17 months

This month Ryan's personality has really become more defined. As I mentioned in a previous post, his OCD tendencies are just down right hilarious. They are still in full effect. In fact, earlier today, we went to pick him up from my parents and I was holding him. All of a sudden, he almost leaped out of my arms, ran over to the pantry door that was about 1-2 inches open, slammed it shut, then came toddling back to me to be picked up again. He always lines his shoes up on our windowsill and the other day I threw a few pair up there and I could tell he was not happy with the arrangement. He stood there looking at it, contemplating for a few minutes. Finally, he decided to pull them all down, line them up on the ground and the place each one of them back up on the windowsill to his liking. What a perfectionist!

His vocabulary is really starting to expand more in the past few weeks. Current words include:
Mama, Daddy, Puppy, Car, Home, Hot/Cold, Thank you, Here you go (one of my faves!), Please (Peas - only when the mood strikes him), CoCo, Pool, Hi, Byebye, Uh Oh, Cookie, Cracker and bubble. Just this week he started saying Doggy (more like Goggy) to Truman, my parent's dog, while chasing him around the house. He also started saying TV (more like tee tee) and when it's not on, he is annoyed. He also has been going crazy if I leave a room and it is still on. He just points to it saying Tee Tee until I go turn it off, such a conservationist! He now loves to go to our dining room window and look for cars and point to them as they drive by.

Around the house his favorite things to do are currently:
-Watch SuperWhy and sometimes Sesame Street
-still loves dancing to music (he added a new little booty shake to his dance)
-going to get the mail
-obviously taking things out, putting them back in, creating order

New things this month are:
-he had a little cold and basically while trying to teach him to blow his nose, he thinks making the sniffle sound while scrunching up his nose is hilarious, so he does that often
- we're working on holding hands while walking in public
- waving and saying Bye Bye to EVERYTHING! Literally I think he does this 50 times a day
- we've gone back to the Children's museum a few more times and he has become very comfortable there which I think will actually help him with school

He felt the need to take every block out of the big truck and put them away in the bins

 One mom asked me, "Is that your son scooting down the bridge on his tummy?" Anytime he thinks he is up high, he feels the need to flip over and scoot his way back down. It's pretty hilarious, he is very cautious!

 He was loving the tunnel this time!

 He even remembered how to go down the slide!

And then he decided to crash a tea party in which two moms were trying so hard to get a pic of their two girls together. This was quickly interrupted and Ryan decided to run away with the teapot.

As far as eating goes -the kid could eat all day if I would let him. He is constantly running over to the pantry, trying to get it, and pointing to his "snacks". He will also go pull his high chair across the room when he wants to get in and eat (a complete 180 from a few months ago). For a kid who has eaten only 1 can of jarred baby food his entire life and only had everything I've made him, his nutritional values are sure changing quickly. He loves fruits and carbs and yogurts, but meats & veggies on their own are not for him. I still make 1 puree a week that will include veggies and meats, but other things that he has tried and seems to like are fish sticks, corn dogs, and pizza (wonderful, I know). This is a constant frustration - it makes me dread meal time when we are going to try new things.

This month he officially moved to 1 nap a day (tear). Sometimes it's an hour or so and other days it's 3 hours, but usually somewhere around 2. So we have shifted when we get out and go do things now. He's still sleeping in until 8 or 8:30 which leaves us a window of about 10 to 12:30 to take him anywhere. Not too bad right now since everyday its 100+ degrees in the afternoon; we're a fan of the AC.

He has spent a lot of weekends away this past month while Mom and Dad went and did some fun things. One weekend he stayed with Gigi and Aunt Allie and had a lot of fun. I can't wait for cooler weather when we can spend more time at  the park this fall!

He is still in Size 4 diapers and now into 24 month / 2T clothes. I can't believe how big he has gotten. I swear he just grew 6 inches in a matter of weeks (just kidding!). We put him on our scale and he was right at 26 lbs.

Look how high I can reach, Mom!



 The infamous face

 Always pointing at the TV

 Where's your tummy?!



We love you buddy and can't wait to see what the next month brings with the start of MDO!!!

Changes

Next Thursday marks two big changes around the Mock household. The first one is that Ryan will begin Mother's Day Out at St. Luke's two days a week (Th/F from 9 - 2:30). This will be a much needed change around our household. Ryan has become very attached to me and although I love the fact that my best friend is a 17 month old, it's time for him to make some new friends. He needs a little change in routine and could definitely use some social skills as well as just some new experiences. We went to meet his teacher on Friday where they had four of the eight students in the class come play for an hour. We were the first ones there, so he got to throw his fit before anyone else saw. He cried pretty hard and begged for me to hold him the first 7-8 minutes, but then slowly pulled away inch by inch to begin playing with some toys. His two teachers seem wonderful and by the time the other kids joined, he was okay. He pretty much played by himself the entire time, but at least he wasn't bullying anyone else around like he tends to do at times. Wes and I have a 3 hour (yes, I said 3!) orientation tonight at the church which seems a little crazy, but they take their school pretty seriously which I guess I am thankful for. This week they only go a half day which will be good to help ease him into it, so I will update later this week with a rundown of the first day!

The second change taking place is that Wes is starting a new job at Shell! He recently applied for a job downtown and was promoted to it! We are so happy and I love the fact that he will be closer to us and closer to his school at night. Also, I am selfishly excited about meeting him for lunch because I definitely miss some of my favorite joints from working downtown!!! Win-win for both of us :) We recently celebrated his promotion and birthday at Vic and Anthony's. I must say this may be our new favorite steakhouse in Houston; the food was amazing, we were very impressed. Happy 28th birthday babe!

OCD

Now, I am not sure if my son really has this or not, having never raised a child before, but some of his tendencies are just so obsessive compulsive, it cracks us up. I know babies/toddlers love routine, structure, order, etc, so all of his antics may just be chalked up to that, but nevertheless, I wanted to remember some of them.

1) He loves to line things up. The other day, I was cleaning up the kitchen and when I turned around, this is what I saw.

A nearly perfect line. He does this on an almost daily basis with the tupperware. He is so meticulous and careful with his placement, it's hilarious.

2) He hates things on the ground that shouldn't be there. Usually it is just a thread or piece of dirt or something, but he will sit and point to it and whine the most annoying whine you can think of. What is even funnier, is after I pick it up and throw it away, he will go back to the place and repeat the whining and pointing, like there may still be something there. He even does it with things that he would have just finished playing with but then later decides he doesn't like it; it makes no sense to me.

3) A place for everything and everything in it's place. That about sums up most of our days when we are at home. He spends a lot, and I mean A LOT of his time putting things where they belong. Namely the phones in the house and his video monitor (where we plug it in on the windowsill). However, he also feels that if he sees our IPhone or the remote, that he has the need to hand them to me right away. If I put it down, he immediately picks it back up and hands it to me again. It.is.never.ending. Along with this tendency comes picking up his toys. He will pull them all out of the toy box, or blocks bucket, or all of the books off the mantle until every last one has been removed and then immediately begin putting them all back up.

4) He notices every little change you could ever imagine (repeat the whine and point routine). For instance, if we turn of the fan in a room, he will immediately look up and point and whine until we turn it back on. Now he has also gotten in the habit of when he wakes up and drinks his milk, if I haven't turned on the TV, he pulls the same routine (funny because he doesn't really watch it, I think he just thinks it is supposed to be on).

Here's a funny story. First of all, toys that talk or squirm around really bother him. He must think they are out to get him, but he is terrified. So, the other day, he had emptied out one of his toy boxes and found this little talking Cookie Monster from his birthday party. Needless to say, he was screaming and extremely scared of it. So, I took it and went and put it in his room in this little hanging basket of stuffed animals. Fast forward a few hours, I had left to go work out and Wes had put him down for a nap. Well, apparently when he woke up, Wes went in there to him standing up in the corner of his crib, screaming and crying, while pointing to this basket of toys. Now, I had not yet told the story to Wes, so he proceeded to take out each stuffed animal one by one, bring it to Ryan to see if he liked it or not, then put it back. Eventually he figured out that the teeny tiny Cookie Monster was the culprit. Geez! He doesn't miss a beat considering he never saw me put it in there in the first place.

Well, I think that is all I have for now, I am sure there are more day-to-day activities that take place, but for now this is all I have. I am sure this is nothing out of the norm, but it sure does keep us on our toes!

Success!

We have FINALLY found some form on entertainment that Ryan actually enjoys. Wes and I took him to the Children's Museum and to say he had a blast is an understatement. Not sure why I hadn't taken him sooner. Probably because I always thought he needed to be walking to actually have fun, which is not totally true; but on a day like today (Saturday morning and already nearly 100 degrees outside), it was a mad house, and with a bunch of little people running around he would have probably been trampled on had he not been walking. Wish I would have thought about this 3 or 4 months ago when he started walking and saved my money from going to Gymboree (which he still hates to this day).

We decided to go ahead and take the chance on buying a one year membership, in hopes that he would like it. For $75, the three of us can come all year round which is a steal (and the same cost as 1 month at Gymboree!!). We headed upstairs to the Tot Spot and at first he was a little nervous about the whole thing. The first few minutes inside, he was pretty clingy and shed a few tears, but once we got our bearings, I found this bridge that I thought he would like. He was hooked. At first, Mr. Puppy was required, but after a few short minutes, we were able to confiscate him.

half smile :)

 His excited face

He ventured over to the Plinko ball toy, grabbed a few and headed back to the bridge (or as I like to refer to it as home base).

At one point, he grabbed this little girl's face. I don't think the mom was too amused.

 Back to the bridge.

I have mentioned before how much this kid LOVES opening and closing doors. Well this was just perfect for him, life size doors, locks, buttons, the works. We had to pull him away after a while since he started hogging both doors at the same time and no other kids could get in!

 Move in a little closer for a better look.

 He did try and shut this door on a little girl while she was in there. Oops.

He kept trying to shut himself in. In his defense, he is not used to having mirrors on the other side of the door!

Back to the bridge to play peek-a-boo with daddy.

Now over to the flower steering wheels?! He really liked to get up close and personal with all of the equipment, and by this I mean licking everything he could, great!

 Both hands

 He was so excited he had them spinning so fast.

 My little man. He stands with both hands behind his back all the time now, not sure why, but it's really cute.

The fun light toy. Luckily for all you readers, my camera battery died, so I don't have 3451 more pictures to add to this post. He was just having so much fun, I wanted to capture all of his excitement.

I did get a few more on my phone, but I won't add anymore to this post (okay maybe just a few). We took him over to the slide/stairs area and once he got the hang of it, he had a great time. He climbed the stairs, slid down the slide on his tummy, bounced on the stairs, and just had a wonderful time.

 happy boy

 taste testing

 pooped

It was so cute because at certain times, he would just wander off on his own to explore like he was Mr. Independent and then after a few minutes look up to make sure we were still close enough for comfort and go back to playing. I have never seen him like this before. It gives me hope for MDO which starts in 3-4 weeks. He even walked up to a little boy, got right in his face and said Hi (which is a big step for him since he is so not sociable with other kids). After almost two hours there, we headed to Smashburger for lunch where he dined on some Onion Strings, then headed home where he crashed for 3 hours! We will be back very soon (probably next week!) :)