End of Summer

I have said this once before - I am not good at keeping records of things.  Not only have I not updated this blog in two months, I am. In the process of updating Ryan's baby book which I haven't done since he turned one.

Here is the latest.  Michael can pee standing up without spraying all over the walls.  He seems to be very proud of this - I can only hope this will ensure that he pees more frequently instead of waiting 7 hours to go.  He also stopped sucking his finger.  We assisted the process by using a bitter tasting nail polish and a toy incentive.  But he hasn't sucked it in almost three weeks so we think he is done.  Of course around the same time he has decided to stop napping.  This was inevitable.  I don't think it is related to the ceasing of the sucking as when he was napping he was going to bed really late a night.  So he is trying to find new ways to soothe himself and he is working through new sleep patterns so we all try to run away when he gets angry! His meltdowns right now are a handful!

Ryan probably says a lot more words then we think.  Poor kid probably has a vocabulary of 50 words and we have no clue.  He did say "ish" yesterday when he was eating goldfish.  My neighbor thought she heard him say "ink" when he wanted his drink.  He has also been saying beep beep when he is playing with cars or trucks.  But his preferred method of communicating is still pointing and grunting.  He still enjoys reading books and has taken a liking to Thomas, which has resulted in Michael all the sudden being interested in playing with his trains again. But at least this is giving me some ideas for Christmas/birthday presents for Ryan.

Funny Boys

Yesterday, Michael and Ryan were playing in the living room while I was getting dinner ready in the kitchen.  Michael yelled out to me "Mommy, can you watch him, I have to go upstairs."  Guess Michael felt I didn't have control of the situation. 

Today we did our second music class.  Both boys are still shy, Ryan more so than Michael.  Michael will participate, but Ryan wants to stay on my lap or have me hold him when we are supposed to be dancing.  The teacher always asks the kids to help put the instruments (shakers, sticks, etc.) away and Michael always helps.  Today I was stunned when Ryan put some away too.  I guess it was a shock that he understood and that he walked that far away from me.  Perhaps next week, he'll break out in song!

The End of Soccer

Several times today Michael stated: "I'm so excited, today is my last soccer game."  When asked why it was because it makes him so tired since he has to run so much.  He played a good game this last time.  He ran after the ball much more than before and seemed to kick the ball more.  He had to play a lot as not too many kids showed up.  He thinks maybe he'd enjoy golf more as there is not that much running. I guess we'll see what he says next year. 

Ryan has come the closet to saying a word at the soccer game as well.  He said "uh oh".  In the past he's only ever said the "uh" part when something happened.   Last night, he was adding the oh to it and it sounded like "uh oh", perhaps he'll say a real word before he hits 18 months! 

 

Soccer Take Two

Had another good experience at the soccer game.  He is already acting like a teenager as he doesn't want us to come near him when he is in the middle of his game.  I tried to come over an offer him some water and he pushed me away.  This time, we brought his soccer ball with us for his practice time.  A funny thing happened when game time came.  One of the kid's balls was picked to play the game.  Michael's ball stayed on the sidelines, but he tried to keep an eye on it - he didn't want anyone else playing with his ball.  This probably distracted him as he was still sticking to the back of the pack of kids chasing the ball.  We are not quite sure what transpired next, we believe it went something like this: the coach said to Michael "Michael, go after the ball like it is yours."  And Michael replied, pointing to the sidelines, "my ball is over there."  Maybe he'll get it by the last game. 

Soccer Game

Michael had his first soccer game last night.   To our amazement, he didn't suck his finger or cry at all!  Of course, the concept of passing the ball is completely lost on the group, so there are just ten of them chasing after the ball.  He did seem to stay in the back of the pack.  I think he thought someone was going to give him a turn.  But he did great listening to the coaches and following directions.  He's on the white team (no name as of yet) and he picked number 12 (not too many numbers left by the time we got there.)  Game two is tomorrow night.

Ryan's Skills

Well, Ryan still has yet to speak any understandable words (although Ian thinks he said "hi" at lunch).  But he has figured out the sequence of buttons to press on my cell phone to change the font size and the sequence of buttons on the van's key pad to open all the windows during a rain shower (fortunately, we figured this out before the heavy rain began). 

Delicious Ham

I made ham bbq sandwiches for Ian and myself, but gave Michael some ham without bbq sauce for dinner.  His comment was "This ham is so delicious, I don't even need to put it in the ketchup."  Who knew!