Things are going pretty good right now! We're finally hitting a groove with the kiddos, and I can hardly believe that I ordered Ryan's 1st birthday invites before we left for our vacation. Mark and I were chuckling the other day about how we've successfully kept 3 kids under 5 alive for almost an entire year. It's mind-boggling, considering how busy we are, how adventurous and curious they are, and how little we were sleeping there for a while. I still can't believe we're in birthday planning stages now :(
Ryan is sugar and spice and everything nice most of the time...unless he's hungry, overly tired, or feeling overwhelmed. In that case, he's clingy, whiny and sucks his two fingers a LOT. We're still dealing with separation anxiety, although mostly just on the weekends.
Speaking of sucking on those two fingers: I'm growing more and more concerned about how this transition is going to go eventually when he has to stop doing this. He has grown more and more attached to them than ever before.
We're so weary of the transition away from this 3rd nap. He tends to take the 3rd nap about every other day, so we still don't have a good routine down for bedtime. We want to get to the point where we put him down before we put big brothers down, but every time I try to do a routine (bottle, books, singing, praying) like big brothers, he gets energized and wants to get down and start moving around and playing. This appears to be irregardless of if he took the 3rd nap or not anymore. It gets old. We love to spend time with him, but would rather he be getting enough sleep too.
Walking is in this kid's near future. We're up to between 6-7 steps, followed by periods of standing. He doesn't typically fall down anymore, he just decides he'd get there faster crawling, and so he sits down and starts crawling. You are more likely to find him standing or crawling into or onto things than you would find him sitting down these days.
Ryan is extremely opinionated, and don't you dare tell him what he is or isn't supposed to be doing. This particular meltdown was on account of me not being willing to share my vanilla chai latte with him. We see it a lot, but not because he's a particularly cranky kid, he just has started to vocalize his displeasure.
Ryan is sick to death of french fries at this point: Vacation eating is NOT his thing. He absolutely ADORES spaghetti, or anything else significantly messier than french fries. We've apologized (after cleaning up pretty good) at many a restaurant for the mess still left behind in his wake. I don't mind it as much at home, but eating out with him, it's just ridiculous the amount of food that ends up on his chair or the floor (or table). He LOVES to eat with gusto!
Ryan did great on his first two flights: First from MSP to LAX (4 hours 20 minutes) and then back from LAX to MSP (3 hours 40 minutes). I mean, we had some whiny, questionable moments during both, but none in which we didn't have him under control within a few minutes. Mostly, as long as he wasn't hungry, we were good. We were very grateful that we had 4 seats to spread him out into, as he was busy looking around when he wasn't sleeping. He enjoyed looking out the window with big brother Cashel :)
As I mentioned earlier, sleep patterns are in a transitional phase. He seems rested when he's awake, although I'm not sure how. He only wakes once a night for a bottle and is back to sleeping about two 6 hour stretches (if we have that long to sleep at night). At night, he sleeps from about 9pm-6am, and usually wakes up when we do. He fights night time sleep pretty bad (hence the 9pm bedtime), and always wants to wait until big brothers are already asleep, but doesn't do too bad with naps. He'll nap just about anywhere, especially in his carseat or stroller when we're out and about. Apparently he struggles going down for naps at daycare moreso, which I "get", since he tends to want to be held to sleep on the weekends for naps. We're VERY tempted to drag up the double mattress for nap times and bedtime so that he can crawl up there and just sleep when he's tired. It worked really well for Kendrick at 13 months when we transitioned him, and it'd be really nice to get him out of our bed, as we don't sleep anywhere near as soundly when he sleeps with us (nor does he). But he's not a fan of the crib at all because he doesn't like to be confined.
I'm just beginning to come out of the 1st trimester haze, and looking forward to going into spring feeling good and a little more energetic. I still have my moments when I'm up in the night with Ryan and weary by morning, but overall, things are going well!
This little guy just lights up my world :) He's so sweet and happy and full of life. My favorite times are when we're just lounging around laying in bed, whether it be a weekend morning, lazy Saturday or Sunday afternoon, or as has been the case this week: Lazy vacation downtime. Ryan crawls all over us and gets right up in our faces and just giggles or laughs. We see his huge big front teeth all the time, and it just makes me giggle :) We'll tickle him and he just has the most enormous smile, and it's just incredible :)
It still is amazing to me that I've got 3 little boys who I'm responsible for most of the time. It's even more insane to fathom that we're going to have FOUR kids by the end of the summer.
Daddy has really come alive this past month. It's when he usually does with the kids: When they start really having an actual personality and are on the cusp of walking. I'm not sure what it is about that turning point, but I've noticed it with each of my kids. Mark likes 'em mobile, I guess. He's a toddler guy.
Winters are rough on him, as he really likes to keep busy and moving and get outside much of the time. But having 3 kids and being stuck inside most of the time, he just really gets more sedentary and loafs around more. (I can't blame him - I feel the same way a good majority of the time during the winter). To say this vacation has been a boost in mood is a huge understatement. It's hard to remember in the midst of the Minnesota winter that one day we'll be able to do wild and crazy things like...walk outside without bundling up in 7 articles of clothing, or...play tag at the park. Or pull out the jet ski again. Mark is most definitely a summer kind of guy. We all love summer around here!
Mark loves to tickle Ryan and hear him giggle and laugh. We play "I'm gonna get you" a lot with Ryan, and it's adorable. This little boy adores his Daddy, and is finally starting to be okay with Daddy and not just clinging to Mommy as much. Granted, we still have our days. All the boys love to pile on Daddy, and they also just love it when he gets down on all fours and growls at them. They have a very playful relationship, which is fun to watch!
Can I just put this out there: I am in no hurry for Ryan to start walking, but I am SO READY for him to start walking. I know. It doesn't really compute, does it? I'm not ready for him to be that busy, but I'm so tired of the big boys dragging him around, so I'm ready for him to be able to walk away from them, or even just tell the big boys that he can walk on his own. Because Ryan CAN walk on his own, he just doesn't do it all the time.
Ryan likes to be near his big brothers and is especially big into seeing what they're doing. He's very curious, and sometimes that drives big brothers a little crazy. Especially if he breaks something they're building, or messes up a game or puzzle they are doing on their tablets.
We have to keep an eye on the boys a lot, because Cashel and Kendrick love to pick Ryan up and then set him up on higher places, like chairs, the ottoman, beds...and then walk away. Ryan is getting a little better
sometimes at turning around and going down backwards, but he isn't doing that all the time, so we're constantly on the watch.
We've given up on trying to tell them not to pick Ryan up, as he's a lot more stable than he was at, say, 4 months. It makes people around us have a miniature heart attack, I think, but we're so used to it that as long as they aren't choking him and he's not crying, we allow it.
The boys were all so giddy to be able to get outside while on vacation, which is a precursor and great reminder that Minnesota isn't always freezing cold and awful, not ALL winter.
We're anxiously awaiting the arrival of Spring, so we can make this outside stuff a more regular thing!
