:: 2.5 ::

Ryan has overall really settled into the past three months pretty well, but he's getting way more bossy, opinionated, and naughty. Now that he knows so many words and can get across his point and what he wants, he's a lot more sassy, and when he has a tantrum, it's an all out one. Still, I think he's probably the easiest of my kids as far as this stage. My older boys were ridiculously more difficult: Cashel was a biter and Kendrick a pincher, and well...Ryan, although he occasionally will slap you, doesn't do it to the point where he is labeled as a "slapper"...at least for now. He's overall just the happiest little guy, and he makes me smile and laugh and feel loved every day.

Physical Development

Ryan is still easily in 3T clothes comfortably, and the waists on those pants are getting a little less loose than they were 3 months ago. He took it upon himself to start working on potty training (oy!), but we're not going to go hard core until the big kids are back in school to make it a little easier at daycare (and home!)

Teething

This entire quarter has been pretty quiet on the teething front, aside from a few very short spurts of whiny behavior or clinginess. Still no new teeth or bulging gums or anything. Ryan holds the record thus far for the longest teething Johnson kiddo.

Sleep Habits

Ryan is still napping pretty well around 1:30/2pm every day, but the length is variable.

At nighttime, Ryan is such an excellent sleeper now, and even if he's not sleeping, he's just playing quietly in his room. It's SUCH a welcome change from a few months ago, and he's so much happier of a kid now. I love how well he is adapting with quiet independent play, as it used to be that if he was awake, he'd want to be entertained.

Speech Development

Ryan is learning tons of new words all the time, and most of the time, he repeats what he hears, or at least close to it, to the point where if you are even thinking remotely in the same ballpark as to what he's saying, you're going to be able to figure it out most likely. It's great!

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

Ryan has certainly amped up his tantrums, and the intensity of them leaves bystanders very concerned for his wellfare, I'm sure: Especially when I am extremely nonchallant about them. The thing is, he sounds like he is in horrendous pain or something, but I know there is a slight difference between pain and anger, and about 99.9999% of the time, he's just angry. He no longer gracefully lowers himself onto the floor to kick and scream, but rather throws himself on the ground, and the vast majority of the time, it's because he isn't getting something he wants - ESPECIALLY the ride on tractor of Kendrick's. (The kid is going to be an excellent driver by the time he's 16, right?)

I've been working with ALL the kids on following the 1-2-3 Magic program, and for the most part, it's working alright. For the big boys, it works really well, actually, and I can usually either halt the behavior or they will listen to me to "take 5" almost immediately. If we are in public, they will just ask me where they have to go for their "take 5" time. However, with Ryan, he just likes to count along with me while being deviant and watching me like a hawk, and when he ends up having to take 5, he throws the motherload of all tantrums and refuses to listen when I tell him that he has to be CALM before his 5 minutes starts, so it goes on FOREVER.

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

• He is OBSESSED with big brother Kendrick's ride-on tractor
  
• Sucking on those two fingers...ALWAYS. I realized I haven't taken a picture of him doing it lately, though.
• His Siblings! he adores these guys :)
  
• Elmo's Potty Time. I think I'd better gear myself up for lots of poo in the near future. ::sigh::
• Parades!
  
• Trains of all shapes and sizes! His mind is going to be BLOWN in a month when we go on the North Shore Scenic Railroad's Pumpkin Train on our trip to Duluth.
  
• "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!
• Being one of the "big kids".
  
• Kinsley Jo...He loves her almost TOO much
  
• "Do it, me, Mama!" This kid likes to take control, and don't you dare try to take his job!
• Picking apples
  

Dislikes

• Being told he can't do something.
• Not having things go his way.
• Not being able to physically do things or get places that he wants to do/go.
• Not having his cuppy before bed.
• Not having his cuppy before Jody's.
• Not getting to "go owwwside" with the big kids.
• Any pjs but his "Pawtrolls" or Santa ones.

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 :)

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 :)