Catch up!!

I am so behind, I am just going to try to catch up.



Most recently I turned 31 on April 16th!! It took me a while to even realize that I turned 30, so to turn 31 was confusing!! I had a very fun birthday though. My Mom cooked dinner for me and made cheese cake. It was very nice and relaxed. Erik finally gave in and got me the Dyson I have been asking for forever. I LOVE it!! I found it refurbished for a fraction of the cost, and was so excited when I could even clean the AC air returns on the ceiling with it!! SCORE!! I have been marveling about how one becomes the age where getting a vacuum cleaner is exciting, but I guess it has to happen eventually. Work is still going well for me, I am loving the people with whom I work. We have a good team and manage to make our weekends fun.



I have started seeing an acupuncturist. I believe I mentioned in an earlier post that I have been dealing with some anxiety issues. I get these anxiety attacks and they are out of proportion to the causing situation. They don't happen a ton but most recently I had one that I couldn't shake for about a week. I am trying the acupuncture to help see if I can get my body back on track. I think my hormones are still a bit off, I am still nursing Ryan and have only had 2 periods both of which were irregular. I am hoping that this is all a hormonal imbalance- hence the acupuncture. I have also started studying the art of Mindfulness and meditation. I started with Eckart Tolle and read "A New Earth" and did Oprah's online class. This was a great help to me. Most recently though, I got his first book "The Power of Now", which I found to be a bit more focused and helpful. I also just got a book called "Mindfulness in Plain English". All 3 of these books are helping me learn that our pain truly is caused by the conditioned thought patterns in our brains. It has been really life altering to realize that and try to bring presence into my life.



Another life change for me is incorporating in exercise. I have been blessed with a thin figure, and have never felt a huge pull to exercise. I do find that it helps a great deal with the stress though. We just joined the YMCA yesterday. I am hoping that when Reid is out of school in a few weeks, I will be able to pick up some Yoga or Pilates classes and drop the kids off to play.



Overall, I am very happy with our life. Our boys make me smile and laugh everyday. Erik is an amazing father and husband. We have been blessed with awesome jobs, family, friends, and neighbors. I truly cannot complain about anything.



Erik and I are pretty much in agreement that we are done having children. We have decided to hold off on a final decision until Ryan is 3, but it seems pretty certain right now. I have learned that I am not a person who thrives in chaos, and I think 1 child per adult seems pretty doable- even that sometimes is crazy though!! We are so lucky to have our boys it almost seems like pushing our luck to have another. Of course, I can't have it too boring, so now I am thinking about getting the boys a dog around that time;) Assuming Erik won't divorce me if I do that...



Erik is doing well with work, he had a major milestone at work today which I can't begin to explain, but it was part of their computer software project that they have been working on forever and it came to fruition today. This is a huge accomplishment so he was quite pleased.



He has been trying to play tennis 1 time a week with a co-worker, and he enjoys that. He turned 35 on February 22nd. On the down hill slope to 40!! Hard to believe. He got a new tennis racket for his birthday.



Reid is doing well these days. The most amazing thing to me about raising children is to hear their language develop. Boy is his language developing!! Good and bad:) He now negotiates, argues, and tries to boss us around. Conversely though he tells us he loves us, and tries to be funny. He definitely loves Ryan, however, we are having a problem with him not understanding that knocking over, pushing, leaning on, and sitting on his brother is not acceptable. I am at a complete loss on how to discipline this, he is NOT getting the picture at all!!



He finishes Mothers Morning Out in May. I think we will both be sad. Reid LOVES school and is now always excited to go. I love the structure that it gives our week and the time Ryan and I get. Next year he will be in the preschool program and will go Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. I think we will start Ryan in Mothers Morning Out the following year.



Reid is taking a Sports Class at Gymboree. I drop him off for about 45 minutes and he learns about a different sport for about 4 weeks at a time. So far he has done hockey, golf, soccer, and tumbling.



This summer our plan is going to be YMCA, swimming lessons, play dates with friends, and lots of Gymboree make-ups.



Reid is still obsessed with trains, his favorite show to watch is called "Extreme Trains" which is an hour long documentary about different kinds of trains. It entertains us that he likes it since it is an adult type of show. He is still loving the train table as well.



Reid knows all of his letters now and the sounds thanks to the Leap Frog Letter Factory video and some Thomas flash cards. It was quite magical. Now we just need to master lower case letters.



Little Ryan is doing great!!! He FINALLY got some teeth on March 9th we saw the first ones on the bottom. That put him just a little bit over 13 months!! Now his top middle two are also in and I see more lumps to come. We have still be having rough nights with him- he wakes 1-4 (usually 2 times per night). Now we have something to blame it on though!



He is officially walking! We call him our T-Rex because he has stiff legs and keeps his arms up close to his body. It is quite comical. In the past week he has been trying to master standing up without pulling himself up on something. Once he masters that officially, the crawling will be gone.



He is quite a focused little guy and seems to have pretty good hand-eye coordination. For instance he will sit with a toy and play with it for 10 minutes or so which to me seems like a good attention span for a toddler. He loves putting lids on things, kicking the soccer ball, and chasing his brother around. He is still taking 2 naps (when I don't mess up his morning nap with an activity). He does those well, if only we could get the night time working.



We are in level 3 of Gymboree, which we both really enjoy. He is starting to really like climbing. He LOVES the bubbles, parachute time, and being thrown into the air.



When Reid is out of school we will be moving up to Level 4 which is the same time as Reid's sports class- which works out nicely.



In other news, Ryan just started saying something that sounds like Uh Oh and he will say MaMaMa when he is mad or upset.



I guess that is the latest update on us:)