Summer's here!!

Well, we're in Houston and it's scorching outside - so it must be summertime. We have been having fun with gymnastics and swim classes to keep cool, but most of all, enjoying a break from MDO for a bit. This has given us more time to enjoy being in the water! We've enjoyed my parent's pool some, Ryan went with daddy back to Noah's Ark, have had some fun playdates, birthday parties at the pool, and a few weeks ago we went swimming with some of my sweet cousins.

We've been working on our pike position at gymnastics.....

 ....and our straddle!

 Had a fun playdate with his buddies from school!

 Got to visit and swim with my cousin Alli, and her sweet daughter, Izzy, who were in from Seattle.

 They shared some snacks :)

 and he was tuckered out after all the fun!

We also decided that over summertime, we would work on kicking some of Ryan's habits. The first was being his pacifier or "pi" as he calls them. We decided to take them away cold turkey. He only had them during naptime and nighttime anyways for the past 7 months. We started on a Sunday afternoon in which he cried pretty hard for them, but still ended up taking an okay nap. Then, that evening, he had a bit of a panic attack searching for them before bed, telling me to go get them out of the closet. It did take him about an hour and a half to fall asleep, but he slept through the night just fine. We told him that Dr. S, his pediatrician, needed them to give to other babies. For some reason, when authority comes down from her, he listens. So the next few days, whenever it would come time to sleep he would just that Dr. S needed his "pis" and that he wasn't going to cry. He's been so brave, haha! It's been about a week and I think the habit is kicked! Next up - making him feed himself more often, then to potty training (because I think he may be ready!).

Wes and I just got back from 5 days in Cabo. It was such a nice, relaxing trip. It has been a pretty busy year so far, especially with Wes' school and work, so it was nice to get away just the two of us for a bit. We had such a great time last year, we decided to go back at last minute. We pretty much laid out all day, ate a bunch, got wonderful massages, read and slept a ton! It was perfect :)

Our view from the room

 The sky pool - where we spent pretty much everyday. The views were incredible.

 Before dinner at the Office

 Medano Beach

 Probably the neatest dinner we had. It was at La Hacienda Cantina and had the most amazing views (and great food, too!)

When we got home, Ryan was happy to see us, I guess, but we probably could have stayed another 5 days! We decided since it was summertime, Ryan needed a summer cut to go with it. His hair is growing soooo fast, so we went a lot shorter this time. He looks like he is in the Marines and that he is like 5 years old :)

Currently, Ryan is loving his daddy. We call him his shadow because he wants to be everywhere Wes is. He loves going to the store with him (mainly because he gets a donut), going upstairs with him while he works, running errands together, and is constantly telling him what he wants to play and/or do and to "sit on the ground 2 minutes, daddy"

He also has decided to "compose" his first song. He absolutely won't let me video it, but it goes a lil something like this...."Bam, Bam Fakeout; Bam, Bam Fakeout" on repeat while galloping through the house and clapping his hands. Not sure where this came from at all, but it definitely hypes him up and he is quite proud of himself.

Ryan seems so old these days. He just talks nonstop. He constantly is asking questions - "Who's that", "What are you doing?", "Where are we going?" - you get the picture. He is still obsessed with his trucks/cars, his new work bench that we just put together, really loves watching Barney and the Wiggles right now, loves helping out however he can (cooking, cleaning, etc.), and reading his books.

Looking forward to the rest of our summer together and enjoying time with Dad home!

Galveston

This post is about a month overdue, but it has been a busy few weeks around here. Over Memorial Day, we went with Wes' family to Galveston to celebrate his sister, Allie's, graduation from high school. I'll admit I had a bit of anxiety going into the weekend. We have only taken Ryan on a "trip" with us once before and it went horribly. He didn't sleep basically at all during the night and it was just miserable. Granted this was when he was about 8 months old, but it scarred us enough to where we never take him on our trips (he just goes to the grandparents). Luckily, he had his own room and crib and by the time we got there Friday afternoon, he was more than ready for a nap. The room was amazing because it had storm shutters in it and was pitch black. I thought it may scare him a bit, but after talking up the room and how it was his, he feel asleep very quickly and we ended up having to wake him up after 2.5 hours. He kept talking about how his room was dark and that he liked the dark room.

The house was wonderful, right on Pirate's Beach, with plenty of room for us all. Allie had brought one of her friends with her, Mallory (whom Ryan had never met before), so he just assumed we were at Mallory's house and referred to it as that all weekend. That afternoon, we relaxed by the beach, read, and cooked dinner. Unfortunately, Wes had his final weekend of his first year of MBA school, so he had school all day both Friday and Saturday. He spent a decent amount of time driving back and forth from Rice to Galveston. That night, Ryan slept like a champ while we enjoyed some Mexican Train Dominoes. We even had to wake up him around 9 am the next morning (luckily the great sleeping continued all weekend). On a side note, as soon as we got home, we put up some cheapy blackout canvas in his room, so he now has a dark room as well. It's definitely lengthened his sleep into the morning and even naps.

We got him all "sunscreamed" up Saturday morning to get ready for a day at the beach.

We laid out by the beach some where Ryan insisted on playing washers and relaxing in the sun. Unfortunately, Ryan HATED the seaweed, or as he called it, the teaweed. He wouldn't even let us carry him through it to get in the water. He thought it was going to legitimately hurt us and he did not like it on our feet. To his defense, it was pretty bad - there were just mounds of it everywhere and the tide was pretty strong that weekend. So we just settled for playing in the sand instead.

 Uncle Jon and Ryan

 He wanted to lay out like the big kids, but couldn't take the sun in his face apparently!

We headed to the country club that afternoon to enjoy the pool, so that he could show off his swimming skills and escape the heat. He also learned how to dunk us and thinks he is hot stuff now.

Sunday, we repeated our schedule of eating, swimming, more eating, napping/relaxing, more eating and playing games, but this time all with Wes. I was so impressed with how well Ryan adapted and most importantly, how well he slept. Maybe we'll consider taking him on more trips with us!

Mexican Train at night

 Ryan even joined in for some Bananagrams

Ryan and GiGi

 

The High School Grad and Ryan

We got up Monday morning, packed up, and headed home. First, we had to make a stop at Cheddar's, one of my all time favorite places, since there isn't one that close to us. It was such a nice weekend and a great way to start off the summer and Wes' 7 weeks of no school!!!

MDO Wrap-Up

Ryan completed his first year of Mother's Day Out a few weeks ago. Hard to believe that much time has already passed. Like any two year old, he has completely changed from when he started back in August. I think it took nearly two months for me to be able to drop him off without crying, but by the end he was so completely attached to his teachers and his friends. I feel so lucky for him to have had two wonderful and loving teachers his first year. It will be hard to live up to next year. We have a little picture of his class up on the fridge and he is always asking for me to take it down so he can kiss his teachers Ms Mato (Donato) and Ms Mitchell and then name all of his friends. Here are a few pics from his first day of school compared to his last day of school. One thing hasn't changed, he still HATES posing for pictures (I think he actually did better 9 months ago than now!).

 August 2011

 May 2012

I brought my camera the last week to try and snap a few pics with his teachers. Of course I waited until the afternoon, right after his nap when he is ready to go home, so he wasn't in the best of moods. Oh well, at least I have a pic of them together!

Mrs. Donato

 Ms. Mitchell

We had a fun end of year party followed by some sad goodbyes! I hope next year he will be blessed with just as loving teachers and maybe even a few of his same friends. We signed up for two mini summer sessions this summer just to keep him used to the schedule of going to school, but will take a break for about 6 weeks. The first one is going on now and has been interesting. Luckily a few of his good friends are in his class and he is in the same room as before, which works well for this OCD boy, but the teachers are different. He immediately recognized it when we walked into the room for the first day and just broke down. I felt so sorry for him because he has no understanding as to why it is different. After school on Wednesday he was talking about how this is new school and that he doesn't like his "other" friends (the kids he doesn't know). Also both Thursday and Friday morning, before heading to school, he was talking about how he wasn't going to cry at school (which broke my heart) and then proceeded to cry both times. Made me feel so sorry for him, but I know it's good to introduce him to change. I'm looking forward to the break soon so that we can enjoy some fun summer activities together!