Happy 4th Birthday!

We had Ryan's 4th birthday party on his actual birthday on June 9th. We reserved the shelter at Fort Liberty Playland and luckily the rain held off for our festivities. Ryan had a great time running around the playground with his friends, eating pizza and cupcakes and opening his presents. He had been SO excited about turning four and was beyond excited when the big day finally arrived.

We also gave him some presents, including his very own camera!

Girler

   For several weeks now, Ryan has been talking about how he wants a baby sister. He has already named her 'Girler' (since everything that he names has an '-er' added to it, such as Dogger, his pretend dog). Girler is very real to him. He doesn't act as if she is here now, but he talks about what he will do with her once she arrives. He asks me daily if I have started growing Girler in my belly yet, and how long it will take for her to grow. He wanted to know if he could grow a baby, and was very perturbed when I explained that God didn't give him the parts required to make a baby. He picks out clothes and toys at the store for her, and tells us what sort of things he will teach her (how to swing on the playset, how to use the potty, how to open a gummy snack bag, etc.) He also loves to hug and play with children smaller than himself, and routinely goes up to talk to babies in public.

Little Gym Show Day

Last day of the semester at The Little Gym

Getting ready to leap

Whee!

Hey Batta Batta!

Preschool Graduation

     Ryan had his last day of school and his preschool 'graduation' on May 19th. The class met at Frances Recreacres for a picnic and bike parade. I managed to get a picture of him with his girlfriend, Hailey:

A picture with his teacher, Mrs. Maggie

The kids decorated their bikes with streamers for the bike parade.

And they're off!

Mrs. Maggie gave told everyone that they had graduated from the 'Terrific Threes' class and gave the kids a scrapbook and goodie bag.

They released the class hostages science experiments, three caterpillers that they hatched into butterflies.

One butterfly had the misfortune of landing on the ground after being released and was immediately descended upon by a hoarde of preschoolers.    :0)

I can't believe that his first year of preschool is done! Our boy is really growing up way too fast.

Naked Boy

  Ryan was playing on his playset last night while I was cleaning up the kitchen after supper. I looked up and saw Ryan standing naked from the waist down, standing at the top of the slide. When I asked him WHY he was naked on his playset, he said 'because I don't know'.

Then today, he decided to strip naked in order to sit on the potty. But he ran back out and grabbed his bike helmet, because apparently you can't be too careful in the wilds of the bathroom.

Sadly, I don't have pictures of either of these events. :-)

Happy Mother's Day!

  We had everyone over to our house for a Mother's Day meal, and Ryan gave the grandmas their photo books. I've been making them ever since Ryan was born and they are always a bit hit.

Ryan made me a connect-the-dots flower vase and a paper plate holder at preschool. He also gave me body wash and a new shower pouf (via GoGo). It was perfect.

PLAYSET!!!!

The long-awaited playset has finally arrived! I don't know who was more excited-- Ryan or Mommy!

Our friends Maggie, Hayden & Andrew came over to try it out.

Later in the day, Rishi came over to play. They had a blast!

When it was time for Rishi to go home, this is how they went:

                                                                   It was a great day!

Easter Fun

Riding with Daddy to the community egg hunt.

At the egg hunt with his friend Samantha.

Time to get the eggs!

Dyeing eggs with GoGo and Muncle Mike.

With his Easter basket. He had to hunt for all of the eggs in his basket. He had a great time. I got some awesome videos but they are too large to load onto here!

We taught Sunday School on Easter, and the kids got to go on an indoor egg hunt thanks to the rain.

Owen and Ryan checking out their loot.

Ryan with his friend Lucas.

Our orthodontist bills are going to be HUGE.

:-)

Bowling Fun

Ryan and Papa had a great time at his preschool's Bowling Night at Princeton Bowl.

Putting on the bowling shoes.

Checking out the score.

Ryan and his friend Sienna gave up on bowling and decided it was more fun to roll around on the floor.

Ryan's friend Hailey joined in the fun.

Milestones

  This has been a week of milestones for Mr. Ryan.
1) He has finally learned how to pedal his bike! This has been a long time in coming. He knew how to pedal, and could pedal the tricycle for a few feet before he would get frustrated and revert to scooting with his feet, Fred Flintstone-style. But he's been playing outside with our neighbor Elie, who is seven years old and rides a two-wheeler. He was having trouble keeping up with her by just scooting, and she has been encouraging him to pedal after her. He started off slowly one day, and by the next he was tearing up the pavement on both tricycle and Big Wheel. We took a walk on Friday and he rode his Big Wheel around our street, all around the lake and back home again, which was at least a half-mile journey. There is no stopping him now!
I do need to get him a new bike helmet, though. His old one won't even fit on his head anymore.

And for your viewing pleasure (although this is not nearly as fast as he was going earlier in the day); GoGo is cheering him on in the background:

His independent streak has returned in full force, and 'I can do it all by myself!' is his favorite saying these days. I have been so happy by this development, because the clingy/whiny/'I can't do it, YOU do it' phase was getting really old. He has started dressing himself (with some help) and putting on his own socks and shoes again. And in exciting (to me, anyway) news, 

2) He's started peeing standing up! (Sorry, no pictures here, although it is pretty darned cute). He just decided that he wanted to do it one day this week and that was it. I am happy about this because it makes going potty a faster event (for some reason, whenever he is sitting on the potty, he feels it is time to daydream, play, and sing, and generally dawdle. When he's standing, he tends to do his thing and be done with it...although there is still some singing, usually.) The only downside: his questionable aim, and his realization that he can now direct where he wants his pee to go. In addition to spraying the seat, lid and wall this morning, he decided this afternoon that it would be an excellent idea to pee in the wastebasket...the mesh wastebasket, which means it also went all over the floor, too. He got a time-out for that one, but John and I were laughing when he couldn't see us.

In related news,

3) He stayed dry all night Friday night! He usually soaks through an overnight Pull-Up and plastic pants, but when he got up on Saturday morning, he was bone-dry. This was especially impressive since he was up coughing for a good portion of the night and had some Sprite while I was sitting up with him (darn croup, rearing its ugly head again). We made sure to give him lots of praise for staying dry, and he was very proud of himself. For some reason, though, he pooped in his underwear four times the rest of the day. But hey, we'll take the victories where we can and overlook the setbacks.

I also realized how much he has grown over the past month or so. I was packing away his outgrown clothes and was suprised to see that many of the clothes that were so big on him at Christmas are now way too short or tight. He is forty pounds and a size 4T/5T. Our baby is growing up so fast, but we are loving every milestone and memory that comes along.

Cute Sayings for the Day

A few cute Ryan sayings from today:

(While he was protesting being made to go potty): "Mommy, I don't have to go potty. I don't think that my pee is at home."

(After I pointed out a police car and told him it was a K-9 officer): "Does that police dog get to drive the car too?"

(After I told him that he needed a bath): "I don't need a bath. Look, I wiped all of the stinky off" (as he rubbed a towel across his belly).

:-)

Rexall Returns!

  John, Ryan and I went to a moms' club sale this Saturday and we found a replacement for Rexall, Ryan's beloved riding turtle! His handle had snapped off a few weeks ago and Ryan has been begging us to fix it every day. We tried duct tape, super glue, u-glue, scotch tape (and sometimes a combination of all of those) without success. Without the handle, it is pretty hard to ride and I've been looking online for a replacement. You can buy them but I was shocked to learn they were around $100! (He received Rexall as a gift). Luckily, I found one in the ride-on toys room at the sale for $14. Ryan rode it out of the sale and has been SO happy ever since!

   Ryan seems to sense that something is up.  He's been mentioning babies a lot lately, and he's been telling me "I want to always be your baby." I assured him that he always will be our baby, even when he's as big as Daddy. He thought that was funny.  :-)
   He's still working figuring out the whole 'difference between numbers and letters' issue. Today he was playing a game with his toys and said 'On the count of 'S'.... one, two, S!' But he can count up to fifteen, only omitting the extraneous numbers 11, 12, and 13.
  Today he's happily playing with the surgical hairnets that John and I brought him from the fertility center. It is so cute to see him wearing a scrub cap and watching 'Diego' on tv.

  Why all of the potty drama? While it has been a few weeks since Ryan has had an accident, it is not for lack of trying on his part! I have to remind, nag, bargain, plead, and finally drag him to the potty. He then refuses to sit to pee. He also does not want to stand to pee. Yesterday he told me that he wants to keep his pee inside; he also told me that he already took all of the pee out of his penis and put it in someone else's penis (?) We've tried talking to him about it, to see where the problem might originate, but I really think it is a control issue. Even bribes aren't working anymore, so I just make him sit there until he goes (and he always goes a LOT).
    The moodiness continues, too. He will be happily playing with a toy and then suddenly say he doesn't want it anymore. No apparent reason, but he'll cry like his whole day is ruined. He usually wakes up very happy, but lately even that has changed. I know it will be a challenging day when he wakes up cranky, even after a full night's sleep.
    This weekend, John, Ryan and I went to Rainbow Play Systems to check out a jungle gym for the backyard. They have an indoor playland, with about twenty full-sized playsets set up for people to try out. Ryan was in AWE. He didn't know where to start. He would climb up the steps or ladder quickly but then cry for us to bring him down. He was afraid of the height and the slides and the rock wall. John and I began talking, saying maybe he's just not ready for a playset yet (knowing full well that he was listening to us) and then he started going down the slides and climbing the rock wall on his own. Since then, he has not stopped talking about it. Someone from the company is going to come out this week to measure our yard and show us how a set would fit within the yard. Ryan keeps insisting that we don't need to wait for the 'mans' to come out and that he will build it himself with his Handy Manny tools. :)

 Carnival Day was a success! Many thanks to Granddad for helping me set up the night before and then coming to help with games at the carnival itself! Ryan had a wonderful time. He got to go around twice (both the morning and afternoon carnivals) since I had to work both sessions. He was a pretty exhausted little guy by the end of the day but overall he was very well-behaved (not counting the time he left his class and went looking for me; a mom found him starting to leave the building...again.) He dressed as Spiderman, and I wore mismatched clothes, pigtails, and bright purple and teal eyeshadow. It was so great to see how much fun the kids had playing all of the games and dancing.
 Ryan was really good about helping me clean up after the carnival, too. He helped carry things back to the classrooms and took garbage to the trash can. I got him an ice cream cone on the way home as a reward.

 I went for my appointment on Thursday and was told that I needed to come back for ANOTHER appointment on Tuesday (today), with a possible harvest date of Thursday the tenth. So we had to order more Follistim (with John and Dana driving down to Oakley to pick it up, since it wouldn't arrive by mail in time) and I have continued the shots. I give them at Ryan's bedtime, right before we read his nighttime stories. He's so used to the routine that he's started reminding me that it is time for my shot!
  My next appt is today at 315pm. I'll know for sure when the egg harvest day will be. The good news: IRH opened a West Chester office! So now I have a quick drive to get my bloodwork and ultrasounds done. And I didn't have to find anyone to do the carnival set-up (which was good, since our volunteers have been backing out left and right!)

     I haven't posted in a while because Ryan has been sick for the better part of three weeks. He's on his third round of antibiotics for bronchitis and a double ear infection. He's been (understandably) grumpy and clingy for most of February. The thing I can't understand is how HYPER he gets when he is sick. He alternates between extreme bouts of running, screaming mischief and total lethargy. He has also been in a very big 'Mommy' phase, where he only wants me to do anything for him. He has been fighting me on everything, from going to the potty to brushing his teeth. He wants me to do it all for him. I drew the line when he started asking me to hold his penis down while he's on the potty! He's finally doing better now and returned to school today. It was a good break for both of us!
  Ryan has started tracing his hands with markers and crayons, and he's getting pretty good at it. He's still really into all things aquatic and loves the new ocean book I bought him from the school book fair. Playdoh is a big hit again, after a few-month hiatus. (It is funny to me how he cycles in and out of playing with different toys. I couldn't get him to play with his playdoh for a long time, and now it is all he wants to do.) Legos are also a big fan favorite. He loves to build rockets ever since we watched the space shuttle Discovery take off a few weeks ago.

 At preschool on Tuesday, while he was sitting on the potty, Ryan and I had the following conversation:
Ryan: Mom, am I a whale?
Me: No, why?
Ryan: Whales have blowholes, and water comes out of them. I have a penis and pee comes out of me. So am I a whale?
:-)

I spiked Ryan's hair today, and he looked at himself in the mirror. He said 'Mom, my hair is standing up. When it is night-night time, you need to tell it to lay down and go to sleep.'
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I kept him home from preschool today. He has bronchitis again and is on antibiotics.
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He was using the potty this afternoon and told me 'Mom, I pooped so much that my butt is tired and needs to take a nap.'

My Day So Far

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Questions, question, questions. While I'm happy that Ryan is so curious and interested in learning, the incessant questions are driving me nuts! It's never just one question; it is a question, then a follow-up, then a demand to know why that was my answer, then, finally, him asking if he can eat and/or fight the subject in question.
An illustration:
Ryan: (looking at an ocean book): What type of shark is this?
Me: It looks like a hammerhead shark.
Ryan: Is it a hammerhead, or does it look like a hammerhead shark?
Me: It is a hammerhead shark.
Ryan: How do you know?
Me: Because I can read, and it says 'hammerhead' right there on the page.
Ryan: How come you can read?
Me: Because I went to school.
Ryan: Why did you go to school? Did you go to preschool? Was it my preschool? Are you in my class? Did you have a shark in your class? Did the shark know how to read? Was it a good reader? Was it a hammerhead shark reader?
Me: aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Ryan: What was that sound? Why did you make that sound?
Me: Read your book.
Ryan: Mom, can I eat a hammerhead shark? If he was a mean shark, could I fight him? I would use my super  powers and go 'BANG! PSHHH! WHOA!' and then I would go 'Hi-YA!' and I would make him have a time out but then we would be friends again if he shared his fruit snacks with me. Mom, may I have a fruit snack?
Me: Sure. Here you go.
Ryan: Wow, shark fruit snacks! Hey Mom, what type of shark is this?
Me: (opening bottle of Advil) *sigh*
The best part: This all occured before 7:30am.

Mystery Solved!

Muncle Mike came over for dinner on Friday and asked Ryan where he first heard of the name "Mat Treamer".
Ryan replied 'The Backyardigans, where Uniqua goes to the library'. Eureka! We watched this last week! "Mat Treamer"is actually "The Masked Retriever", a librarian who turns into a superhero and gets back overdue library books. Now as for how his turtle got the name "Rexal", we may never know.
                      

Ryan's beloved turtle ride-on toy, which has always been called 'Turtle', now has a new name: Rexal. I've also been informed that Rexal is a girl turtle.
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He was taking his shoes off this afternoon after we returned from doing errands. He was wearing his yellow-with-blue-robots socks (the boy loves 'pretty' socks, not just boring white ones) and as he took his feet out of the shoes, he said 'Look, Mommy- my foot chicks just hatched out of their shoe eggs!'

 Ryan has started referring to himself as "The Mat Treamer". This appears to be some sort of super-hero figure, because he's always flying around and saving animals from bad guys. I have no idea where it came from, but he's very specific about it; I mispronounced it the other day and he corrected me, indignant that I got it wrong.
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 His obsession with all things fish continues. He has a wonderful memory and loves to tell people about the different fish that he sees at the pet store or Bass Pro Shop. He's usually correct in his identifications, too.

Ryan told me today that he wants a baby brother AND a baby sister. "But we have to make sure we have a big cage with a tight lid so those babies don't jump away!"
We just went to the pet store the other day, so I have a feeling he's getting some wires crossed....

We have a game where we try to spot  Toyota Rav4s like ours when we are out doing errands. Ryan is really good at finding them, but he pointed out a car today that was a different make and model. I told him that wasn't the same type of car and he said 'oh you're right, Mom-- that one is a Rav5".

January Recap

 January has been a busy month for Ryan. First and foremost, he is (almost,very nearly) potty trained!  It has been a slow process but he is now exclusively in 'big boy underpants' during the day. He still wears overnight diapers at night. We had tried several reward systems for potty training (stickers,candy,etc) with only minimal success. What finally worked? Money. He gets pennies for using the potty, which he then happily deposits into his ceramic cow bank in the kitchen.
  After the Christmas season ended, Ryan had some trouble accepting the idea that he wasn't going to continue to get presents every few days. He started begging and crying for toys every time we went to any store. I finally told him that we didn't have money for toys but he did...in his cow bank. It was like a light went on in his brain, and he has become obsessed with saving up for a new squishy toy. He even decided against riding the penny pony at Meijer and opted to save the two cents in his bank instead.
   Preschool is going well. He loves his teacher, Mrs. Maggie. It is a co-op, so I work frequently in his classroom. This is  a good thing, because if I relied on Ryan for information about his class, I would be out of luck. On the days that I don't work there, I'm lucky if he tells me what his snack was and what toys that he played with while he was there. I get no updates on what craft they did, or songs that they sang, or even which kids were there. (By contrast, one of the moms of a little girl in the class said that she gets a full run-down of everything that happened, who was bad, who said what, etc.) Must be a girl thing. All of the other moms-of-boys said they get the same vague answers that I do.
     Forget Thomas the Train. So long, Bob the Builder. Ryan's newest obsession is the ocean. Ocean animals in general, but with a special concentration on anything with scales, gills, or a blowhole. He has two ocean books that we own and must read every.single.night. I also get a lot of books from the library and we sit and discuss the different types of sea creatures. He has the one book memorized, and he can identify many different types of fish by sight at the petstore.He really wants an aquarium, and I told him that he may have one when he is four. The countdown is on! Every day I am asked how much longer it is until he turns four. I told him it has to be hot out first, and that seems to be a measure of time that he can easily grasp. He was looking outside today and lamenting that it can't be hot out with all of this snow on the ground.
 He also tells me (about twenty times per day) that he REALLY wants to go back to the zoo to see the animals. He has also taken to having his squishies tell me too, usually in a high squeaky voice (when he's not blaming them for things that he got in trouble for,that is).