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.