3 Years 3 Months

It's a catch 22 with kids at this age, if I'm being honest. I mean, they're so freaking adorable that you just wanna scoop them up and breathe them in. But they're honestly so freaking crazy that much of the time you just want to put in ear plugs and lock yourself in your room. The summer is just beginning, but the whining has been a definite thing, and if history repeats itself with Johnson kids at this age, it may be a while before that gets better. But they're so darn cute that it's hard to be mad for long, and this little guy is very, very demanding and vocal about needing Mama snuggles.

But he's bubbly and personable and a friend to everyone, and it's fun to watch him continue to grow.

Physical Development

Ryan moved on up to 4T clothes, even if they look a little big on him. There are a few pairs of pants that we had to put back in storage as they were just falling off his little tiny waist. He's now up to size 12 shoes. He is fully day trained for potty, but still wears a pull up at bedtime, which is usually full by morning. If I'm being honest, he has been by FAR the easiest of my boys to potty train.

Sleep Habits

Ryan takes pretty short naps these days, but he still naps most of the time. He usually takes about 45 minutes to an hour at daycare, and at home on the weekends, we might eek 2 hours out. I definitely prefer the days he doesn't, however, as he goes to bed MUCH easier and tends to end up staying in his own bed on those nights.

The "occasionally" snuggling in my bed thing has become more like a routine these days. If I ever heard or felt him crawl in with me, I'd definitely take him back down to his bed, but I never hear him, so I just wake up to him in bed next to me in the mornings. I'd like to get him back to sleeping through the night and not feeling the urge to come upstairs, but that may be a ways off.

Speech Development

Ryan will talk your ear off all day long. It's exhausting! He loves to talk and talk and talk, and if he isn't talking, he's usually got his fingers in his mouth and playing with either his hair or mine. He talks mostly like a big kid these days, but does still let some baby talk linger, like, "My do it" instead of "I do to it". (Basically, replaces anywhere you would say "I" with "My"). He has begun calling "Moonies" "Movies" now too, which just breaks me :( He's so cute!

Eating

Ryan has been going through a major food strike lately. I mean, he eats for sure, but it's always whatever he feels like eating, and getting him to eat the food I've actually prepared is like pulling teeth. It's exhausting! However...the one thing you KNOW he will ALWAYS eat is a cookie from Hardee's. It HAS to be from Hardee's, though, or he throws a major fit.

He does still love his snacks, though. His favorites are Gogurts and Applesauce pouches, and, as with all my kids, wants a "Kitty cup" (which is a sippy cup with milk in it) regularly.

Toddler Behaviors and Discipline

The whining and tantrums have not really lessened at this point, but it helps to keep busy and distracted when we're able to be outside and finding new adventures. He's just becoming much, much, much more opinionated, which makes it hard when we're trying to cater to the whole family of 5, and not just him. It's a difficult lesson to learn at any age, but especially when most of the time, he doesn't get any say in his schedule.

Likes

• I mean, between Kinsley and Ryan, I am covered in littles all day long most of the time. I don't dare sit down, or I find it extremely difficult to get up lol This kid LOVES his Mama!
  
• Sucking on those two fingers, which is now usually only when he's very tired (morning, before bed) or if he's overwhelmed or scared or needs comfort. With everything we've been going through as a family, it hasn't been a priority of mine to help it stop. He doesn't tend to do it when we're out, just at home or daycare probably (he used to at Jody's)
• Candy! With the Riverfest parade, he was ALL about collecting as much candy as he could.
  
• Roasting marshmallows over a fire.
  
• He is big into Team Umizoomi, Justin Time, Word Party, Incredibles 2 and, really, just in general being in control of the Roku remote lol
• Being "one of the boys". He LOVES his big brothers.
  
• His siblings - Kinsley too :)
  
• Parades! This kid LOVES parades, and has this huge smile on his face the ENTIRE time.
  
• Farming with Grandpa
  
  
• Exploring
  
• Playing at the park. (Also, scaling the walls lol)
  
• People in dress up costumes lol
  

Dislikes

• Not getting to do whatever he feels like doing.
• Not being in charge.
• Not being catered to.
• Cookies that are not from Hardee's
• Being told "no"
• Not getting his turn first for tractor or 4-wheeler rides

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 :)

4 Months

Overall...

We're busy as always, and trying to enjoy our busy summer as much as possible. It's go-go-go around here: Before we know it, we'll have a whole house of big kids around here and we'll wonder how we got to that point, I'm sure.

Highlights of this past month include:

1. Father's Day
2. Strawberry Pickin' at Schumacher's Berry Farm
3. Ropte Family GTG at the Farm
4. 4th of July
5. Annual Church Picnic
6. Weekend
   

We've really enjoyed this past month, but we're pretty sure the best of the summer is yet to come! We're excited to have a little more downtime for sure!

How Baby is Doing

Ryan continues to grow like a weed, and we've ditched taking the bucket seat out of the van now that he finally has good neck control. How on earth this little dude has gotten so big so quickly I don't know. He is solidly in 9 month clothes and size 3 diapers. I've pulled out all his 12 month clothes, actually, because he kicks the feet out on his 9 month pjs if he stretches his legs all the way out. It's unreal! We're still struggling to get him to keep his fingers out of his mouth. We've been trying and trying to get him to take to the binky, but we're pretty sure it's a lost cause. I bought him a munch mitt on Amazon that should arrive this week, which I'm hoping will work so that at least he's chewing on something that isn't his fingers.

At the beginning of this month, Ryan slept 10-11 hours a night (8pm-6:30am usually) and took 3 solid naps a day, two of them being an hour and the other one being 2-3 hours.. He is awake and alert a good chunk of the time. He continues to sleep in his crib at night and the pack 'n play at daycare. However, the last week or so, he has been working on teething and has been up in the night again. We're thankful that he at least

Just as I was typing this update earlier, Ryan rolled from front to back for the first time! I saw him trying and grabbed my camera and caught it on video! Of course, as luck would have it, the video is super bright and not great quality, but I still have it! We're excited over here, and hoping that it will bring a good night of sleep for all of us now :)

It's crazy just how much we all love this little guy. I can't imagine him being anyone else, and I really can't fathom how we've gotten by without him all these years so far :)

How Mama is Doing

Aside from the past week of more questionable sleep, I've been doing pretty good! I'm not going to lie, though: Although I know I'm probably dipping into bad sleep habits for the little guy, I am absolutely LOVING the part where I'm waking up next to this little guy again :)

I feel like I could really use a day here and there of time with just Ryan again; A sort of repeat of maternity leave occasionally. But really, I feel like I could use those times with each of my boys one on one. Life just feels like it is suddenly moving by at such a rapid pace that when I blink, my kids age like crazy!

I've been really struggling with diet this past month, and have put on a few extra pounds, which is frustrating when I was really wanting to be DROPPING weight, not gaining it. I purchased a fitbit halfway through the month and so far, I've gained 4lbs, so I'm not sure it's very effective ;) It doesn't help that my feet have been really really sore as have my knees. It makes it hard to get out for walks much and running is laughable at the moment. I'm hoping to really reign in my diet and drop some weight to hopefully alleviate those issues. Getting older is no fun!

How Daddy is Doing

We've been really glad to finally have Mark around more this past month, and more active with the boys! We all needed a little more Daddy time for sure, so we're glad that planting season is finally over and done with :) Granted, we've still been busy with Mark's softball schedule a regular thing on Tuesdays. He really loves softball in the summer and basketball in the winter with farm work to balance out the "off seasons".

I just adore watching them interact and watching Mark be Daddy :) He's always pushing the limits and doing goofy things with the boys, teetering just on the brink of freaking me out, but he's also really good at making sure they're safe, so I guess I maybe just need to chill out sometimes :)

How Big Brothers are Doing

These guys are seriously like a little wolf pack. They all have each others' backs and are just a riot to watch in action. Ryan is a lot more active and alert around them, so they have a lot of fun with each other. Cashel especially just adores little Ryan and is always so kind and gentle with him for the most part. He has his moments, though...

Kendrick has had a pretty good turnabout from last month. He's still "Kendrick", as we say: A little tornado most of the time, and he's just really hot and cold these days. But he's really starting to come around this month, however, and isn't quite as aggressive, thankfully! I have a feeling that once Ryan is able to play a little more, their relationship will develop a lot more.

Firsts: Strawberry Pickin'

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Grandma Ruth

Ryan has sure enjoyed his Grandma Ruth snuggles the past few times we've been at the farm to visit. She continues to grow more frail, but there's always room in her arms for the littlest guys :)

It's so sweet to see her light up around him and talk with him while he eats his hands, smiles occasionally and "talks" to her. Life isn't fair or easy much of the time, but somehow a little baby just makes things seem less complicated for a short time. We can't understand this side of heaven why diseases like Parkinson's exist or why my Mama has to suffer from it, but we can try to enjoy little moments and appreciate them for how special they are.