Pool Party

MacKenzie's mama Sommer hosted a little get together in her backyard to celebrate Baby Jack's impending arrival. Ryan and David were so excited to get in the pool, but Kenz wanted nothing to do with the boy cooties. Ryan could not believe there was a SLIDE in the POOL - that's like, two of his favorite things in one place!

After a while we thought Ryan had tired of playing in the water (and it clouded over and got chilly), so Sam took his swimsuit and swim diaper off. Ryan decided he was going to air-dry for a little bit... a little Garden of Eden moment with Kenz:

He allowed us to put clothes back on him in time to go cruising around the yard with Kenz...

while David bypassed the sippy cups all together.

Earth's Bounty

I inferred in an earlier post that I have a hard time remembering to go out and check on the squash and zucchini frequently enough to avoid monster veg - great for winning blue ribbons at the State Fair, not so good for slicing and sauteing.

I believe I referred to the possibility of harvesting "squash the size of Ryan" and apparently I forecasted correctly:


Here's my resolution, with y'all as my witnesses - next year I will plant ONE yellow squash plant and ONE zucchini plant - no matter what!

Ice Ice Baby

We have a dry erase board in our kitchen that we hung up during renovations, but decided to keep it up when we realized how handy it was for quick notes, To-Do lists, and grocery lists. Since Ryan has started talking, I've been writing down his new words. You can see how he started pretty slowly (words on the left), and then there was no looking back - see how the words on the right get closer together when I saw we were running out of space on the board!

He's got all the boy words down - dirt, rock, truck, bug, boom, ow, fire truck, tools, motorcycle (he says "mo-mo" and then a pause, and then "sy-sy"). As you can imagine, many of his words are food related: fork, bagel, shrimp, ketchup, cinnamon ("sin-sin"), snack, pasta, smoothie, blueberry ("bilbeo").

He has learned words in the garden: bee, squash, tomato ("may-mo"), bean, flower, grass, shovel, rake, butterfly.

He is quite the parrot - he'll attempt to repeat any word you say (gotta watch your language!), and he'll repeat "stories". For example, his Aunt Sarah (he says SherSher) flew to Seattle this weekend to visit a friend. We were driving to the zoo on Saturday (he pronounces it "loo"), which is near Sarah's apartment, and he kept saying "SherSher! SherSher!" I said, "No, Auntie Sarah went bye-byes on a plane; we're going to the zoo." Ever since then, about once an hour Ryan says "Bye-bye!" I ask, "Who went bye-bye?" and he says "SherSher - plane!"

Most people are called by the first syllable of their name, doubled - David is Day-Day and his mom Jena is Jen-Jen, Miss Rosie from our music class is Ro-Ro, Nanny Amanda is Man-Man, and my friend Julie is Ju-Ju. Grandma Nancy is Dra-dra and Grandpa Bill is Dadoo. My favorite name of his, however, is "Ma-dy" - he uses it when Sam and I are both in the room and he wants our full attention.

He is stringing words together to make sentences, too. Horses in our neighborhood "eat grass", today we rode in "Day-Day stroller", and he likes to tattle on us by pointing out "Mama wine" or "Dada beer". Then, of course, the title of this post - he has become obsessed with ice cubes and having ice cold water in his straw cups, so Sam taught him to say "Ice - Ice - Baby!"

Finally, he knows there is something going on with a "Baby Jack", but I don't think he has a full grasp of what's coming...

Big Boy Bed

Ryan has slept 5 nights in a row in his big boy bed - four of those straight through, with no waking up whatsoever! He likes to sleep sideways, with his feet tucked between the wall and the mattress and his head up against the side rail - I guess that reminds him of the confined space of his crib.

We've moved him into what was the guest bedroom, but are still in the process of decorating it in a slightly more grown up surfer boy theme. Because he tends to crawl out of bed and see what trouble he can get into before falling asleep in some strange position (more on that in a moment), we've had to really babyproof the room. It's quite Spartan really - a bed, a chair, a side table, a box of books and a box of stuffed animals.

This afternoon, after Sam put him down for nap, I could hear Ryan rambling around in his room for a good 45 minutes before he fell silent. I let another half hour pass before I peeked in to see where he had landed, and I could barely contain my laughter. The photo is out of focus because it was dim in the room, but he is, indeed, sound asleep.

He is lying half in and half out of his closet, with his feet on the dresser. He managed to pull clothes and shoes out of a hanging clothes organizer and spread them around the room before conking out like that. For a moment I debated leaving him there (he appeared to be comfortable!) but then I put a blanket over him and scooped him up to deposit him on the bed. He opened his eyes, dazed, and then rolled over onto his belly and fell fast asleep.