2 years & 7 months

 Ryan has become quite the story-teller. He can relate, down to the detail, things that happened 6 months to a year ago. For instance, he tells me about how one night he went to bed but then he heard a booming sound so then I came to get him and brought him outside and put him on a chair and he saw fireworks and they were flashing and so loud so I covered his ears so the booming wouldn't get in. This was last fall during the marching band field championships, but he talks about it all the time! He also asks to watch "the camels running" on TV which is a commercial we saw maybe 2 times for some reality show last summer. We also can't tell him any secrets as he proudly announced a few days before my birthday, "Mommy, Daddy and I got you a card! We went to Alco!" Yet, he answers many easy and direct questions with "I don't know." It's also getting harder to "fib" to him, like when I gave him a couple cereal options and he said, "No, I want Chocolate cereal (Cocoa Krispies)" and I told him we didn't have any. He pointed to the cereal cupboard and said, "Oh, I think you do, Mommy."  Dang.

In a long and rambling story, it is funny to pick up a few of his mispronunciations or rearrangement of words, especially when posing questions.  For instance, he pronounces "does" like "do's" and will ask "What he do's?" or "Where he is?" He also has trouble finding the correct "opposite" sometimes if there is more than one way the word is used. For example, I told him it was getting late so we could go for a short walk and he said, "No, let's go for a TALL walk."

Ryan's current favorites include:

Indoor games: Legos, farm tractors and animals, race cars
Outdoor games: bubbles, walking Nika, soccer, soft-toss baseball
Books: Farmer Brown Goes Round & Round, Little Cloud, Curious George Gets a Medal (have you ever read this rambling story about George filling a fountain pen, stealing a pump from a farmer, knocking over a dinosaur at the museum, and then being forgiven and given a medal because he agrees to go up in a spaceship and parachute out? The book was copyright 1957 and I find the meandering storyline and zero responsibility for actions fascinating)
Clothes: Thankfully he's not too picky about clothes but will want to pick out his jacket--either Twins, green jacket, blue jacket, or "red sweatshirt I got from Colin". If he doesn't want to wear something, he'll insist it's too big or too small.
Food: Cheese sticks still rule the roost but mini ice cream cones are the best negotiating tool used to make him finish the rest of his meal. He is also surprisingly good at eating tacos.
Discoveries: He loves finding moths, butterflies, and ants, but still hates flies and other large bugs. He loves getting ice and water out of the door of the fridge. He is still very aware of sounds and can pick up on whether there is a soccer game being played nearby, if a motorcycle, truck, or noisy car is going by, and will cover his ears at a loud noise such as the garage door going up.

As I wrote in an earlier post, he's doing okay on potty training and can manage the whole process himself, but still won't tell us every time or will go in his pull-up shortly after we had him go in the potty, so it's still a work-in-progress.

He is growing into all-boy way too fast but when he gets out of his bath, he lays on the towel and wants me to pick him up "pretend I'm a baby" and carry him to his room. It is getting harder and harder for me to lift this kid! He also wants to lay on his back while giving me a hug when we say prayers at night. This is also awkward for my 30-year-old self!

One final thing that's persisted this month is after getting dressed on the changing table, he'll count 1, 2, 3, then JUMP off into my arms and wants to fly out into the living room "like Buzz Lightyear" and tries to say "to infinity and beyond" as we go down the hallway.

Overall, we've got a little motor mouth who loves the nice weather and keeps us on our toes!