2 Years 9 Months

This little guy is just an absolute riot these days! He is such a great combination of extremely confident and yet so reserved and cautious. He still desperately needs his Mama, and still sucks on those two fingers and plays with my hair when he gets a tired or scared or nervous; the difference being that now if I'm not in close proximity, he'll play with his OWN hair.

Ryan had his first big owie in November, when he ran into a dresser and busted open his cheek :( I was back and forth on whether or not to go to the ER, and kinda wish I had now, as he's got a scar that hasn't really lessened a ton since then :(

Physical Development

Ryan is still easily in 3T clothes comfortably, but he's still got this tiny little waist and bum, so they still fit about as loosely as they did before. Some of his 3T jammies are a bit short in the tummy, so I will need to pull out his 4T ones soon. He's definitely due for a growth spurt here soon, as his pants are still a little long on him, even if he's not typically stepping on them anymore. Seeing as how he's the 3rd boy to wear some of them, the elastic has gotten a little worn on some of the pants, and for a kid with a tiny waist, we've had to retire some of the pants earlier than anticipated. Sissypants is starting to give him a run for his money as far as size is concerned!

Teething

All his teeth are through now! The sleep has been FANTASTIC in our house lately, but leading up to now in the past three months, he has been a hot, whiny little mess. His 2-for-1 tooth isn't super noticeable anymore these days, but I did address it at his last dentist appointment, and the dentist assured me that he would have two teeth to replace it when the time came, when he's in 1st grade or so.

Sleep Habits

Ryan is still napping almost every day, but skips very occasionally. His naps are getting shorter and shorter, though. Where two months ago, he would still nap that 2-4 hours on the weekends, now we're lucky if we get 90 minutes, and it has been less and less coinciding with Kinsley's nap, so that's been hard for me on the weekends. I hate this transitional phase with the kids, where they NEED naps still, but push back so much when it's time for them. I'd rather they just cut them cold turkey at the right time.

While a few months ago, he was really a huge fan of bedtime, lately, he has been balking at it more. He got this little dose of what it's like to stay up later, watch a movie and have popcorn over Thanksgiving break, and now he just wants to do that EVERY night, so he throws a huge fit every night when I say "no". He settles VERY quickly, though, when I start reading books. He LOVES them. He usually sleeps really well in his own bed, but just over the past month, he will occasionally come up and crawl in bed with me in the night and then settle right in.

Speech Development

Ryan is a little chatterbox! He talks nonstop and for the most part talks in broken sentences. Sometimes the way he says things don't make sense, but I can usually understand him. He's funny and silly and if he really likes you, he may tell you to go to "Poopytown" or call you a "Poopy butthole", so obviously we have some filtering to do with his big brothers around.

Eating

Ryan has been on a milk binge for a while now, and while he's not typically super irritable, I think it's teeth. He just pushes his food around on his plate most of the time, and might take a bite or two, but usually it's just "cuppy, milk, Mommy".

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

I'm thinking maybe I'm just so used to them now that it doesn't phase me? But yeah, he's still a tantrummy toddler. He is most definitely testing his limits, and I'm trying my very, very best to not let up my diligence so it will pay off.

I HAVE, however, been trying extremely hard to focus on making sure his needs are met on time, however, to keep the unnecessary tantrums at bay. If he's tired or hungry, I give him a little more slack, especially if I'm an hour late getting him his lunch or supper, or he hasn't had a nap and it's 3pm or something. He's generally a really sweet kid, but he's just a typical tantrummy toddler at this point. I'm very grateful that his behaviors don't seem worse than the typical toddler in light of the hard times his first couple years of life.

Likes

• This kid loves his Mama like no other kid I've ever met! If I would hold him all day long every day, it wouldn't be too much for this guy.
  
• Sucking on those two fingers...ALWAYS. It has actually amped up a bit more recently, since he has been working kinda nonstop on those 2-year molars. They are ALL IN, though, so hopefully that subsides a bit now.
  
• He loves his Daddy so, so very much! We've not been seeing him quite as frequently the past few months, what with the busy activity of the fall, Daddy going through a rough medication adjustment, and the holidays. Mark can't handle the activity level with ALL the kids in tow these day, so it has been a tough time trying to adjust :(
  
• Candy! This kid LOVES candy, and he's always looking for it. My other boys weren't this crazy about it, so this has been new for me. I'm fairly certain his favorite holiday is going to be whichever one gives him the most candy.
  
• Swinging.
  
• Choo Choos! He LOVED his ride on the train up in Duluth to pick pumpkins in October.
  
• He asks to see "Justin Time" on Netflix the second he gets home and the first thing in the morning. Cashel and Kendrick went through a bout with him a year or so ago, so we're all too familiar with every single episode.
• Exploring
  
• Being "one of the boys". He LOVES his big brothers.
  
• His siblings - Kinsley too :)
  
• Snow! He stays out playing as long as he possibly can! I'm really hoping this milder winter continues so he can truly enjoy playing in it for a lot longer!
  
• Cousins! He LOVES going down to the farm in Iowa to see all his cousins.
  

Dislikes

• Not getting to watch a "moonie [movie]" when he wants to.
• Having to go to bed.
• Mama taking to long to get him a snack or drink.

Ryan is just at the sweetest stage overall. I'm so ready for the next phase here without all those darn teeth coming in all the time.

9 Months

Overall...

We've done a complete 180 in the past month, Praise Jesus! Last month, I was ready to throw in the towel with life. The boys were so naughty and crazy, Ryan was waking 3-5 times a night to eat, my milk supply was plummeting like crazy, and Mark was in the field a LOT helping with harvest, and I was just so weary after busy days at work and insane nights at home.

Mark got a taste of what it was like for me during harvest when I had to take an unexpected trip to Juarez, Mexico at our sister plant for work for three days, and I think we can both appreciate each others' stances a little more: I couldn't wait to be home, and he couldn't wait for me to be home. As a result of this trip, we took the opportunity to finally wean Ryan from nursing, which went VERY smoothly. I pumped a few times while I was gone, and Ryan learned to wake up only once a night! Sleep after that has been SIGNIFICANTLY better!

This past month has been busy, but full of fun family activities busy, which is significantly better than busy with things we aren't that excited about doing. We celebrated Thanksgiving, put up the Christmas tree and decorated, Ryan went to his first movie with all of us as a family (Angry Birds), and he got to meet Santa twice. (We joke that he asked for his two front teeth).

How Baby is Doing

Oh my goodness is Ryan a sweet little guy. That being said, this has been a rough month for him. He has spent the last three weeks in the throws of teething, with a measly one tooth to show for it (so far). I was hoping that with as sleepless as our nights have been, the small amounts he eats, and his general disposition being so sad that we'd have more to show than that. We're going to try the chiropractor on Tuesday to see if he can help with something, anyways. I've got a bit of an inkling that it might be an ear infection.

Aside from that, however, this kid is thriving like crazy! He's pushing stuff around with a lot more gusto, standing on his own for between 1-5 seconds at a time, and loves to babble on and on about all sorts of things. He says Mama and Dada (although it's more like "Mama mama mama mama" and "Dadadadada") and otherwise the rest isn't really recognizable right now.

Whether our scale is accurate or not, I can't vouch (I'd like to believe it weighs very heavy haha), but for what it's worth, Mark put him on the scale today and he weighs 22.8lbs now. He's really really good at picking up even the smallest of small scraps off the floor, and you'd be shocked at how quickly things can get in his mouth.

When he is snuggling, he has to be holding onto (and sometimes tugging at) my hair, and he's still as obsessed with those two fingers as ever.

He is a BIG fan of food these days, and while I sometimes can stick a spoonful of food in his mouth if he's REALLY hungry, he much prefers to feed himself finger food, so I cut up food for him a lot, and we just hope that some of it makes it in his mouth. A lot of it he just chews up and spits back out. He gags a lot, but by baby #3, we're used to that. We're always watching him closely, and keep the food chopped small. He LOVES it, though! His favorites are peas, green beans, carrots and corn. He will eat mashed potatoes occasionally, and if he's really hungry and having a hard time eating whatever we're eating, and if I hold his hands back and shove that first spoonful in so he gets a taste, he'll eat a pouch of sweet potatoes or peas like a champ. We also have to use the hold his hands back maneuver if he needs some Tylenol to sleep on account of the teething, but the kid has a gag reflex like no other, and we've been very unsuccessful at getting him to keep it down.

He's doing pretty good with the Christmas tree as of right now, which is great! He occasionally will go over and pat on the presents, but for the most part just leaves them alone.

We get this look a lot, which cracks me up :)

He got to meet Santa twice this month, and both times he did just great!

We're really hoping for a little better regular sleep this month, and we're excited to finally let him rip into some presents (although I highly doubt his big brothers will allow much of that haha). Fun times to come, we're sure! I just hope he can hold off at least another month or two before he starts venturing into walking territory.

How Mama is Doing

This has been one heck of a whirlwind month for me! We started the month coming off harvest, which was great, but it's always an adjustment getting back into the swing of things once Mark is around more. We love having him with us, but our schedule gets a little wonky, and bedtime seems to go later, which we're just now getting under control, thankfully!

We hosted our annual Friends-giving the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and then hosted Thanksgiving with Mark's Mom on the day, so it was a lot of "clean the house a lot and cook a lot", which was followed immediately by an unexpected 3-day trip to El Paso, Texas for work, in which I spent 2 full days at our plant in Juarez, Mexico. This was the longest I have ever been away from my boys, and to say it was hard was an understatement. I slept horrible the whole time, and couldn't wait to get back home.

We used this opportunity to finally wean Ryan off whatever milk I was producing still (which hadn't been much), and that transition has gone pretty flawlessly. It was really hard for me to embrace the super quick cutoff there, but he doesn't seem to have skipped a beat.

Weight-wise, I'm struggling horribly this month. The stress from harvest coupled with the stress from the beginning of this past month coupled with the stress of another situation I can't even delve into here, and I tell ya what: Comfort eating has become a huge crutch. I've got to get it together, and I know it, and I'm working on it. I don't enjoy feeling so thick in the middle, nor does Mark, and so we're really wanting to kick it into gear here. We're just kinda waiting for that wave of motivation that hasn't been kicking us in the butt just yet. I'm at about 6lbs above pre-pregnancy weight, which is a good 14lbs above my lowest weight postpartum. So yeah...not feeling great about that.

How Daddy is Doing

Daddy is really enjoying the age that Ryan is at right now. He loves to snuggle and watch TV with him, but also loves to nuzzle his head into Ryan's belly and get some huge squawks out of him :)

We're both feeling the effects of perhaps a little too much home cooking lately - especially with the drastic decrease in physical activity with the winter weather moving in. We keep talking about re-joining our gym, but haven't done anything about that just yet.

He was pretty worried about being on his own with all three boys for three entire nights, and having to get them all ready for three mornings before work. He did a GREAT job, however, and was fortunate to be able to tackle the weaning process with Ryan, which left him up only once in the night to feed him. I think he'd still say he has no desire to repeat that again haha :)

I don't have nearly as many pictures of the boys with Daddy this month, which I hope to remedy in the coming month! There are most certainly photo-worthy moments around here, I just haven't been grabbing the camera.

He has been B-U-S-Y this month at work, and that isn't going to be settling down in the near future. He has two BIG projects coming up in the new year, so we're just hanging on until hopefully February, and then we're toying with a trip to San Diego with the boys once things have calmed a bit.

How Big Brothers are Doing

We're having a big time problem with his big brothers always picking him up. I'm at the point where I can trust Cashel to do it if he's just carrying him across the room, but definitely not Kendrick, and we had one instance where Cashel actually carried Ryan DOWN THE STAIRS and I about lost it!

These guys are just coming alive together with the realization that Ryan can actually be pretty fun at this age. Their minds will be blown when he starts walking and getting into ALLLLLL of their things at rapid pace. That's when the fun will surely begin haha

One thing is for sure: Christmas is going to be LOUD this year: I just have a feeling haha :)