Delinquency in Blogging!! Part 2: Ryan

So my baby Ryan is now 2 and a half!! It just occurred to me that the last time I posted was almost exactly 1 year ago. Something must happen in late July early August that reminds me to write!!

Little Ryan is such a delightful little guy. He gives the BEST hugs and is super easy and laid back about 95% of the time- he can throw a nasty temper tantrum if he wants to though!! Ryan officially and FINALLY has all of his teeth now! He got his molars and his canine teeth at the same time which had to be hard for him. He had his hands in his mouth a lot!! We love seeing his toothy grin. He is talking up a storm now. Despite a somewhat delayed start, he seems to have caught up nicely.

We have been potty training for a while. He has been going poop in the potty for quite a few months which is LOVELY- no more stinky diapers at our house!! The peeing is an interesting twist. He does fine when we are home. We don't use pull-ups or diapers during the day and he does great 99% of the time. WE are still using pull-ups when we go out because for some reason he almost always pees in his car seat, and he isn't always good about telling me he has to go. He is getting better, but is in that stage where playing is more important to him then wet pants. Reid was so easy that this is different for me. I have let the worry go and figure he will get it eventually. There isn't really anything else I can do.

I helped Ryan make the decision to get rid of his pacifier recently. He paid for a new train at Toys r Us with his pacifiers. He did this willingly. We had a difficult week but then he was over it. It's great not being pacifier dependent anymore. Here was his new train "Hank".

Ryan really looks up to Reid. He shares all of Reid's interests in trains and they play together quite well half the time and I am trying to save them from killing each other the other half of the time. Ryan just started showing interest in movies. He got really obsessed with Cars which he calls "Racey Cars". He loves playing with all his Cars toys and he reenacts scenes from the movie. Now he is branching out to Wall-E and Finding Nemo. We actually took him to see his first move a few weeks ago- Toy Story 3. He started crying when we got into the lobby of the theater, then he started crying when we got into the theater. He sat through the movie fine albeit with a death grip on me, then when the movie was over he cried again. Overall: not so much of a success. Maybe we will try again when he is 3 when Cars 2 comes out.

Ryan knows 2 knock knock jokes. The first one he learned from his Poppy: "Knock Knock", "Who's there?" "Boo", "Boo who?", "you don't have to cry about it". So Ryan's version of the punch line is him standing there with his shoulders shrugged and his hands out and says "cy bout it". The cuteness can't be adequately relayed through this medium, but it has brought us great joy. The other joke was taught by Uncle Rollin it goes: "Knock Knock", "Who's there?", "Canoe", "Canoe who?", "Canoe come out to play?". He does this one pretty well too- soo funny.

As I mentioned before Reid had swimming lessons this summer. We chose to hold off on giving Ryan lessons as the cost is pretty high. Ryan REALLY wanted to get in that pool with Reid and the only way he could be distracted was with a lollipop. Well last week I took them to the pool with some friends and Ryan jumped off the bottom step to me and started kicking his little legs!! He wanted to do it again and again and would even jump off of the side and swim to me. It was pretty impressive to me that he did what I just paid over $200 to teach Reid to do. Of course Ryan is insatiable in the pool. He jumps and swims over and over again until we tell him it is time to get out. My little guys are both swimmers!! Pretty cool:)

Ryan is still in his crib. Erik and I have been in negotiations about getting a big boy bed. The consensus is to wait until January around his 3rd birthday. The urgency to move him up isn't there with no baby on the way!!

Ryan is starting school in the fall too. He is going to be doing 2 days a week on Tuesday and Thursday from 9-12. He seems excited as he has seen Reid do this for the past 2 years. I am going to cry like a baby on his first day. I can't believe he is not my baby anymore. 2 and a half years has gone by in a flash (sure didn't feel that way for the first year and a half though!!).

Delinquency in Blogging!!! Part 1: Reid

Wow, I am slightly shocked that it has been about 8 months since I last blogged about us. I guess I have some catching up to do!!

I will start with Reid who will be 5 in less than 4 months. He is still totally in love with trains, although now he is learning more about "trains with no faces" and is less into the Thomas trains. Erik has recently been taking the boys to the Library every Saturday and they have checked out every book about trains the library has. One of his favorite things to watch on tv are his "Extreme Trains" documentaries. The other thing he does is ask to get on You Tube so he can watch videos of trains on there. He might be slightly obsessed!!

Reid is also learning how to read, which is amazing to me. We have some Leap Frog phonics books, which are great since they have mostly 3-4 letter words. I was pretty surprised when we sat down with the first book and he actually read! In related news, Reid can also read numbers with 3 digits- he learned this by looking at pictures of trains that had identifying numbers. Finally he can write all of his uppercase letters. I have not been as diligent at having him practice the lowercase letters.

This summer Reid finally got some quality swim instruction, so he is now a little fish. He LOVES it. They want them to be able to flip from their front to their back and Reid has a bit of anxiety about that, so we are still working on that particular skill. It is so nice having a swimmer!! I feel like I have been avoiding the pool for the past 4 years.


Reid starts VPK (voluntary pre-kindergarten) in the fall. He will be going to school 5 days a week from 8:45 until 1. We are so blessed to have such great friends in our neighborhood, and we will be carpooling with 1 of them!! I will do 2 days and my friend Christy will do 2 days, then we will alternate Friday's. I am very excited about this plan:) It is amazing to see some of the kids only a few months older than Reid actually starting kindergarten and riding the school bus in a few weeks. I am feeling very grateful for Reid's early birthday since I get my boy for an extra year.



Reid played soccer for the first time this year. He had a blast and as an added bonus so did his Daddy!! He even scored a few goals and got 2 on their play-off game. He is playing again in the fall and can't wait.

In other news Reid had his last day of Gymboree this week. Shockingly, I didn't cry:) It probably sounds funny to be sentimental, but we have been going there since Reid was 4 months old. Gymboree saved me from my isolation as a new mom and introduced me to some great friends. It will always hold a special place in my heart.




This picture is of Reid posing with Hiro his new train. He got him as a reward for writing all of his uppercase letters.