Not the Best Blogger Around

I feel like my blog posts come in spurts. I manage to blog a lot, then I am gone for awhile. It's not that there isn't anything going on right now that I have to blog about, it's quite the opposite. There is so much going on that I just can't keep up. Ryan continues to be a "normal," active 17 month old. He has been doing some things lately that just crack me up. His room, which I thought was childproofed, is not. I left Ryan in his room last week so I could run to my room and change clothes. (I can see into his room from mine, it is not far away, it is literally separated by our washer/dryer closet.) I had the monitor on and noticed that it had become mysteriously quiet. Anyone who has kids knows this is not a good sign. I walked to his room and peeked in, and there was Ryan, laying on the queen size guest bed in his room reading a book. It was a funny sight to see! He just pulled himself right up on the bed and got comfortable. He is now doing this all the time and would rather be on the bed then on the floor playing with his toys.

Yesterday we were driving in the car and he was talking up a storm, mostly just babble. Then, clear as can be, he sighed and said, "Oh Mama," I just had to laugh. He must have known it was one of those days!

Another thing that makes me smile is when I ask Ryan about his body parts. "Ryan, where are your eyes?" He says, "Eyes," and points to them. The best is his nose, "Ryan where is your nose?" He points to his nose, says,"Nose," then runs towards me, grabs my cheeks and wants to rub our noses together. I think people refer to this as an Eskimo kiss. It is so sweet. He doesn't just do this to me, he does this to his Daddy, to his best buddy, Tyler and to Tyler's mom, too. If you are ever around Ryan, be careful when asking him where his nose is.

Slowly but surely I will blog more often. I have a lot to say, but not enough time to sit down and type. There is more to come, really there is!

Phrases

Ryan has started to put words together into basic phrases. As I mentioned in a previous post, "Bye, bye Daddy," and "Bye, bye Mama," are two we hear often, even if we are just leaving the room to go to the bathroom. Some other new favorites are, "Thank you, Mama/Daddy," and "There you go." Thank you has to be my favorite because first thing in the morning when Ryan wakes up, he wants milk and he wanted it 5 minutes ago. I cannot get him milk fast enough. I usually have him help me by opening and closing the refrigerator to distract him while I pour his milk. As soon as I give him his bottle (Yes he is still on the bottle, no judgement, please) he says, "Thank you, Mama," and then starts drinking his milk. "There you go," is reserved for times when Ryan decides to share with others, be it children or mommy and daddy. He will hand over a toy and say, "There you go." I guess that is a phrase that I say often and he has started to use the same phrase. Time to make sure I use "kid appropriate" language!

Social Butterfly

Ryan has always been a friendly child. He waves to people when they wave at him, he smiles and laughs at strangers who talk to him. Now that he has started to talk more I think he thinks it is his job to welcome people at any establishment that we are at. We were at the grocery store just the other day and a man walked in the door. Ryan says, "Hi!" and starts to wave at the man. Then today we were walking into a shoe store and a man crossed our path, "Hi!" Ryan said to the man. Also any time people are getting into a car, Ryan has begun to associate this with people leaving so he tells these strangers, "Bye, bye." My favorite thing has to be in the morning when Sanjay leaves for work Ryan always says, "Bye, bye,Daddy!" It is the cutest thing! Sanjay will then come back and ask Ryan for another hug before he leaves. And, finally, today he realized that I am Mama and actually said it to me. Sanjay was taking Ryan upstairs to the bath while I was cleaning the kitchen and he looked at me and said, "Bye, bye Mama!" Finally, he actually called me Mama! I don't know who he thought I was before, as he did not call me anything, but now I am officially Mama!

An Adult Weekend

Sanjay and I took our first trip without Ryan. We went to Atlanta for a good friend's wedding. While it was a much needed break for me, it was still very difficult to leave Ryan. He stayed with my sister and her family. Knowing that Ryan was with family always makes me feel at ease. I think I was the most emotional when the flight was taking off. For some reason that made me really feel like I was leaving him. It was probably because I could not just jump in the car and pick him up. Thank God for modern technology! I was able to email my sister and mom before the flight took off, at 6 a.m. and receive an email back from my mom reassuring me that everything would be okay. My sister is so wonderful! She took pictures of Ryan all weekend during various activities; playing outside, swimming, eating a big breakfast, lunch and dinner, bathtime and would send the pictures to me so I could see how well he was doing. That really put my mind at ease, especially since he did not want to talk to me on the phone. When we returned my sister and her family came to drop Ryan off and have dinner. I went out to the car to get Ryan. He stared at me for what felt like and eternity, probably 5 seconds, then got a huge smile on his face and held out his arms to me so I could pick him up. It was as if in his mind he was thinking, "Oh yeah, I remember you!" Sanjay and I contemplated taking another adult only trip to Hawaii in August to celebrate our anniversary, but I think we will just go somewhere local. I'm not sure I'm ready to leave Ryan again, even if it is only for three days.

NO!

I always thought that I would be a great parent. I was a good teacher, and I felt like parenting was similar to teaching, so naturally this was something I would be good at. I was that person who would say things like," My child will never do that!" "I will never give my child that!" "My child won't ever speak to me like that!" I also watched my sisters parent their kids and thought, 'How hard can that be?' A few years ago my sister was explaining to me that they were not telling their daughter no when she did something she shouldn't do. They were using other words or phrases to deter her from doing things she shouldn't be doing or getting into things. They did this so she would not start using the word no. I remembered thinking 'What?' And it all seemed so silly to me at the time. Fast forward to the present when I am now a parent to a very opinionated and BUSY 17 month old. Well, I must say, my sister was right. I have the child who makes me eat my words all the time! His favorite word is No! And I'm not talking about a sweet, little baby voice saying no, I'm talking about a very emphatic, 'I'm imitating mommy' with my big voice kind of no! "Ryan, eat your peas," "NO!" Ryan, do you want a waffle for breakfast?" "NO!" "Ryan, bring that to mommy." "No, no, no!" I have also become the parent who will bribe my child so he will stop throwing a fit (I like to think of it as redirecting his attention), and the one who chases my child down the street because he is running away from me. Yep, that's me! Maybe this whole parenting thing is much harder than I thought. It has been a very humbling experience!