Ryan has discovered the cuckoo clock at Gramy and Grampy's house. He just loves the cuckoo clock and will sit and wait for him to come out. All weekend long "cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo". His new favorite word.
Hooray Greg is home from India! It was 26 hours door to door on his journey home. Poor Daddy and he is so jet lagged with the 10.5 hr time difference. We are so excited to have have him home safe and sound.
Did everyone enjoy the snow? We took Ryan out sledding yesterday and he absolutley loved it. The faster and the bigger the hill the better. He even knew to hold on after the first few times. My parents got over 8 inches of snow and it was quite a challenge for Ryan to walk in the snow it was past his knees. And poor Dylan looked like a bunny hopping in the snow it was practically over his head. He literally was a snow ball when I brought him in. I had to put him in the shower to defrost his paws and belly at least he had his fleece on. Ryan really enjoys the snow. Today we took him out and he played and played and hopefully tired himself out so he will sleep on the 3 hr plane ride to sunny Florida.
Hope everyone has a great week. We will have pictures and updates when we return. Thanks to Grammy and Grampy for taking care of Dylan the puppy for us while we are away.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Priceless....
So Greg called this morning just to say hello and see how we were doing. Of course he wanted to say hello to Ryan too so I gave him the phone (I had it on speaker so I could hear too) and Greg said to him "who am I"? and Ryan replied "Dada" It was absolutely priceless! I ran downstairs to get the video camera and I told Greg to ask him again and I turned the camera on and of course...No way! Totally not happening again. It was the I only do that once trick. Oh well too bad it was really cute though.
Just a few other new happenings.
Ryan can count to 4. "on, tooow, tee, fooo"
When asked "What the duck says" He replies "caaack, caack, caack"
Favorite words: "up, oh oh, dog, thank you, all done, dada and Mom"!
Always says thank you when given something he wants like a cup, or a toy, or his bunny
Can follow simple directions for example "put your diaper in the trash" and "knock on the bathroom door"
Knows where his mouth, nose, eyes, ears, chin, legs, toes, arms, hands, and belly button are.
Dances and tries to sing when music is played....more like a hum
Recognizes pictures of family members
Thinks Dylan is his best friend (well technically he is....not sure the feeling is mutual on Dylan's end...he sometimes runs and hides from Ryan)
Ryan and I had a play date with some of our friends Caroline and Sophia. I was just telling their moms that exactly one year ago was when we first started getting together for play dates. We met in our swim class and have grown very close since. I remember seeing what little tiny babies they were in the first class and Ryan did not even know how to sit up on his own. We pretty much got together every Tuesday after swim class. Grazi and Sarah have become such great friends to me and to Ryan. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching Caroline, Sophia and Ryan grow and play together. The things that they do and say together are just absolutely priceless. How Sophia still called Ryan "Caroline" today. And how Ryan ripped Sophia's pretty barrette out of her hair....he wanted a taste. How Ryan pushes Caroline in the little wooden wagon. How Caroline smiled stamping her feet in delight when we arrived. How they hug each other and wave bye bye to each other. Oh and how Ryan tried to sit in the little toy baby carriage. As the petite polite girls played with the pretend kitchen...Ryan climbed up the side of it as if it was a stepping stool to get on the couch. He is such a boy and the girls are such girly girls! It has been such a blessing to have these wonderful people in our lives and I don't know where I would be in this world without them. We talk about anything and everything and Sarah and Grazi have given me the best advice. I just wanted to thank you both for being such great friends. Thanks for all the great memories we have experienced so far. Ryan and I look forward to many more play dates in the future!
So glad to have Grammy and Grampy here to keep us company today while Greg is traveling. Even got to get out and get a pedicure for our trip. Yay! Have a wonderful week. Can't wait until Greg returns home!
Just a few other new happenings.
Ryan can count to 4. "on, tooow, tee, fooo"
When asked "What the duck says" He replies "caaack, caack, caack"
Favorite words: "up, oh oh, dog, thank you, all done, dada and Mom"!
Always says thank you when given something he wants like a cup, or a toy, or his bunny
Can follow simple directions for example "put your diaper in the trash" and "knock on the bathroom door"
Knows where his mouth, nose, eyes, ears, chin, legs, toes, arms, hands, and belly button are.
Dances and tries to sing when music is played....more like a hum
Recognizes pictures of family members
Thinks Dylan is his best friend (well technically he is....not sure the feeling is mutual on Dylan's end...he sometimes runs and hides from Ryan)
Ryan and I had a play date with some of our friends Caroline and Sophia. I was just telling their moms that exactly one year ago was when we first started getting together for play dates. We met in our swim class and have grown very close since. I remember seeing what little tiny babies they were in the first class and Ryan did not even know how to sit up on his own. We pretty much got together every Tuesday after swim class. Grazi and Sarah have become such great friends to me and to Ryan. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching Caroline, Sophia and Ryan grow and play together. The things that they do and say together are just absolutely priceless. How Sophia still called Ryan "Caroline" today. And how Ryan ripped Sophia's pretty barrette out of her hair....he wanted a taste. How Ryan pushes Caroline in the little wooden wagon. How Caroline smiled stamping her feet in delight when we arrived. How they hug each other and wave bye bye to each other. Oh and how Ryan tried to sit in the little toy baby carriage. As the petite polite girls played with the pretend kitchen...Ryan climbed up the side of it as if it was a stepping stool to get on the couch. He is such a boy and the girls are such girly girls! It has been such a blessing to have these wonderful people in our lives and I don't know where I would be in this world without them. We talk about anything and everything and Sarah and Grazi have given me the best advice. I just wanted to thank you both for being such great friends. Thanks for all the great memories we have experienced so far. Ryan and I look forward to many more play dates in the future!
So glad to have Grammy and Grampy here to keep us company today while Greg is traveling. Even got to get out and get a pedicure for our trip. Yay! Have a wonderful week. Can't wait until Greg returns home!
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Bye Bye Dada....
So sad here in the house. Greg left for India today and I always get soooo sad to see him leave. The three of us had such a nice Saturday together the boys had pancakes while I went to my early morning spin class then Ryan helped Daddy pack his suitcases. Then we all went to the park to play. Ryan had his afternoon nap and we went out to dinner as a family before Greg had to leave. I only shed a few tears as he hugged me goodbye I tried not to let the toddler see me cry but he did so I quickly stopped. But thankfully I have Ryan and Dylan here to keep me company while Greg is away. Looking forward to our warm weather vacation next week.
Tomorrow we are having a play date with Bjorn and Arik. Their Daddy (Greg's boss)is also traveling to India with him. I don't know how Sylvie does it with the 2 boys and Victor is traveling more than Greg these days and they do not have any family at all in the U.S. I already told Sylvie to warn Bjorn that Ryan may eat his play dough and throw his matchbox cars tomorrow.
Oh did I mention it is becoming a challenge to type these days because the toddler got a hold of my laptop and ripped off the E and V key. The enter key was already missing he tore that one off quite some time ago. For some reason the toddler is very obsessed with the laptop! I try not to use it in front of him but I forgot to close the top the other day and he got his little hands on the keys and ripped them off. Ryan also loves the phone too. There is so much baby drool in the phone that people actually say on their end the sound is quite muffled....hmmm maybe it is time for a new phone. The toddler also managed to lose Daddy's blackberry today and we were frantically looking for it before he left for his business trip. Finally after calling it several times it was found under the couch...phew...We really need to stop letting the toddler hijack our electronic equipment.
Not much else new around here....Ryan is eating much better this week we think he is making up for last week. Hope everyone has a great week ahead. We are hoping Greg has a very safe trip and return home. We miss you more than you know!
Tomorrow we are having a play date with Bjorn and Arik. Their Daddy (Greg's boss)is also traveling to India with him. I don't know how Sylvie does it with the 2 boys and Victor is traveling more than Greg these days and they do not have any family at all in the U.S. I already told Sylvie to warn Bjorn that Ryan may eat his play dough and throw his matchbox cars tomorrow.
Oh did I mention it is becoming a challenge to type these days because the toddler got a hold of my laptop and ripped off the E and V key. The enter key was already missing he tore that one off quite some time ago. For some reason the toddler is very obsessed with the laptop! I try not to use it in front of him but I forgot to close the top the other day and he got his little hands on the keys and ripped them off. Ryan also loves the phone too. There is so much baby drool in the phone that people actually say on their end the sound is quite muffled....hmmm maybe it is time for a new phone. The toddler also managed to lose Daddy's blackberry today and we were frantically looking for it before he left for his business trip. Finally after calling it several times it was found under the couch...phew...We really need to stop letting the toddler hijack our electronic equipment.
Not much else new around here....Ryan is eating much better this week we think he is making up for last week. Hope everyone has a great week ahead. We are hoping Greg has a very safe trip and return home. We miss you more than you know!
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Finally an end to the mutiny...?
 |
| 2008-02-12 Ryan 15 months |
First of I have to thank everyone for the comments regarding the baby mutiny episodes from last week. I am happy to say that today was a very good day. Ryan ate and slept and napped well and overall less clingy and very happy...hooray. But yes feeding the toddler is the biggest challenge I have right now. For example the toddler ate all 3 meals without a fight today.... and napped for 3 hours without interruption. This all in one day is completely unheard of....and yes there was less drool today and less clinginess (is that a word?) and overall he was in a very pleasant mood today. Who knows. I got so nervous over the weekend about the mutiny which went on for 3 days (nearly refusing lunch and dinner all 3 days) combined with the fussiness and clinginess and our upcoming travel plans better be safe than sorry so I put a call into the pedi on Sat. afternoon. I dreaded doing this after all I carry the beeper for our practice once a month and I dread it when the beeper goes off....you never know if it is a simple question or a complete disaster on the other end. To my surprise it was our pedi and he was super sweet and assured me Tylenol would do the trick (and it did) and he agreed to see him the very next day. Who knew our practice had Sunday office hours? Glad I called. Turned out that it was just his lateral incisors coming in up top. Phew no ear infection that is what I was worried about. I know I am a bit neurotic about the toddler but when it is your child you lose all your common sense and assume the worst at all times (at least I do anyways). Glad we can rest assured it was just a bout of nasty teething..... But thanks everyone for your words of wisdom and encouragement! C3... it is nice to now we are not alone in the mutiny department....McCashew..hopefully Caro won't be as picky seems like she is a very good eater....Jenny... thanks for the tips! Ryan seems to prefer room temperature food too like Ava!
The toddler enjoyed some fun in the snow today. He had a ball! I bundled him up in his snow pants and boots and he had so many layers on he could barely walk. Ryan enjoyed playing in the snow and even took a little taste. Him and Dylan chased each other in the yard and we even ran into our neighbor Luke while enjoying our fun in the snow. Luke was also having a snow time photo shoot in his backyard. Luke lives 2 houses over and is 14 months old.
So We enjoyed a quick visit with Grammy and Grandad on Sunday they stopped by to pick up some baby stuff for our trip. That was such a huge help I can't imagine having to fly with all our baby equipment. I feel like we have so much more stuff this time around in comparison to our trip last year. Kerri good luck with your packing! I am all about lists too!
We are entertaining the idea of updating our kitchen. We really need to rip down the hideous wall paper, paint the walls, update the counter tops, and add a tile back splash. We poked around at home depot and Lowe's last week and got some great ideas. We got one estimate on the work last week and are awaiting another. Boy this came out to a bit more than we anticipated (I think it is always the case) Now we need to figure out if it will all be worth it...mainly we are updating to help improve the resale of our home in the future. Greg and I really want to do some of the work ourselves but realize it will be a challenge with the toddler and Greg's demanding work schedule. Plans are up in the air for now. Decisions, decisions, decisions. I am sort of all or nothing in terms of the renovations.....
Check out the new pictures..some from Caroline's cheerio themed b-day bash...and others of Ryan in snow and at Playtime Village. Have a great week! Thanks again for all the great feedback!
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Baby Mutiny at its Best!
Mutiny, Mutiny, Mutiny today! Yesterday I went to a work dinner and Greg fed Ryan dinner and of course (only for Daddy) he gobbled everything up and more. But today it was a totally different story. For breakfast he actually did fairly well ate scrambled eggs, mango, and had some milk, mutiny occurred with the strawberries and plum, and oatios/heart to heart cereal soaked in milk (which I hear from Polina he loves) apparently only for her he spit it back out for me and hand picked the strawberries out and piled them up on his tray from the bowl of fruit and ate only the mangoes leaving the plums in the bowl. So odd how toddlers manage their food. For lunch I offered him some whole wheat couscous, chicken broth, garden burger and squash....mutiny mutiny mutiny only took maybe 5 bites after I disguised it with mango. I sneaked a few bites of a healthy snack of cottage cheese and spinach after his afternoon nap though. Then for dinner I offered him left overs from last night. I guess he takes after me in the fact that I hate eating anything more than once in a week. It was slow cooked pork with apples, broccoli, and rice but he ate some bites only after I drenched it in apple sauce.
Hopefully he will do better tomorrow here is what I packed for him.... mangoes, strawberries, kiwi for snacking, chicken and rice for lunch, cottage cheese, yogurt, spinach for afternoon snack, and pirate booty but only if he eats all his other food.
I have come to learn in these past few months that feeding a toddler is quite possibly the most challenging aspect of motherhood for me now that and also my mission to tire the toddler the days that I am home which I am happy to say I managed to do 2/3 days this week...not too bad! Thank goodness the little menace is sleeping now and I can finally sit for the first time today. Sorry for the lack of blogging but it seems that this past week the toddler has had quite the burst of energy and has managed to burn me out.
Teething woes continue... I think Ryan is cutting some more teeth. Biting everything in site and refuses to take his right hand out of his mouth. He has it wedged so far back the only part poking out of his mouth is his chubby wrist and part of his hand but all fingers are in the mouth. I have tried to feel around for new ones pushing through but this is very dangerous one can risk having their entire finger/s completely bitten off if not careful! The toddler loves to bite anything and everything! I have suddenly become paranoid that Ryan does not know how to swallow that maybe something was wrong with his esophagus....then Greg added but he knows how to swallow food...oh yeah, duh. Anyways I have observed other toddlers Ryan's age and it seems that none of them seem to be drooling as much as Ryan and it is rare to even see a toddler these days wearing a bib. BTW if I don't keep a bib on this toddler at all times I would be changing his shirt every 0.5 seconds. It seems to me that the child does not know how to swallow his own saliva so he lets it drool out onto his bib/shirt. I think I may address the issue with the pedi at the next visit... I don' think it is anything urgent b/c since birth Ryan has never gone a day without a bib therefore I do not believe he has ever swallowed any saliva ever!
The preschool debate. So want to know how snooty Fairfield can be...I posted on another mommy board a question about preschools in town for 2 year-olds and opened another huge can of worms. I got nearly 20 responses most of which were very helpful but some were responses like "oh don't you know it will be hard to find a good preschool now....most of the good ones fill up at least a year in advance!" Also there are a few in town that are close to $12,000 a year FOR PRESCHOOL! So I put a few calls in and I will see when I hear back. There are only a handful in town that offer 2 yo programs and according to some moms they are probably likely getting full for 2008-2009 school year. Still looking into our options. Either way I think Ryan will do well with or without preschool at age 2. Most programs start at age 3. Either way it is worth researching a little.
Our first music class started on Tuesday. It is really a great class. All the toddlers in the class are all close in age 15-18 months (Ryan being the second youngest) compared to the sign class that was mixed ages newborn to age 4. The teacher is wonderful Ryan is learning how to sit in a circle, follow directions, play musical instruments, and sit on a blanket for story time. It is so cute she opened her story time blanket and Ryan went running over was the first to sit down...the other toddlers followed suit. What a great class and a nice group of toddlers and moms.
I will be busy packing for Florida this weekend. The Flynn's are driving down Sunday and making a pit stop to pick up some toddler equipment to bring down to the condo. I hear that McCashew is also packing for a warm weather get away the same week. We should compare lists Kerri to make sure I am not forgetting anything imprortant. BTW we had such a wonderful time at McCashew's first birthday celebration! Caroline is such an adorable baby and she is so grown up now! Her and Ryan really enjoyed playing together! I think Ryan made a new friend with your mom too! Ryan is looking forward to seeing his grandparents this weekend and thanks for taking some of our stuff in advance. Hope everyone has a great week!
Hopefully he will do better tomorrow here is what I packed for him.... mangoes, strawberries, kiwi for snacking, chicken and rice for lunch, cottage cheese, yogurt, spinach for afternoon snack, and pirate booty but only if he eats all his other food.
I have come to learn in these past few months that feeding a toddler is quite possibly the most challenging aspect of motherhood for me now that and also my mission to tire the toddler the days that I am home which I am happy to say I managed to do 2/3 days this week...not too bad! Thank goodness the little menace is sleeping now and I can finally sit for the first time today. Sorry for the lack of blogging but it seems that this past week the toddler has had quite the burst of energy and has managed to burn me out.
Teething woes continue... I think Ryan is cutting some more teeth. Biting everything in site and refuses to take his right hand out of his mouth. He has it wedged so far back the only part poking out of his mouth is his chubby wrist and part of his hand but all fingers are in the mouth. I have tried to feel around for new ones pushing through but this is very dangerous one can risk having their entire finger/s completely bitten off if not careful! The toddler loves to bite anything and everything! I have suddenly become paranoid that Ryan does not know how to swallow that maybe something was wrong with his esophagus....then Greg added but he knows how to swallow food...oh yeah, duh. Anyways I have observed other toddlers Ryan's age and it seems that none of them seem to be drooling as much as Ryan and it is rare to even see a toddler these days wearing a bib. BTW if I don't keep a bib on this toddler at all times I would be changing his shirt every 0.5 seconds. It seems to me that the child does not know how to swallow his own saliva so he lets it drool out onto his bib/shirt. I think I may address the issue with the pedi at the next visit... I don' think it is anything urgent b/c since birth Ryan has never gone a day without a bib therefore I do not believe he has ever swallowed any saliva ever!
The preschool debate. So want to know how snooty Fairfield can be...I posted on another mommy board a question about preschools in town for 2 year-olds and opened another huge can of worms. I got nearly 20 responses most of which were very helpful but some were responses like "oh don't you know it will be hard to find a good preschool now....most of the good ones fill up at least a year in advance!" Also there are a few in town that are close to $12,000 a year FOR PRESCHOOL! So I put a few calls in and I will see when I hear back. There are only a handful in town that offer 2 yo programs and according to some moms they are probably likely getting full for 2008-2009 school year. Still looking into our options. Either way I think Ryan will do well with or without preschool at age 2. Most programs start at age 3. Either way it is worth researching a little.
Our first music class started on Tuesday. It is really a great class. All the toddlers in the class are all close in age 15-18 months (Ryan being the second youngest) compared to the sign class that was mixed ages newborn to age 4. The teacher is wonderful Ryan is learning how to sit in a circle, follow directions, play musical instruments, and sit on a blanket for story time. It is so cute she opened her story time blanket and Ryan went running over was the first to sit down...the other toddlers followed suit. What a great class and a nice group of toddlers and moms.
I will be busy packing for Florida this weekend. The Flynn's are driving down Sunday and making a pit stop to pick up some toddler equipment to bring down to the condo. I hear that McCashew is also packing for a warm weather get away the same week. We should compare lists Kerri to make sure I am not forgetting anything imprortant. BTW we had such a wonderful time at McCashew's first birthday celebration! Caroline is such an adorable baby and she is so grown up now! Her and Ryan really enjoyed playing together! I think Ryan made a new friend with your mom too! Ryan is looking forward to seeing his grandparents this weekend and thanks for taking some of our stuff in advance. Hope everyone has a great week!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)