Where's Ryan?

It's been so long since I posted, but it's because we've been so busy doing stuff this summer! Now that the summer is over, I thought it was finally time to share what we've been up to. Let's see, the summer started off when we had Justin's mom and her new husband (congratulations!) visit us. We went to the beach, spent the 4th downtown with friends, went to Austin for a visit with almost all the cousins (at least on the Wade side), went to the Philly area for a visit with the Hechingers, went camping, and finished the summer off with a BBQ at the Howells' in Rhode Island!

It's been a fun and busy summer and Ryan is doing great. And somewhere amongst all that Ryan got potty trained (well except for that bedtime diaper) and Justin got our house ready for sale. (It's still on the market if anyone wants to buy it! :-) )

Click here for pictures of our summer fun.

Potty Training

It's been way too long and the pictures on this blog are tragically outdated, but I have 20 minutes between meetings and I figured I'd give everyone a potty training update. WARNING: This post will discuss pee and poop. Enter at your own risk.

Ryan had been asking for "underwears" for a while now since his friends at daycare, Lucy and Sidney, have been wearing them for a while. We decided to wait until after Justin's mom's visit so as not to make her deal with accidents (you're welcome Gi-Gi!) Last Saturday, we decided it was time and put Ryan in underwear. We explained the potty to him, showed him all his new underwear, and watched the Potty Power DVD a couple of times. We had him in underwear only, no shirt or pants, and took him to the potty every 30 minutes. For nap and nightime, we put him back in a diaper. Results? Well the good news is that more went into the potty than didn't. The bad news is that we went through 9 pairs of underwears and a whole lot of mine and Justin's patience. We locked ourselves in the house for 2 days in potty purgatory, not leaving for anything. It was stressful and annoying, but by Monday morning, Ryan had started to get it. The one thing he wasn't getting though was poop. Each day he peed in the potty, but waited until naptime or nighttime to poop in the diaper.

On Monday we happily sent him to daycare with 8 pairs of underwears, several changes of clothing, and a hearty "good luck!" He did great, with only 2 accidents.

On Tuesday, we had a major breakthrough. Huge poop in the potty! I jumped up and screamed and completely startled Ryan, but we celebrated with lots of hugs (and a little chocolate).

On Wednesday and Thursday we had only 1 accident a day, and Ryan has started going 1.5 to 2 hours between potty breaks.


Over the weekend we did great, no accidents, but he did wait until naptime or nighttime to poop in his diaper. Not a big thing we figured, he'll get it again.

On Monday Ryan came down with a cold and that's when all hell broke loose. He's consistently doing well at daycare, going every hour on command and having few accidents. When he's home it's a different story. He wants to wear his underwear, but he doesn't want to go to the potty, so he holds it for 2 hours and even though we get him to sit for a minute every once in a while, he won't go. He'll now wait to pee on the floor instead. I did some research and this appears to be a willful toddler thing probably in rebellion of my constant reminding and hovering. I mean, I guess it would be a lot of pressure to have someone ask you every 5 minutes if you have to go and then watch while you're going. So we're going to try to back off and see if we can get him back to his week 1 greatness. And if not, that's ok too, we'll put the diaper back on for a couple of weeks and try again.

So all in all, we appear to be experiencing the roller coaster ride that is potty training. But as my co-worker reminded me, he won't go to college wearing diaper. Probably.

Pictures Long Overdue

Ever since I started my new job, I've had little time to post about the life of Ryan. Needless to say, Ryan is doing great, talking up a storm and coming up with a new way to make us laugh every day. I finally got around to going through pictures (from Christmas!) and here they are:

Here are pictures from Christmas when we had a wonderful visit from Justin's mom:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jmwade/Christmas2009#

And here are pictures from our adventures in Europe.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jmwade/Europe2010#

The Beginnings of Sex Education

This post may be TMI. Read at your own risk.

(Mommy steps out of the shower. Ryan is waiting there to open the shower door for her.)

Ryan (staring at mommy's you-know-what): Mommy, is that your penis?

Mommy: No Ryan, Mommy doesn't have a penis.

Ryan: Daddy has a penis?

Mommy: Yes

Ryan: Ryan has a penis?

Mommy: Yes

(Several moments go by while Ryan ponders.)

Ryan: What is that mommy?

(Mommy wonders what she should say. Should she go clinical? Should she call it a "hoo-hoo"? "Va-jay-jay"? "Cutchie"?)

Mommy: It's a vagina.

(Several more moments go by while Ryan ponders.)

Ryan: Do I have one?

Mommy (after doubling over from laughter): No Ryan, only girls have vaginas. Boys have penises. Justin!! It's time for you to get Ryan ready now... please!

Pancakon

To no one's surprise considering he's my son, Ryan is a chatterbox. The moment you walk into his room in the morning you get an endless stream of questions, requests, and observations. "Go downstairs? Get ready first? Go downstairs? Mommy sleeping? I like my blanket. I liiiiike it." etc. etc. He also does pretty funny stuff these days. So in the interest of keeping a diary of these precious moments, here are some of the gems from this week:

Precious Moment #1
On Sunday morning I made chocolate chip pancakes and bacon. We cut them up into little pieces for Ryan, and since he's content to starve himself if you don't actually feed him yourself, I started feeding him the pancake.
Mommy: Ryan, do you want a bite of pancake or bacon next?
Ryan: Um... pancakon.
Mommy: You want both at the same time?
Ryan: Yes! Pancakon!
He then proceeded to devour his breakfast, one bite of pancakon at a time.

Precious Moment #2
This morning Ryan grabbed his humongous stuffed elephant and carried him around.
Ryan: I carry baby. This Ryan's baby.
Daddy: I think Ryan's ready for a sibling.
(Ryan puts the elephant on the floor and starts riding it like a horse.)
Ryan: Go baby!
Daddy: On second thought, maybe he's not quite ready.

2 Year Check-Up

We had Ryan's 2 year check up today. I tried to get an appointment during the holidays but apparently everyone else has that same idea, so we had to wait till Jan 5. Ryan is still a smart, healthy boy with no developmental concerns. Yay! Here are the some of the highlights of the visit:

Height: 36" (82%) Does this mean he can go on all the rides now? Incidentally, the doctor said that you can predict someone's adult height by doubling their 2 year old height, which would make Ryan a 6 foot tall man. I can see that...

Weight: 25.6 lbs (16%) Still tall and skinny. The doctor was unconcerned about his weight gain stating that he probably just has high metabolism and he'll be one of those people who can eat whatever they want and not gain a pound. Given his daddy, I guess this makes sense too. We are staying on whole milk to help him gain weight.

Physical exam: The doctor noted that Ryan has the long legs and arches of a runner. The first half-Indian Usain Bolt perhaps?

Development: Ryan mentioned a color and the doctor was surprised to learn that he knew all his colors already. He asked us if Ryan was really smart or something.... How do you answer a question like that?! Of course, he's smart! :-) We actually said something about how his friend Zach knew his colors early and Ryan wanted to keep up. It's good to have smart friends too.

Asthma symptoms are being well-controlled by his Flovent, so we're going to continue that through the winter.

The bad part of the visit was the shots and blood draw. Ryan got 2 shots including his second H1N1 vaccine, and had to get his blood drawn to check for lead and hemoglobin levels. He was fine during the first shot, cried a little during the second, and screamed during the blood draw. :-(

Freedom of the Seas

We had such a fantastic time on the cruise! Pictures to come next week, but for now, here were the highlights:

We went with my family: my mom, Anju, Anjay, Avani, Aria, and Arjun. Ryan had SO much fun hanging out with his cousins, and was really sad to see them leave yesterday.

The ship - Royal Caribbean, Freedom of the Seas. I think we had 4300 passengers or something crazy like that. Anju and Anjay did the rock climbing wall, the kids enjoyed the H20 zone and we had fun watching people wipe out on the FlowRider. Amazing amenities on the ship. Royal Caribbean definitely does well with the entertainment and activities. There was never a boring moment, never a time when there wasn't something fun to do, and the production quality with the shows was pretty amazing for a cruise ship.

Our rooms: We were in the VIP suite at the very back of the ship (yes I know it's aft Justin) which basically meant we had a huge balcony that looked out over the water. Totally awesome. We also got special seating at all the shows, and access to the super secret concierge lounge where they handed out free drinks from 5-8 every evening. We all took advantage of the lounge but the boys especially did it up, making friends with Patrick, the bartender. VIP status didn't mean as much as we thought it would, (I never saw a butler), but it was nice to have some extra perks. And the balcony alone was worth it.

Embarkation day: I got food poisoning. Not a good way to start.

Day 1 - At sea - Had fun getting dressed up for the formal evening and singing karaoke.

Day 2 - Labadee, Haiti - It's a private Royal Caribbean island, so the crew basically takes all the food and drink from the ship and makes a "picnic" for the guests. Justin and I did a kayak tour while Ryan hung out at the beach with the rest of the family.

Day 3 - Ocho Rios, Jamaica - It was pouring in Jamaica. At the time we were hoping they would cancel the excursions, but thankfully they didn't. Justin and Arjun did the ATV tour while Anju, Anjay, and I went ziplining through the trees. We had lots of fun although our clothes may not have survived the rain and mud. Ryan, Avani, and Aria hung out with Nani on the ship running around the balcony.

Day 4 - Grand Cayman - Our underwater observatory tour was canceled but we did get a tour of the island and trip to the turtle farm. Justin, Ryan and I spent the afternoon at the beach where Ryan kept tasting the water and saying "salty". Genius I tell you. In the evening we did more formal wear and more karaoke (this time the classic "I Will Survive"). And saw a great ice show.

Day 5 - Cozumel, Mexico - Lots of shopping. In the evening we hit up the nightclub and I danced like a crazy woman in front of people I would never see again. Fun!

Day 6 - At sea - It was a little chilly (probably around 70) so we did some indoor activities like bingo, trivia, etc. This day went by way too fast. Ryan enjoyed the water park even though it was freezing out. I defrosted him a bit by putting him in the hot tub for a couple of seconds.

Yesterday we spent about 10 hours in the Orlando airport (and we were the lucky ones able to get home at all). Ryan didn't seem to mind being stranded, he was a huge fan of the moving walkway and we must have gone on about 50 rides. He was way too excited to nap, so we figured he would conk out on the plane. Nope. He was definitely tired, but wouldn't lie down, and just kept getting more and more exhausted. He finally fell asleep around 10 to be woken suddenly at 10:45 for landing. Overtired + possible ear pain due to cold + possible nightmare about a dog = MAJOR MELTDOWN. He writhed and screamed for what felt like an hour but was probably just 15 minutes. And I'm usually one of those really apologetic parents, but I was myself in danger of a meltdown and instead of apologizing, I was silently daring my fellow passengers to say anything.

All in all, loved the cruise. We had so much fun playing blackjack at the casino, participating in all the activities on board, enjoying the ports and excursions, and eating like it was going out of style. I'm still full. It was especially fun with a kid since we got a chance to visit a bunch of ports without having to pack and move. This comes in really handy with a toddler.

That's all I can remember for now, but I'll post pictures soon.

Random Update

I keep thinking I need to update the blog, but first I want to download Halloween pictures, or recent trip pictures, or post about that thing that happened 2 months ago. This is stressing me out, so instead I'm just going to post as things happen. And if I happen to miss some photos, I'm sure you'll see them on facebook anyway someday.

A couple of random updates about Ryan:

1 - He's hilarious these days. He constantly goes around pointing at things and saying "I like it" in a way that's a weird combination of Forrest Gump and the kid from those Life Cereal commercials in the 80's. We rented a huge truck for our trip with the Summerses to Annapolis for Thanksgiving, and EVERY time we got out of the car he would say "Mommy, I like it. I like the car." Over and over and over again. (It also works when he doesn't like something. He saw a dog he didn't like and mentioned to us about 50 times that he didn't like the dog.)

2 - He's smart enough/old enough to tell us what hurts. Last night Ryan had a low-grade fever, but he kept pointing to his ear and saying it hurts. Now considering Ryan likes to point at things and say "ow" all the time while laughing, we weren't quite sure whether to believe him. Plus he usually gets a really high fever with an ear infection. But he kept insisting that it hurt so we took him to the pediatrician's office this morning, and low and behold, he has a bad ear infection in that ear. Turns out it's good to listen to your kid.

3 - He's a manipulative little devil. Normally when he touches something he's not supposed to, Justin and I tell him "no touch" and he repeats it back and then doesn't touch it anymore. Yesterday morning he came into our bedroom, reached under the bed, and turned off our power strip. I told him "no touch" and he pretended not to hear me. So I kept saying it asking him to confirm, and instead he threw his arms around me to give me a big hug and kiss. He refused to acknowledge what I was saying, instead trying to distract me with kisses. I'm on to you kiddo.

Videos

My mom bought us a video camera when Ryan was born, and it's been sitting and gathering dust on our mantle. Last night Justin connected it to our computer and found that we had taken various videos here and there, just never downloaded them. So for your viewing pleasure (Nani and GiGi, this is mostly for you), here are links to several of the videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FKSRdgnMhM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia9DAex6YS4

We've just downloaded these, more to come from earlier in the year.

Random Musings: Mommies on One Side, Daddies on the Other

This post isn't really about Ryan, but more about the effects of parenthood. In the last couple of weeks, Justin and I have both gone out for dinner with friends while leaving Ryan with the other parent. I went with the "girls" and Justin went with the "guys". Now this is great, I love getting together with my girlfriends, and I generally organize these outings, but it's not how it used to be. I was always one of those girls that got along with guys better. I spent much more time at KDR than I did at Zeta back in college, and to this day some of my best friends are guys. It's interesting to me how becoming parents has segregated us into gender groups. Suddenly I find myself talking to other moms about breastfeeding or other baby stuff while the guys all go out to a cigar bar. In the past I would have been at that cigar bar with them (other girls too), but now I don't go. And although I miss my guy friends, I think a "Saru + the dads" dinner out would be kinda strange even though it never used to be. And in some cases, I spend more time with the wives of my old college friends than I do my old college friends. It's not bad, they've become my friends too, it's just different.

So this holiday season, Justin and I are going to throw an adult party (get your mind out of the gutter) where the girls and guys can mingle once again without the babies running all over the place. If you live in the Boston area, stay tuned...

A Big Tumble

I don't particularly want to relive this, but as this blog is also a diary, I feel the need to document what I'm sure is the first of many times where Ryan causes my heart to stop. Ryan fell down the stairs on Saturday morning. He's fine, we called the doctor and he's not exhibiting any worrisome symptoms. This is how it happened:

Ryan has been doing the stairs by himself for a couple of weeks now. As he was learning, we would go down a couple of steps in front of him so to catch him if he fell. He's never fallen or slipped, so little by little we gave him more breathing room. Over the past several weeks he's been doing them all by himself much to his delight. On Saturday morning, we were getting ready to go to Target to pick up a couple of bins for his puzzles. Justin went downstairs first and then Ryan followed. I was getting ready in my room when I heard a thump and then Justin yelling "OH MY GOD!" Now seeing as Justin is the calm one, and I'm the one who panics, this terrified me. From what Justin could see, Ryan fell from the top of the stairs, did a couple of cartwheels in the air, and landed against the wall at the bottom sideways. Luckily his head didn't take the brunt of the impact, it was pretty evenly distributed across his body.

Ryan cried for a minute and then asked to go outside. We checked his head, limbs, everything and he didn't have a bump or scratch on him. Once it was clear that he was fine, I burst into tears and couldn't stop. Ryan came over to me, gave me a big hug and asked if Mommy was sad. I explained to him I wasn't sad, I was very happy that he was ok, just a little scared.

We're back to standing a couple of stairs below him again much to his dismay. It's going to take me a while to be able to back off again, I just hope I'm not hovering over him when he's 18 trying to go down the stairs by himself. Hehe. He didn't seem to learn from his fall either, 2 hours later he was jumping up and down at the top of the stairs. The good news is that he doesn't seem traumatized by it, the bad news is that he doesn't seem to have developed a healthy respect for gravity yet.

Buses and Bedtime

Ryan loves buses. He loves trains, cars, and excavators too (don't ask) but he LOVES buses. Everyday on the way home from daycare, he points out every bus he sees and yells "bus! bus! bus!" until I acknowledge the bus he saw. Then as soon as the bus is out of sight, he wants more buses and yells "bus! bus! bus!" until he sees a new one. He gets pretty frustrated with me for not finding the buses too. I think next weekend we should skip the apple picking and fairs and just head to the local bus depot. The kid would be in heaven.

The other subject of this post is bedtime. Now, Ryan has always been a great sleeper. He's such a great sleeper that when people with kids ask me how he sleeps, I answer tentatively for fear of being hit with something. Part of what has worked for us is establishing a routine. It's not long or too elaborate, but it's very consistent and Justin and I each play a specific role. Here's our basic routine:

One of us dresses Ryan in his pajamas and overnight diaper. We brush Ryan's teeth. We read 3 board books or 1 full length Dr. Seuss book. We do "family hugs" and then we all kiss his little stuffed Elmo goodnight. Justin takes Ryan to shut off the lights, first the hall light, then the room light. Then Ryan gives Justin a hug and kiss and comes to me. He gives me a hug and kiss and I put him in his crib while I sing a song (the same one since he was born). I say "night night" and "I love you" and he does the same. I close the door and we're done.

Tonight, I learned the downside of this consistency. It totally freaks Ryan out when one of us is missing. Although I have to say, he whines when I'm not there, but totally throws a fit when Justin's gone. Luckily this is very rare. Tonight Justin went out and I put Ryan to bed alone. All was fine until we finished the book. Then he started screaming for Justin. I tried to do the Elmo voice and make him laugh, which distracted him for about 30 seconds on the way to the light switch, but when it was me and not Justin helping him shut off the light, he lost it. Screamed for the next 30 minutes for Daddy. Mind you, he didn't ask for him once in the 2 hours between getting home from daycare and finishing the book. But when Justin's specific part of the routine came, and he wasn't there, it was very upsetting to him. Since I'm headed out of town next week for a business trip, I find myself wondering if we should just deal with this anomaly as it comes, or try to switch up the routine every once in a while so it's not SO super consistent and hope it doesn't screw up his ability to go to bed the other 95% of the time. The weird part is that when we put him to sleep at someone else's house and transfer him, he doesn't really care about the routine. It's only when it's in his room.

Ryan's Latest Bag of Tricks

It is absolutely amazing watching Ryan learn new words and concepts these days. Every day he has a new skill or trick and his sentences get longer and longer. Here are some of his newest tricks:

Counting: He can count to 10 in both English and Spanish although this is mostly memorization. Realistically he can count to 3 - he can count and recognize 1, 2, or 3 of something, after that he just keeps going till 10.

Alphabet: He can sing the alphabet song, but can't yet recognize all of the letters. Video of his singing to come soon (I've only captured him singing until V, then he gets distracted by the iPhone... I'd post this version, but really the best part of the song is the "double doos").

Communication: Longest sentence to date I think was "I want to see Uncle Josh". He also goes around these days saying he likes everything, i.e. "I like applesauce. I like Daddy."

Manners: He's more polite than I am. He says "please", "thank you", and "excuse me" ALL THE TIME. Over and over again. It's getting a little absurd frankly.

Personality: He's kinda a neat freak (perhaps mild OCD tendencies?) He likes things to be in their place and insists that his empty sippy cup goes into the sink (not that I mind!) He's also really good about sharing his toys and taking turns if you ask him. I'm not sure what they're doing at his daycare, but it works.

All in all, he's doing great (although I wouldn't mind if he put on a little weight - sometimes he resembles one of those starving children ads. He eats, I swear!)

Labor Day Weekend

On Sunday of Labor Day weekend, we roamed downtown Boston with the Summerses. Rachel took some great pictures that can be found here:

http://jsummers.sugarsync.com/albums/thumb/262108_311621

Ryan and Zach LOVED the new carousel. You can't necessarily tell from the pictures, as they seem to be holding on for dear life, but they both screamed when the ride ended and we took them down.

Thanks once again to Rachel for being the photographer!

Best. Day. Ever.

About a month ago we took a trip to West Chester, PA to visit our friends Randy and Bethany and their 2 adorable girls, Kylie (5) and Sophie (2). The trip down was uneventful. We drove for a couple of hours, stopped for dinner, and then Ryan fell asleep precisely at his bedtime.

The theme for the weekend seemed to be: do what you will and Mother Nature will follow. Each day the forecast threatened to ruin all of our plans. Each day we decided to risk it and do it anyway. And each day was perfect! On Saturday we went to Longwood Gardens, a beautiful 1000+ acre mecca of gardens, fountains, and meadows. Ryan and Kylie walked hand in hand throughout the Gardens taking in all of the beautiful plant life.

Afterwards, we had a nice swim in the Hechingers' pool and followed it up with a yummy dinner and blizzards at Dairy Queen.

Despite the fun time we had on Saturday, it was nothing compared to Sunday which Justin and I think is the best day of Ryan's life to date. It started off with a bowl of Cheerios, any toddler's favorite breakfast. We then hopped in the car and went to Sesame Place. Now for those of you like me who had never heard of Sesame Place, it's like a Disneyworld with Sesame Street characters, geared for little children, and not as big. It's also probably 75% water rides/fountain areas. The first thing we did is ride the Lazy River. Then we went to Ernie's Waterworks where there were tons of cascading fountains and spraying water. Ryan was in heaven: running through the fountains, getting big buckets of water dumped on his head (why is this a problem in the bath, but not here?) and chasing his daddy around. He was disappointed to leave this area, but the promise of what was to come next made him leave peacefully.

(We had so much fun we forgot to take a single picture. Sigh.)

After lunch, we went to a showing of Elmo's World Live. It's basically a "live taping" of an Elmo's World segment on Sesame Street. Dorothy the fish is there, Mr. Noodle, and a life-size Elmo running around and doing his show. Ryan was sitting on my lap when Elmo came out, and the pure, unadulterated joy on his face almost brought me to tears. He was so ecstatic he couldn't sit still. He kept jumping back and forth between me and Justin, hugging us over and over, and pointing at Elmo with wonder in eyes. It was awesome. After Sesame Place, we went back to the Hechingers for another swim. The day was then capped off with Ryan's favorite dinner, pasta and meatballs, and some singing, dancing, and general silliness around the living room. A perfect day for Ryan.

For the ride home, we decided to casually make our way back to Boston. We stopped for lunch for about an hour, stopped at the Ikea in New Haven to check out some storage units and let Ryan run around, and stopped for an hour at Rein's Deli in Ct, one of our favorite road trip restaurants. We got stuck in about an hour of traffic on the way to Ikea which Ryan did NOT appreciate, and the whole trip took about 9.5 hours, but all in all it went fine.

Thanks to the Hechingers for a great weekend! We forgot our camera, so credit Bethany for all the photos. Click here for additional ones.

Haircut Pictures

A couple of people have asked to see the evidence of the bad haircuts. I present to you Exhibit A and Exhibit B.

Bad Haircut

I took Ryan for his 4th or 5th haircut this weekend (kid has a lot of hair). I was going to take him to this cute little barber shop Josh and Rachel recommended, but since I needed to go grocery shopping too and do a whole bunch of other errands, I decided to go the convenient route and take him back to the Hair Cuttery. We've been there a couple of times before and his haircut is always "a'ight". It's not as good as his first haircut from Snip-Its, but not bad for $10. Well this time I was so focused on entertaining Ryan, that I forgot to tell the lady to keep it long on top. So she cut it REALLY short. And it's all uneven in the front and back, and well it's just a horrible haircut. The good news is that I know it will grow out and we can do it all over again in a couple of months. The bad news is that we're headed to Philadelphia this weekend and Ryan has some ladies to impress! Oh well, I think we'll be stocking up on hats for the next few weeks.

Wade Reunion in Vermont

We just got back on Saturday from a weeklong vacation in Vermont with Justin's family. Surprisingly, we've already downloaded the pictures and are ready to post!

Ryan had a great time visiting with his cousins (Jack 8, Alicia 7, Allie 6, Sarah 5, and Erica 3). They all played on the swing, sang Ring Around the Rosie and made smores. We went swimming and fishing, and had bonfires and played games - everything you could ask for on a lakehouse vacation.

Ryan learned a lot from his cousins over the week and he returned the favor by teaching them some phrases in Spanish. It was so fun watching the kids run up to their parents and say "Mom, 'mas' means 'more' in Spanish!" Ryan loved hanging out with the family and constantly hugged everyone and "pounded fists". It was clear when we got home that Ryan missed everyone terribly asking for his cousins by name.

In non-Ryan news, Justin and I had a great time hanging out with Wades from around the country, making fires and even beer bowling. Can't wait to do it again!

Click here for pictures from the trip.

Random Musings

My easy-going baby is back! Looks like the loss of appetite was due to his incisors coming in. Now he's using them to tear into all kinds of stuff. Thanks to everyone for the advice, we are now making only one dinner and not worrying about whether he eats it or not. (He usually does.)

I think we're in that really fun stage where Ryan learns a new word or sentence every day. Today he said butterflies when he saw them in his book, and I had no idea he knew that word. But the absolute best thing was a couple of days ago when unprompted he said "I love you Mommy". I pretty much melted into a puddle of goo right there at the kitchen table.

Ryan is a big fan of duets these days. He sings certain letters during the alphabet song and various parts of "Old MacDonald". One day soon we'll post a video of the duets...

Off to Bed with No Dinner

We've had an interesting couple of weeks with Ryan and I think it's due to a combination of teething, separation anxiety, and plain old unpredictable toddler behavior. Our daycare is closed for vacation for the next 2 weeks, and this week Ryan is hanging out with my mom. The first day, Ryan screamed bloody murder for an hour after we left. This was pretty tough on my poor mom who was trying to change his diaper and spent the morning running after him. He eventually calmed down and they had a nice time together. The 2nd day was actually worse than the first. Luckily on day 3, he started to adjust and only cried for 5 minutes. So while we thought we had a really easy-going, laid back kid (see Daddy as example), it turns out Ryan does not like to be left with new people. Hopefully this will change as he gets older, but for now babysitters are forewarned!

The other thing is lately Ryan is getting weird with food. He has always been a fantastic eater - loves fruits and vegetables, eats pretty much whatever we put in front of him... He's the only kid I know who picks steamed zucchini over french fries. But lately, he's getting picky, not willing to eat things he used to love. And we're talking rice and beans, not the steamed zucchini (he'll eat that any time, any day). And he outright refuses to eat dinner. He has a great breakfast, great lunch, and great snack. I don't know if he's just full by the time dinner arrives, but he won't eat it. He just wants milk. One day I tried to deny him his milk so he eats, but he didn't really care. So now I give him the milk back so at least he gets some calories. Anyone else deal with anything like this? Are breakfast, lunch, and snack just enough and he doesn't need dinner? And what happened to my easy-going baby!??