Bed Head

Oh, to be blissfully unaware.

I have a feeling a stocking hat is not going to help this situation.

Go Raiders and other Saturday Happenings

Despite the wind and chill today, we decided to go to the last Northwestern home football game. It fell right during Ryan's nap time, but he seemed to enjoy crawling all over us on the bleachers, saying hi to the people around us, taking off his coat, eating animal crackers, spitting out a "Bertie Bott's Every-Flavor Bean" all over his hand and coat (I think it was a vomit-flavored one), drinking diluted juice, and digging through the diaper bag. Oh yeah, there was a football game going on too. Ryan and I left at halftime with the score 7-6 and the Raiders ended up winning 35-6.

Here's what Ryan had to say about it:

I think we won even bigger than N-dub because once we got home, Ryan slept for over 3.5 hours. He got up in time to eat some leftover pizza for supper and then we finally decided, after over 3 months, tonight was the night to actually hang up some things in Ryan's room. We never did paint it, so the walls are still white, but it looks much better now with stuff on the walls!  Ryan wanted to help, so we let him hold a pencil. He promptly started scribbling on the wall with it. We immediately reprimanded with "No! We do NOT write on walls." Then I looked up and saw the 8 carefully marked X's I'd just drawn on the wall to indicate where nails should be put. No wonder the kid was confused.

Other things we did today were go to the craft fair where he was fascinated by a flower arrangement-in-a-wooden-duck, and got some new books and music from the library. Usually picking out books from the library involves him pulling 20-30 books off the shelf and me following behind them trying to put them all back, then leaving with a select few that I can stand to read. As a side note, there are some really dumb children's books out there. Just sayin'. I read one today about a bunch of insects going to a "Bug-a-Boo" party. There were about 14 characters and 3 plots going on in 13 pages and the moral of the story I got was "if you're friends all ditch you to do cooler things, your mom will bail you out and help you put on a one-man play." I'll take pipe-smoking Curious George over than nonsense any day.  What?  You didn't know the monkey was a tobacco fan? Get the original non-PC versions and you'll see a lot of puffing (along with some ether-sniffing in Curious George Goes to the Hospital).  Anway, we went through the DVDs just to see if anything jumped out at me. I don't usually borrow DVDs from this library because you only get them for 1 day here and that rarely works for me. Ryan discovered a Curious George DVD and of course wanted to take it with him. Since he'd already watched Super WHY and some of his Thomas DVD in the morning and since we had plans for most of the day, I just distracted him and put the movie back on the shelf before self-checking out. (Don't get me started on the self-check-out. The first time I attempted this, it took me 20 minutes, I felt my college degree didn't prepare me for the "unlock your CD case" contraption,  and I set off the "you've stolen a book" alarm 3 times.)  When we got home he took all the books out of the bag, then asked "Where Curious George DBD?" (and no, that's not a typo). Oops! Guess he has a little better memory than I gave him credit for!

Dance Dance

On Friday night, Ryan attended his first junior high dance. Does this seem a little soon? I thought it would be years until he was subjected to the "girls on this side, guys on that side" cheesy DJ dance party. But the promise of doing grocery shopping without a "big helper" chucking glass applesauce jars in the cart prompted me to agree that he could go along with Adam to stop in at the junior high event. After 6 years in the role, Adam finally is not officially in charge of these types of events, but wanted to go check it out, nonetheless.

A few hours later, a very tired boy who smelled like popcorn came and told me about his night. Ryan talked a little too. :) Apparently only part of the event was an actual dance and there were several other fun activities. Ryan's favorite part was watching part of some dinosaur movie, but also named FOUR girls he danced with.  Part of me wondered if they sent their friend over first to see if he "like-liked" them first or if he wanted to "just friends" dance. 

I'm guessing Ryan's enthusiasm for dances may have an inverse relationship with his actually being eligible to attend them. But until then, son, get down with yo bad self.

Grandma's Boys

Ryan and Lincoln are lucky to have an awesome grandma who loves them very much!

Ryan and Lincoln

These two monkeys are 4.5 months apart and we have a feeling they are going to be quite the duo as they get older!

 My Buddy, My Buddy, My Buddy, My Buddy

Wherever he goes...I go!

"So, what model is this here sandbox? This the PlaySkool with cat cover, or did you go Step 2?"

"Yeah, you're going to need a Phillips for this one. Classic righty-tighty is going to fix this right up."

 "Cant.Reach.The.Crane."

Warning: Collision Ahead. Tears Possible.

 "You should try P90X. I hate the yoga, but the polymetrics really helped me increase my vertical."

We've come a long way, baby!

2 Years, 1 Month

Some of Ryan's favorite things to do lately include running around the living room, tackling anyone who tolerates it, playing soccer and football in the backyard, and going to music.

We are working on manners like not interrupting, waiting his turn, putting away his coat, asking with a "please" and receiving with a "thank you." We are also working through the tantrum phase as he learns that we are not going to do everything he wants. He has an interesting coping mechanism--when he gets very angry or frustrated, he purses his lips very tight and blows through them, then pauses, then make a very high-pitched staccato scream, pauses, and repeats. It's very hard not to laugh.

He is also developing a few stall tactics at bedtime. After bath and books, he won't fight going into his crib, but then dictates which CD to play, which 2 books he wants to bring to bed with him, the arrangement of his stuffed animals (moose, teddy bear, big puppy, cow pillow, rhino, and Catty), the level of light from his touch lamp, and how many people are on the prayer list (as many as he can think of). The good thing is, even if I leave and he cries, it lasts about 30 seconds before he gives up and goes right to sleep. With an 8pm-6:45am consistent night schedule and 1.5-2 hour nap, I have nothing to complain about.

Conversations with Ryan are getting more entertaining now that he asks and answers questions and has a little longer memory.  The other day we asked him what he wanted for supper and he said, "Ummm, I like veg-a-bles, chi-cken, and patoes." We kept talking about other things and all of a sudden he wildly interrupted to announce, "I LIKE MEATBALLS TOO!" When we were driving in the car, he launched into a long narrative along the lines of: "Mommy! Haybales! 2,4,6,7,8,9,10,11. Cows eat hay. Not Mommy, not daddy, not Ryan, not Nika, only cows eat haybales. Cows eat grass. Silage. Cornstalks beds. Gampa feed the cows. Drive tractor."

Ryan's new favorite food is ice cream cones. My mom found miniature ice cream cones which are perfect because they hold about 1 Tbsp of ice cream and he doesn't know any different! He has asked for ice cream for breakfast and sometimes negotiates for "just a lil' bit nilla ice cweam."

As the weather gets colder, we hate losing the ability to play outside at night, but will start spending more time reading in the bean bags or playing farm in the basement. It might be a long winter, but I have a feeling he'll keep it interesting!

Hallelujah Party

The church Adam's dad now pastors throws a "Hallelujah Party" every year on Oct. 31. Kids can dress up (or not if they don't want to) and come play tons of games to earn slips of paper good for a small, medium, or large prize. Ryan got dressed up in his cowboy costume and had a great time at the party with Grandpa and Grandma Boone.

He didn't really understand the concept of many of the games, but with some great luck (and maybe some help from the workers now and then) he managed to get many prize slips. It was actually refreshing to see him playing games for the pure joy of throwing a football instead of doing it to get something.  Some of the games he played included Plinko, Sponge toss, Toilet Bowl Toss, Football Toss, and "Pick a Lollipop".

He picked out some great prizes including stickers, a twisty straw, coloring book, maracas, fruit snacks, and M&Ms (I had to let him have a LITTLE bit of candy, but don't tell him that I ate the rest of the bag a few days later).

Throughout the night, they drew numbers for prizes using the number on each child's wrist band. As we got ready to leave, we stopped by the marker board and were surprised to see his number! He got to pick a prize and chose a Thomas the Tank Engine DVD with a little wooden train car! We let him watch it a few days later and he was transfixed! He liked saying all the different engines' names.


Once we got home it was too late to serve trick-or-treaters (Shoot! Whatever will I do with a bag of Reeses PB Cups, Kit Kats and Twix?) but we did have one special visitor. My aunt stopped by with a treat bag for Ryan. We let him eat one of the delicious banana chocolate chip muffins she brought.



I'm sure there will come a day when he'll want to dress up in some horrible zombie killer costume and stuff his face with candy all night (if he is any bit my son, the last part of that is a given), but for now I'm holding on to my muffin-eating cowboy.

And I may or may not be plotting where he can wear those red boots again.