2 Years 3 Months

After the past three months, I feel like Ryan is just a whole different person. He is learning words left and right, and if I thought he was a lot of work before, oh my word is it on a whole new level these days. He's SO freaking adorable and funny and silly and just...cute. And busy. SOOOOOOOO busy. And well...he's getting to be pretty in-your-face naughty.

Physical Development

Ryan is fitting almost perfectly into 3T clothes all across the board now, except we have to cinch in his pants as tight as possible, because he has a tiny little waist and tiny little booty that doesn't hold anything up. He loves to wear his size 10 ducky boots all over the place. He's still in size 6 diapers, although we've occasionally thrown a size 4 pull up on him, as we have them sitting around the house, and he has this thing with pulling his pants down and taking his diapers off. He can't easily pull the slightly-too-small pull up down, so we go with it. We aren't hard core about the potty training, but will definitely be starting this fall once the big kids are back in school and daycare can focus on it more.

Teething

The past three months have been fairly quiet on the teething front. We've certainly had spurts on and off where we can tell he's working on something, but we still don't even have bulging gums or anything, so we may be waiting a while. He still doesn't have any of his 2 year molars, so I'm cringing thinking of what's to come sleep-wise in the near future. Cashel and Kendrick had all 4 of theirs by 2.5 years, so we're talking 4 molars in 3 months, and in my experience, they take a LONG time to come in. Lord, help me!

Sleep Habits

Ryan is still taking a solid 1-3 hour nap every day, but he doesn't want to go down until closer to 2pm these days, and it's usually closer to 1 hour than 3, even on the weekends.

I just finally very recently resorted to a little tough love/sleep training and am forcing the "sleep in your own room" thing for the whole night. I had to put a doorknob cover on it, as he figured out how to open doors, and there was some serious weeping and gnashing of teeth for a few nights, but he now easily sleeps through the night without so much as a peep, which is WONDERFUL! He is a much happier kid as a result of the extra sleep as well, and very willingly goes down to sleep much earlier than I even imagined!

Speech Development

The past month has brought short sentences with this kid. He usually puts about 2-4 word sentences together, and as the days go by, it's getting much, much easier to actually understand what he's saying. He gets really frustrated when I can't figure it out based on context or what not, so I can tell there's going to be a big explosion of full on sentences very soon.

Eating

I'm pretty sure Ryan has really been working on those molars beneath the surface off and on this quarter, because if there is one thing he is NOT really overly fond of, it's eating certain foods. I'm not sure if it's because he has grown picky, or if his mouth hurts, but he is still JUST not quite sure how to express why he isn't eating some nights, but others, he devours everything. The teething thing seems to fit the best, at least in my mind.

He is definitely really fond of "snacks" and will eat most of whatever snack it might be. He is oddly not very overly fond of sweets. If you give him a cookie, there's a good chance that the cookie will sit there with a tiny bite out of it and Cashel or Kendrick will find it and finish it for him. His favorite meal is "cheese and cocks", which means macaroni and cheese and hot dogs. I really hope he never learns to say it right, because it's so adorable when he says it lol

He hasn't been sitting in a high chair OR booster seat both at home and restaurants for the past 2 months for sure, but it has been a while longer. Kinsley has claimed the high chair, and that works for us. He's messy as all get out, but he was just as messy in the high chair too, so we deal.

Toddler Behaviors and Discipline

Ryan is really pressing the limits lately, and I'm growing tired of the constant need for discipline. I'm really having to learn with ALL the boys to tone down the punishment. Typically, I like to make wild punishments (like "If you don't stop doing that, you won't get to go outside all weekend"), and I'm working on making it more like "you will be grounded to your room for 10 minutes". I guess my knee-jerk reaction is to make the consequence so severe that he would never in his right mind ever consider doing the thing I don't want him to do. The problem with this is that he totally calls my bluff, and, well, of COURSE I'm not going to punish myself by keeping him locked inside, so he's learning to push those buttons more frequently.

He is really lucky he's so darn cute, because he pushes my buttons DAILY. He thinks it's a funny game, and most days I just don't have the energy to oblige.

Likes

• His siblings
  
• Sucking on those two fingers...ALWAYS. I realized I haiven't taken a picture of him doing it lately, though.
• Elmo's Potty Time. I think I'd better gear myself up for lots of poo in the near future. ::sigh::
• Parades!
  
• Daddy! It has been an adjustment for us all
  
• "Coloring" with big brothers. It usually consists of him doing this, followed by biting the tips off all the crayons.
  
• Swinging
  
• Brown Bear Brown Bear. Argh. I just really hate it when my kids cling to this one. I grow weary of reading it every.single.night. The repetitiveness makes me feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone.
• Riding his dang 3-wheeler in the road. I'm CONSTANTLY pulling him back onto the sidewalk. I don't get why that is so hard!

Dislikes

• Being told he can't do something.
• Not having things go his way.
• He is still pretty obsessed with buckling his own seat belt these days. Don't you DARE touch it!
• There really aren't a ton more of these. I'm sure if I thought SUPER hard, I could come up with more dislikes, but he's really a pretty easy-going kid. He doesn't get that worked up that often.
  

Overall, Ryan is a very happy-go-lucky kid. He is really calming down now that Daddy is out of the house, but he is quick to ask to video chat him every night. I'm so glad that he still desires a relationship with his Daddy, even if he's not home with us. He's a good little kid, and adorable to boot! I can't wait to continue to watch him grow :)