Addendum

This may be TMI, but I felt that this was too funny to not blog about. So, this is in addition to my 16th month post. Ryan experienced another "first" this month. As I have mentioned in previous posts, we have been remodeling our 2nd bathroom for a while now. Well, it is functional now (post to come later), and so we have been giving Ryan a bath in his new tub for a little over a week now.

He was a little terrified at first, since he has been having his bath in the sink for the past 4 months. I think the walls of the tub felt a little suffocating, but he is slowly warming up to the idea of having more than 18 in. x 18 in. of play space. Wes was bathing him a few nights ago and apparently shortly after being bathed, Ryan wanted out of the tub and was standing up wanting to be lifted out. Now this is not unusual since he is not totally comfortable with it yet. Wes urged him to continue playing and didn't think much of it. Well, about 1 min later, Ryan decided to christen the tub by pooping in it. Guess it was bound to happen at some point, but the whole situation was quite an ordeal and pretty amusing.

He now has been deemed the "Tub Pooper".

16 months

It has been another fun month with the lil guy. I think we are entering the terrible twos a little early as his is trying our patience each and everyday. Not that he is bad he is just constantly testing us day in and day out.

He has become quite the bookworm. He absolutely LOVES his books and it is so neat to watch him "read" aloud. He has a few favorites that he must read at least 5 times a day. They are Hop on Pop, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, I'll Always Love You, and Wheels on the Bus. He will just bring books over to us all day and then cuddle up in our lap, rest his head on our shoulder and just listen and flip the pages. He knows when it is almost time to go to bed because he will pile up as many books as he can on the couch in hopes that it will buy him more time if we have more to read. This also has resulted in him pitching a fit when we say "it's time to go night night" and put on his pjs. He just screams bloody murder and tries to run away from us.

He loves to repeat anything we say now and he is quite good at it I must add. His current words include:

MaMa
DaDa
Hiiiiiii
Bye bye (every time we hang up the phone or leave the room, he feels the need to say it)
Puppy
Uh Oh
Ball (Ba) and Car (Ka) still need some work but I think he knows what he is saying
Pool (poo)
I think he may have started saying CoCo in the past few days as well
I also think he is starting to say Go and also point to the door while saying it

We are currently working on our manners as well. Please sounds more like "peas" and Thank you is "Gank Guy" (or something similar to that, I can't quite figure out what it sounds like or how to type it out).

He also has the memory of an elephant and never forgets where we hide treats and fun toys. He knows that everything has a place, and if it is not where it is supposed to be he will either whine until we fix it or he will go and fix it himself. We brought out one of his toys from his birthday recently, his rocking horse. He likes to get on it, bounce up and down, and make his surprised face. I have yet to capture the full essence of this on camera, but here are a few shots of him playing.

He has also enjoyed more time at his water table and in the pool this month as well. it has been so hot, there's really not much else he can do outside.

He is really into handstands as well. I mean, not full blown handstands, but you get the drift.

His other favorite thing to do is shut all of the doors in the house. That can entertain him for quite a while. It just means I have to go and re-open them for him every 2 minutes. He loves to be chased. We'll say "I'm gonna get you" and he loves to run away from us and scream. He is also very into trying to unlock the front and back door and escape. Time to get some major child-proof locks, although I don't think he would make it too far before being terrified and running back, haha.

Unfortunately, I think he also is moving into his one nap a day which I am very sad about. Lately, he is taking longer to fall asleep during the morning nap and then in the afternoon his nap is hit or miss. Sometimes he will just "rest" in his crib for an hour or so in the afternoon which he really doesn't mind too much so I think it is better than nothing at this point.

As far as food goes, we have tried some more substantial foods that take more chewing. He hasn't quite caught on and I wouldn't say he loves it, but we're getting there. He'll at least play with it and try a few bites before throwing it on the floor. Here he is trying some Salmon Cakes I made him (he eats more gourmet than we do!). You can see he's not that impressed.

 Wes started eating a cold grilled chicken sandwich and all of a sudden he was much more interested in it.

 Little piggy stuffing his face!

 We've even started putting a tarp down for him because he is so dang messy!

He doesn't care much for shoes, but once he knows they are his, he loves to try and put them on his feet. He got a new pair of Squeakers in the mail today and was obsessed with the annoying sound they make.

 The boy loves his puppy and we sure do love our boy!

Galveston Trip

Two weekends ago we thought it would be fun for the 3 of us to head down to Galveston for the day. We planned out our whole day ahead of time, so that we could make the most of it with Ryan. We decided to head that way during Ryan's morning nap so that he would snooze the whole way there (~1.5 hours) and then be good to go for the rest of the day. We left right at 11, and lo and behold, he stayed awake the ENTIRE ride there. We realized that we haven't really driven very far with him since he has had his car seat turned around, so everything caught his attention. He became just downright silly and we knew it was a lost cause.

Our first stop was lunch at a cute little place in the historic district called Mosquito Cafe. It was so quaint and the food was to die for. Ryan had a grilled cheese sandwich for the first time at a restaurant. We then headed over to the strand where we thought he would relax and maybe even doze off in the stroller, wrong!! Oh well, we had fun perusing the shops, I bought a new beach hat since my cheap one from Target ripped the first day we were in Cabo, and of course we visited La Kings Confectionary. We bought a lot of yummy chocolates and then all shared a milkshake.

 Can you tell Ryan loved it?!?

We decided we would try and brave the beach even though it was now about 3 or 3:30 and he had still not napped. We planned to stop at a pocket park (where you pay and have access to showers, chairs and umbrellas). Luckily, we got a little lost due to some of them being still under repair from Ike, and Ryan was able to take a cat nap of about 35 minutes. We parked, looked at each other and thought, should we really wake him up to do this!?!? We decided yes and for the first 10 minutes, we were definitely second guessing our decision. To say he was sad and upset was an understatement. On top of all this, we had to change his clothes into his bathing suit and put sunscreen on him (which he hates anyways).

At this point, we were feeling really guilty, but the damage was done. We figured if he was still upset after a few minutes in the water, we would head home. Luckily, that was not the case. After a few minutes, he warmed up and had a blast.

We thought he would hate the wet sand on his hands, but he was actually very intrigued by it and loved playing in it.

 We brought a ton of toys to play with, and the one thing he loved was - you guessed it, our water bottle!

We took him out into the ocean a bit and he loved the waves crashing up against him. He would even try to stand where it was shallow enough and run in the water which was pretty cute. We stayed at the beach for about an hour and then rinsed off and headed home. He once again did not sleep, but definitely kept us entertained. I think it's safe to say our first beach experience was a success and hopefully we'll get to take him down there a lot more next summer!

Tiny Dancer

I know I have mentioned in previous posts Ryan's love for dancing and music. Well, anytime I get out the camera or video camera, he freezes up. A few nights ago, I was able to capture a few minutes of his pure craziness. This first video (only 45 sec), he showcases his famous bouncing move. He also takes a break in the middle to play with the kitchen timer (his new toy that he plays with while eating dinner). You can ignore me talking to him trying to coax him to perform!

The second video he is really getting after the head banging. Now this is something he has done since he was probably 6 months old (not to music at that age obviously), but it has continued now into his dancing as well.

He definitely keeps us entertained!

In other news, an update to our highchair/eating debacle. We are now at 30 meals eaten in a row in the highchair (woo hoo). With only two of those meals where he only ate a portion of his dinner and went to bed a little hungry. We kept thinking we would pay and he would wake up at 5 or 6 starving, but it hasn't seemed to affect him, so maybe he is just a little piglet. When he starts getting frustrated while eating or does something bad (ie throws things off the tray, spits out food, etc), we will tell him "No No Ryan" and he takes his arms and covers his eyes. He gets really embarrassed when he is in trouble and will keep his arms over his face until he thinks we aren't mad anymore. He will peek throw his fingers to gauge our mood. It is pretty funny!

Hope everyone has a great weekend :) We are heading to Galveston tomorrow with Ryan for his first day at the beach.