to eat. BUT... we realized recently that he has developed a habit of needing to eat to fall asleep (naptime and bedtime). We had a good bedtime routine that ended with him falling asleep on my breast and me carefully moving him to the crib. We thought this was great until we realized that when he randomly wakes up in the middle of the night, the only way he can fall back asleep is to nurse. He doesn't wake up every night, which tells me that he doesn't NEED to eat in the middle of the night anymore. So we have decided to try and break this habit by implementing the Ferber method.

Last night we changed things up on Ryan. I fed him an hour before he went to bed. We did the rest of the bedtime routine, and then Justin put him in the crib. He cried for 5 minutes, Justin went in and put his hand on him, stayed for a minute, and then left. He cried for another 7 minutes and then fell asleep. Although it was hard to hear him cry, it didn't take long for him to fall asleep so we were pretty excited. Then he woke up at 4:15 am and the misery started.... Justin and I listened to him cry for an hour, following the method by going in at different intervals to try to comfort him without picking him up, rocking him, or nursing. It was torture. The worst part was when you went into the room and he'd realize you weren't going pick him up, and he'd cry louder and angrier. We almost gave in a dozen times, worrying that he really was hungry, but eventually he fell back asleep.

In the morning, we felt SO guilty, but he didn't seem to remember the commotion at night and greeted us with a huge smile. I know this has worked for a lot of people, and although it felt mean and selfish, I know in the long run it will be better for everyone, Ryan included. But wow, was that tough. Tonight is round 2...

First Plane Ride

Ryan had his first plane trip this past weekend when we flew out to Chicago to visit family. Both the flights there and back were almost identical. The first 1+ hours were flipping between curiousity, happiness and flat out crying. Luckily each time he cried (about every 15-20 minutes) the bottle calmed him down. For the last 45 minutes it was lights out through turbulence, descent, blabbering captains and flight crew, landing and taxiing.

Overall grade: B- (mom the light grader gives a solid "B")

Crossing Lines

I'm sure Ryan will cross many lines in his life, most of which will get him into trouble. This time, it merits a celebration. He left his home state for the first time last weekend and travelled to Rhode Island (we figured we'd start small and work our way up - you know, like the smallest state...ehn nevermind). We took an afternoon trip so that Ryan could have another "play date" with his friend Xander while Koss, Stef, Saru, and I watched over them by playing Rock Band, a game we have all been addicted to for a couple months now. We rocked out and Koos and Stef served up a BBQ meal complete with burgers, hotdogs, and macaroni salad.

In addition to the awesomeness of Rock Band, we also found out that Ryan travels well in the car, which bodes well for us in the coming months. He slept the whole ride there and back, with the exception of about 10 minutes at the end of the ride when he was insanely hungry. We didn't feed him for almost 4 hours and he was not very understanding. Apparently telling him that we're just 5 minutes away doesn't work yet.

This weekend we're off to Chicago and, consequently, testing him out on a plane.

Friendship

This is the start of a beautiful friendship - as long as Zach doesn't mind being gnawed on.

(Photo credit: Rachel Summers)

Welcome Josephine!

Congratulations to our friends Jen and Jordi on the birth of their beautiful baby girl! Ryan is excited to have another young lady to hit on.

Cause and Effect

Ryan has learned a new trick - he can roll over from his back to his stomach. The problem? He hates being on his stomach. And he insists on rolling over EVERY time he's on his back. This includes in the middle of night, when he wakes up. He used to soothe himself back to sleep with his thumb - but now he rolls over and then cries until we flip him back. I guess this is one of those of 2 steps forward, 1 step back kind of things right?

Fingers are Yummy!

Click here for more pictures.

Welcome to Life of Ryan!

We've finally succombed and joined the bloggosphere! I know we said we'd never do it, but it really is the best way to share pictures, videos, and general info with our friends and family. So check here for the latest on the Life of Ryan. Hope you enjoy!