My Little Star!

Riley was Mr. Big Boy Independent this morning, so he insisted on carrying his star all by himself. Even down the stairs at our house despite the fact that he couldn't see over it!

Kelly dropped him off this am bc I had an all day offsite mtg with IBM. I'm assuming Riley had to carry his star into school since he refused to have it anywhere in the car where he couldn't see it! Kelly said when he walked in all his friends were like Hi Riley! Riley's Star! I guess they've figured out what it means by this time of year! In fact, Riley couldn't stop looking and pointing to his Star once he saw it last night either like he knew what it meant.

Anyway, Kelly said Ms. Dina's reaction was OF COURSE it's only fitting it has a fwag theme! :) She's told me before he points out flags at the school she's never noticed in her 14 years there! So Kelly said when he left, all the kids were gathered around and Riley was pointing and saying all his favorite things on the star!

Sounds like Talana and I knocked it out of the park with the star! :)

I can't wait to hear his rambling answer to did you have a good day when I pick him up today. I'm sure it'll be something like and I outSIDE, and Ms Dina, and my STAR, and blah blah! And Matwoo and pushing and time OUT. :) I don't know if he gets put in time out for pushing Matwoo every day or if he's just retelling me the same story over and over again!

Either way! Riley's the Star of the Week!

So I didn't get this posted before I picked Riley up...the usual conversation on the way home went something like this:

Mommy - "Did you have a good day at school?" 

Riley -"Chess (Yes)" while he also shakes his head up and down. 

Mommy - "What did you do?" 

Riley - "OutSIDE and star and Mommy and Daddy and Eledent and Monkey and Ms Dina and star and blah blah blah" 

Mommy - "Did everyone like your star?" 

Riley - BIG SMILE "CHESS" head shaking up and down. 

Riley - "Mena Mena Mommy Pack Pack I reach it!" which means give me the banana out of my backpack I'm trying to reach from my car seat that I usually eat on the way home because I'm STARVING MARVIN b/c we just got finished playing outside 10 minutes before you picked me up! :)   

Then as if it were meant to be, I found iced star sugar cookies to take for his special snack. They are really supposed to be snowflakes, but they look just like stars!

A few pics from Reese's 4th Birthday Party!

I'm impressed we got them all pretty much smiling!

Michelle helping Riley with his juice!

The Birthday Girl!

We went to my friend Michelle's daughter's 4th birthday party at a WOGA gymnastics gym today! Riley LOVED it! We may have to sign him up! The ones near us don't offer it under 3 years old, but this one does. It's actually where Nastia??? and some other gymnastic gold medal winners trained.

Anyway - Riley jumped right in and had fun! I have some video of him jumping on the trampoline. That was his favorite thing!

It was so cute. I was standing behind him, and I could hear him continuing to sing the Happy Birthday song LONG after it had been sung, but I guess it was stuck in his head. The little boy next to him just looked at him like he was crazy! Too funny and cute! All at once!

Speaking of, now no matter what happens if he sees cupcakes or cake - he starts singing Happy Birthday!

Doritos & Bananas

If I got caught eating this combination of food, people would accuse me of being pregnant! ha!

Riley, Ethan and Emily enjoyed a nice Doritos & Bananas binge just before dinner Saturday night...and we wondered why he wasn't hungry! :)

Star of the Week!

At Sloan each child gets to be the "Star of the Week" during the school year, and it just so happens Riley is "Star of the Week" this week. That means we (as in I until I called for backup!) get to do a star to represent all Riley's favorite things that will hang in his classroom all week, and I can take a special snack for his class one day! When he's older we'll do it together, and he'll be able to speak to each of them. But since he's so young, I wanted to mainly do pictures of the things he likes that he can point out and say by himself.

Of course, they give me the Star on Thursday before we're supposed to have it done by Monday! Ugh! Hello! I'm a much bigger planner than that! Needless to say, I felt behind the ball before I even got started! Even so, it turned out great and it captures all of Riley's Current Favorite things!!

Many thanks to Talana for coming over to help me do the star at the last possible moment on Saturday. I spent Friday evening shopping for scrapbooking stickers, then Saturday morning uploading pictures from all our cameras and going through them to pick out ones to be printed at Walgreens. I'm ashamed to even admit that our nice Nikon camera had not been uploaded from since JANUARY! Hello Misty! Not good! I told Talana my suggestion for the school was going to be to NOT have a Star of the Week during December! OMG! We already have enough to do!! The good news is that as I was going through all our pictures for this, I already came up with some themes for pages in his memory book I make for family each year.

Anyway, I had a very loose vision, bought a bunch of stickers and went through and printed out pictures of his current favorite things, but Talana totally executed on the vision! She's a Master Certified Scrapbooker (if there were such a thing)! :) Once again - she comes through for us like family! She's babysat for us only 2nd to GiGi and is always there to lend a hand and help us out with any crazy thing we may have going on! That's true friendship! Love you Talana Banana!!

Of course, we had to make the background "flagish" considering they are one of his top 3 favorite things! :) I intended to have more basketball on the star too so as to represent the order of his favorite things, but that just didn't work once we started lying things out.

Anyway - here's the Star! The top leg is Zoo - with pictures of Riley and a gorilla and me and Riley in front of eledents (elephants - his #3 favorite thing). The left leg is swimming with Daddy in a pool and lake, splashing Mommy with water while we were in Cozumel, and a picture of the ocean from our room in Cozumel. The middle picture is obviously a family pic from our Christmas card last year because I realized I don't have any other family pics! ugh! The bottom left leg includes from bottom to top, bicycle, basketball or "shoot it" as Riley says, pancakes in the shape of Mickey Mouse from Cozumel - cake cakes as he calls them, and an airplane up in the sky! The bottom right leg includes from bottom to top - Riley as Buzz Year going down a slide, Buzz Year!, another basketball, Lightening McQueen from Cars and of course BARNEY!! The picture in the middle of the bottom legs is 5 flags hanging on our hotel in Cozumel that Riley wanted to "Reach it" every time we walked by them! Then the right leg is Mommy, Daddy, B - his bear he sleeps with and his teacher Dina who he regularly calls me! :) But I'm not jealous because I want him to love his teacher that much!

Anyway - you can't see the details in these pictures, but you get the idea!

Now I just gotta figure out that special snack.....I'm thinking animal crackers or something "Toy Story" to go with his favorite things! I guess I have til Friday, so plenty of time! ha!

Speaking of - his favorites we'd would rank them in the following order:
#1 - BASKETBALL~ I was thinking the other day - there has not been ONE day go by that Riley has not dunked on that basketball goal since he got it for Christmas last year! Seriously! Not one day! And he still gets just as excited EVERY single day! There's a lot more commentary now though like ew, almost Mommy, missed it, made it, yea, shoot it, pass it, dunk it, etc. And if anyone is playing at the park, they always crack up that he says ew or awe when they miss it too.
#2 - Barney ~ He will grab the remotes and ask for Barney by name, and that's the ONLY 30 minutes of the day that he sits still! What more can you say?! Santa *may* bring Riley tickets to Barney Live in his stocking, so I can only imagine how exciting that outing will be!! Especially for Mom and Dad too! :)
#3 - Gotta be FWAGS! MOMMY! FWAGS! WOW! ~ Which is what I hear almost EVERY morning and afternoon the the way to and from school.

#4 - Eledents (followed by a trumpet eledent sound now)  ~ Elephants- LOVES them!
#5 - Monkeys ~ They are quickly moving in on the eledents!

I coming! I coming! Thank you!

Now when Kelly or I are driving home with Riley and the other parent is already home - Riley starts saying "Daddy/Mommy I coming!" to the parent at home! It's so sweet!

And now he's starting to understand "right back", so when I leave the room he says "Mommy back". 

And he says Thank you to you when you are supposed to stay Thank you to him! I guess b/c that's how his teacher's teach him.

He also covered his mouth the other day when he coughed, so obviously they are teaching him LOTS of things at school! It's so awesome to see them come to realization!

Oh yeah, the other day Kelly was driving Riley home and all of the sudden he counted to 13! I know our friend Nicolas was counting to 20 in both English and Chinese at his 2nd birthday, but neither Kelly or I have really worked on counting with Riley out side of how many flags do you see, or balls or this or that - one...two..three.., etc! So I feel bad for selling him so short! Ha!

He also all of the sudden sang his ABCs the other day, and Kelly and I just looked at each other like where did that come from?!

And he has to get a hug and a kiss anytime we hear the Barney I love you song! He gets really frustrated in the car when he's strapped into the car seat and can't give you one right then!

He is definitely talking up a STORM! Sometimes he still gets on a roll, and it all runs together. But I notice that when we watch videos of him, and he's talking in them - he talks back to himself on screen - so he knows exactly what he's saying! 

Ew! Ew! Ew! I'm really really mad!

OMG! All of the sudden Riley started singing this song from Barney today and marching around! Which is cool because that's what Barney teaches you - it's ok to be mad, but march or run around or do whatever you need to do to feel better. Then get over it! Kelly and I have no idea if he was "really really" mad or not, but it was adorable as usual! 

A few pics from Cozumel!

Here's a few of the pics the resort actually took. A cool feature where they take pics the entire time you're there then you can purchase them on the day you leave. You can see the now infamous black eye, and 2 of Riley's FAVORITE things - the shows at night (he wanted to go up for a picture EVERY night whether Mommy looked presentable or not!) and his new found toy - a cup of water in a BIG ol' pool to splash on Mommy and anyone else in the near vicinity! 

Wish I was back there now!!! :) 

Awe Man!

OMG! Kelly and I have NO idea where Riley got this! I'm sure one of us! But his new "saying" is "Awe Man!"' It's almost replaced "Uh-Oh". We just noticed him saying it A LOT this week! I have to try to capture it on video or voice soon before he moves on to the next thing!

Christmas Lights! WOW MOMMY!

So Christmas lights and fireworks are 2 of MY favorite things! And I think Riley maybe following suit! We on the spur of the moment decided to drive through Highland Park Friday night after we ate near there to see a few lights. We knew not everyone would have them up, but it was more of a test drive to see if Riley would really even notice them.

Notice them he did! It was the most adorable thing! Like everything he does is! :)

He was calling the trees - magical trees! Look Mommy! Wow! Magical Trees! Then he was calling the roofs that had just outline lights on them Mountains! Who would have thought of that! But that's why seeing the world again through a child's eyes is one of the greatest things!

One of my fondest memories growing up is riding around with my Grandparents on Christmas Eve looking at Christmas lights with our thermos of hot chocolate! I guess that's part of the reason I'm still so fond of it now! So I can't wait to create some new tradition around that with Riley!

Thanksgiving Week

So I'm suffering from the same personality ailment on the blog that I suffer from on home or organizational projects! I get stuck and can't get going b/c the thought of catching up is overwhelming! So....I'm just going to blog on current events, then I'll play catch up slowly but surely on the last couple of months. As usual, I want to include pictures and videos, so those things always make the process take quite a bit longer!

We had a great Thanksgiving week! We started off the weekend before with GiGi coming to watch Riley so Kelly, Josh, Nancy and I could go down to Austin and do the Warrior Dash for Kelly's birthday. Kelly and I have been wanting to do it for quite sometime, and we just missed the one near Dallas earlier this year. Our friend Hon from Austin did it with us too, so it was a lot of fun! I have a bum hamstring, and Nancy is nursing runners' knee so we walked/ran it, but we did all the obstacles and finished it! I have to admit it was WAY easier than I had mentally psyched myself up about it! Kelly and I ended in grand fashion - he did a front flip into the final mud pit and I did a face first belly dive! Good Times!!! :) Then we went out in Austin that night. We went to some private party at a bar of some of Hon's friends. And there was a guy there doing balloon figures or whatever. He was AWESOME! Here's a quick pic of my Star Wars nerd husband who happens to be trapped in a hot, jock body! LOL! Although I have to admit his friend ordered it for him for his birthday! Still pretty impressive though! And our friend Hon used it to pick up all sorts of chicks that night, so I guess every chick does secretly want to be Princess Leila! I think it took Kelly and I until Tuesday to feel normal though! We are definitely out of practice from how we used to be able to go out!

Then we actually sent Riley to school this week since he had been out of school since last Thursday ill so he'd be back on schedule, and we were totally self indulgent and had day dates and went to see 4 movies! We even went out with friends one night, and Talana watched Riley for us! So we almost had an entire 'adult' week if you count Saturday through Wed! :) It was fun! And we didn't really see any bad movies either, so that made it worth it! And Riley had a BLAST at school because they made each day a fun day - they watched Toy Story, played with Bubbles then brought their favorite snacks one day. It helped me feel less guilty and self absorbed when he didn't want to leave school when we went to pick him up! He LOVES it!

I'm sad to say we missed most of my family Thanksgiving Day, which is my favorite holiday of the year because usually everyone comes. What can you do?! Kelly and I overslept, and you can't just "get out the door" with a toddler like we can when it's just the 2 of us! It was still a good day! And we still got to have our FAVORITE Chicken and Dressing! Every year my Aunt Char's tastes more and more like my MemMaw's did! Yummy! It's Kelly's favorite now too! Which unfortunately, means less leftovers for me!

We got our tree up during Riley's nap yesterday, so now we just need some presents under it! And we got to see my Godson's family from Portland this afternoon, so I'd say we had a pretty good Thanksgiving/Kelly's Birthday/Vacation week! Now back to reality tomorrow!

Riley's Time Out Interview!

So I actually had this post ready to publish before we left for Mexico, but something happened with the video upload and I didn't have a chance to fix it before I left. AND I haven't forgotten about the blog! At the end of this month, I will have been out of the country 14 of the 31 days and traveled even more days when you include day trips for work! Somehow all my work trips AND our family vacation to Cozumel all hit in the same month! Add in I started a new management position in August - just in time for 2011 Annual Budget, and OVERWHELMED is the understatement of the year!

Anyway - I bought a new Flip Video HD for our trip to Cozumel so I can capture Riley's first "official" family vacation moments! Side note - ANY parent should invest in one of those! The challenge with our nice Sony video camera is that it takes too long to grab it and turn it on. Plus, you can't run around town with the Sony video camera in your purse. The Flip Vid is so small and takes 2 button clicks to turn on and start filming in like 2 seconds! 2 seconds is the equivalent of 2 stunts in our house, so you gotta be FAST! It ROCKS! Kelly LOVES it! Every time I turn around he has it on. And it's REALLY hard to catch Riley in pictures now b/c he's always moving! Almost impossible! So this was our answer to that challenge!

Anyway - Kelly captured this video that will surely be a timeless classic in the Sterne household! :) Although I don't think it would be admissible in a court of law because they would accuse Kelly of leading the witness just a bit! It's still a CLASSIC though! Ms. Dina is his teacher. I think he says Jory (another boy in his class did something too), then the main subject is Matthew who he sits next to at their table.

And let me just say this one post has been a labor of LOVE! I've been struggling with getting this video uploaded since the morning of October 15th before we left for Mexico! It's like they make it so simple - it took me a while to find the magic button to "prepare the video" for uploading/sharing! It would spend 20ish minutes acting like it was uploading only to error out in the end. Fingers crossed I figured it out now!  It's actually still "working" as I type this! Technology!! FINALLY! I'm posting this right now! The video FINALLY successfully uploaded!!

Riley still says "cheese" every time we hold this video camera up b/c it's small like a regular camera! And I love how he acts out pushing to Kelly in the beginning. Kelly actually said he had been telling him the story for over 10 minutes before he thought to video it. I think he's saying he and Matthew were fighting over the bicycle at school outSIDE and he pushed him, etc. This is actually the first "story" Riley has told us that we can understand! I think there will be many more Time Out stories to come! And the funny thing is one week later when we were on vacation, all of the sudden Riley says - Matthew pushing time out and runs and sits by the wall in our room!

They've even coined Riley's meltdowns at school a "Riley Fit". The only time he has them is when it's time to come in from outside, and when they take him away from the TV - I can't imagine where he got that!! For those of you that may not know, Kelly can't be in the house without the TV on! I on the other hand lived without a TV for years. Riley really only gets to watch 1 Barney episode a day, so I guess he views TV at school as a treat! They let them all watch a 15 minutes of tv at diaper change/potty time, so they now have a process where they tell everyone else to move out of the way so they don't get hurt when it's Riley's turn to go to the potty! Nice!! We'll give his Dad credit for that trait since it's related to TV watching! :)

Anyway! Hopefully the tv obsession will pay off on the plane ride to Cozumel in a few hours! I purchased new Barney videos just for this occasion!

I promise to catch up on the blog and post lots of pics and videos of another round of Riley's Firsts when we get back!

Adios for now!

Just a quick post!

Because I should already be in bed!!

Riley had a MAJOR accomplishment today! He teetee'd in the big boys potty at school! Yippee! I have a whole other story about when he did it for the 1st time at home last week! It was with GiGi though! I'll have to go into that later! ha!

Anyway! His teacher is bound and determined to get him potty trained, and I'm not going to complain! Every time we've tried at home, he's just hopped right up so maybe the flood gates (pun intended) are about to open on the potty training!

I've heard different trains of thought on whether to use pullups or to skip them altogether, but his teacher requested them be brought to school so maybe that's the trick! We'll see! Hopefully this is the beginning of the end! :)

It's all the little things!

Once again I find myself playing catch up! August was the Month of Mommy! Yippee! I had 2 girls' trips! One with my best friend Courtney - it's been our tradition for years to not get each other birthday presents, but just to go on a quick weekend trip to celebrate both our birthdays. We hadn't done that in a couple of years since I had Riley, so we got our tradition going again this year! FUN! We drove to Austin for a quick one night stay at Barton Creek Spa and Resort. And I'm pretty sure my car barely had any oxygen left in it b/c we talked nonstop there and back! :)

Then I went on a weekend trip with 2 of my best friends from high school! Wow! The 3 of us had not all been together at the same time in 19 years!! Wow! I just aged myself!! But it's true! We had the most AMAZING trip! We'll never be able to have things go that well EVER again! Everything fell into place perfectly!! We went to Beaver Creek Colorado on what ended up being record heat days in Dallas, so it was even perfect timing for that too! We had a BLAST! Now we want to plan a trip with all our families too!

It's funny b/c we all lost touch at different points in our lives, but the 3 of us have a 1, 2 and 3 year old boy now! How crazy is that?! All these years and our lives have run totally different paths, but they all end up almost the same! 

We have some upcoming trips too, so I will probably be playing catch up once again! Kelly and I are going to LA for the weekend with some friends from work, THEN......we're going to the Price Is Right on Monday, September 27th!! WooHoo! I grew up watching that show, so I'm so excited!!!

Then I have to go to the UK for a work trip to meet with IBM for 5 days, then a couple of weeks after that we're taking our first "Official" real family vacation to Cozumel, Mexico for 7 days!! We can't wait!! We got Riley's passport, so we are all set! GiGi is going with us for 3 days to help us out! We'll see how Mommy, Daddy & Riley do away from home for 7 days straight in the same hotel room! I'm sure that will command a least a few posts itself!!

Speaking of Riley's passport, we got that recently! Getting a perfect picture of a 2 year old is DIFFICULT! Kelly ended up taking it!! But it looks like a mug shot!! I took a picture of the picture with my phone, so I'll have to post that later!

Anyway - this post was supposed to be about the adorable things Riley does on a daily basis to keep us laughing! There is no greater joy than that a child and their innocence brings into your life! Especially when you get to experience the world through their eyes first hand...it's amazing!

• Mainly he's a jibber jabbering fool!!! If only we knew what he was saying b/c sometimes he's really telling us all about it! Especially every day when I pick him up from school, he jibber jabbers NONSTOP all the way home as if he's telling me every detail of his day! I keep forgetting to try to record it with my voice recorder on my phone! Will definitely want to look back at that one day! 
• And he's definitely in repeater mode! Anything you say can and will be repeated immediately! So watch your mouth Mommy and Daddy!
• Buzz Lightyear is Buzz Year! He loves Woody too! 
• OMG! And he can spot Elmo from a mile away! Sometimes I'm like I don't see Elmo, and sure enough there will be the smallest picture of Elmo on the back of a book or something! Never doubt his Elmo spotting ability!
• He still loves Barney! Much to my dismay! j/k! 
• It's so sweet when I drop him off and pick him up from school - all his friends say "Hi Riley" and Bye Riley and Riley's Mom when we walk in his room. And he says Hi and Bye too. It's like a sneak peak into the individual he is all day when he's away from us! 
• OMG! He says "Hi" to EVERY person and car we pass! It's funny to see how people are so cold and sad they don't even respond positively to a sweet little child saying "Hi" and waving. The checkout ladies at the grocery store LOVE him! And he works them over with his charm every week! Same for waiters when we go out! Everyone always talks about how social and happy he is to talk to everyone! 
• He LOVES to point out all the animals and make their sounds! 
• He still reads some words when you write them out for him, but we haven't been practicing that as much or watching his show every day. He watches 1 episode of Barney while we're cooking dinner a day now. 
• He is a BUSY little boy! Even his teacher comments on what a hard worker he is! And he does really get into it when he finally focuses on something! 
• He LOVES Popsicles!! And he can open the freezer and get one out now! So that's a daily conflict! But it's so cute b/c he'll run to the patio door because he knows we only eat those outside! 
• He LOVES his Strider Prebike GiGi got him for his birthday! He's getting faster and faster on it! I keep meaning to video him. He's gonna have to start wearing his helmet soon! And of course, he's like his Dad - he doesn't want to go straight on the ground - he wants to take the path least taken and go back and forth and up and down on and off the sidewalk!
• OMG! He LOVES his wagon we got him for his birthday too! EVERYDAY we have a meltdown when we pull in the garage and he sees it! WAGON! WAGON! The other day he worked 10  minutes trying to pull it up the step into the house! He was in a full sweat and everything! We've GOT to find somewhere else to keep that wagon! He used to have a fit every morning when we were leaving for school too, but that has subsided lately. 
•  In some ways it is so much easier b/c he can tell you he "pooped", wants "more milk", etc. But we definitely see the struggle for his independence becoming more and more prevalent! 
• He LOVES to read books! He'll bring you books back and forth from his bookshelf ALL DAY if you'll let him! And he has definite favorites that he'd love for you to read over and over again!
• He's also in the picky toddler eating phase. He'll gobble something up one day, then refuse to eat it the very next day! What can you do?! We just keep trying. 
• One thing he will eat EVERY TIME is "chips" and tortillas! OMG! The boy can put away some tortillas! Yesterday he ate 3 or 4 whole tortillas, then almost an entire kids' cheese enchilada, rice and beans meal! So when he's hungry - he EATS! When he's not, you never know what you're gonna get! 
• We can have pseudo conversations with him these days - every morning I ask him if he slept well, and he says "Chess" and shakes his head yes! And I ask if he likes school - "Chess". Did he have a good day at school "Chess". You definitely can't mention anything you are "about to do" b/c he knows what you mean when you say playground, splash park, play with Ethan, and he assumes it means RIGHT THAT SECOND!
• He STILL hates haircuts! OMG! But the child's hair is so thick - it would be child abuse NOT to get it cut! And I wonder when he'll grow out of the faux hawk...it's just so who he is now...he doesn't look like himself when his hair isn't fixed! 
• OMG!! And I'm sorry if I repeat myself...it's impossible to remember everything I've posted about sometimes! I walk around blogging in my head, but I can't remember which ones have actually made it to the blog! And if I took the time to go back and review - I'd NEVER get a chance to blog!
• He still LOVES basketball! He can even shoot like a REAL shot with perfect form and everything!! It's awesome! It's still not every time, but almost! He and Daddy shoot baskets pretty much every day, so he's a good rebounder too! And he always wants his Dad to shoot before he does. 
• He LOVES the Splash Park Darcy introduced us to! We've been there almost every weekend this summer! It's so much easier than the pool b/c he can run around and have fun without us being scared about him drowning! ha!
• Oh yeah - it's so cute! Every night after we've read his bedtime books, we sing some songs. So when I sing Twinkle Twinkle - he's like a little echo, and he always says the last word. It's like last in first out with him. So it's something like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - then Riley says STARRRRR! How Riley wonders what you are - then Riley says ARRREEE! So cute!
• He loves to watch videos of himself and others. He recognizes people in the videos - Jayden, GiGi, etc. 
• We watched the videos from his birthday party, and we was screaming and going crazy as if he were at his birthday party again!! 
• He LOVES PeekABoo and Wheels on the Bus games on my iPhone! 

Okay...that's all I can think of for now!! See...a lot to catch up on!! 

HOT! HOT!

OMG! I think hot may have actually surpassed Mommy! Hot is HOT! Cold is HOT! Hurt is HOT! Pretty much anything that requires a "quick response" is HOT!

And the magic word is.......

Open!!!! Or at least Riley thinks so! That's his new "swiss army knife" of words! Open! Open! Open! It ranks only second to "Mommy"!

And if you don't "Open" whatever he's talking about almost immediately - Terrible Two Toddler Tantrum Time has arrived!!! The good news is that it usually leaves almost as fast as it comes....if you're lucky anyway!

Riley Big Boy!

So....Riley ended up moving up 1 class at school It wasn't as bad as I initially thought - previously Sloan has only EVER had 1 2 year old class, so when they said he was moving up - I thought they meant to the 3 yr old class, but it turns out - they actually  have 3 2 yr old classes this year. So Riley is in the middle one, the teacher says it's obvious he's the youngest one and the newest to "group care", but he hasn't had one episode of "aggressive behavior" under her watch. Things that make you go Hmmmm...... I'm just sayin' it seemed like a habitual problem with the other teacher. To be honest, I was ready for him to be out of her class b/c I felt like she was watching him like a hawk just waiting for him to do anything.

And I can tell a difference in him too. When we're driving to school, we talk about his day and when I ask if he's excited to see Ms. Dina (his new teacher) he adamantly shakes his head yes. Where he used to just be indifferent when I asked that about the other teacher. Ms. Dina is definitely someone that's good with kids. She has grown kids and grandkids, so she's the perfect candidate for a crazy 2 yr old class! I cannot imagine that being my job all day long! Bless these teachers for their calling!!

So Ms. Dina calls Riley - Riley Big Boy - because even though he's the youngest by around 6 months - he's still the biggest in the class! So the other morning, I went to drop him off and all the little kids said "Hi Riley Big Boy"! It was so cute!! And he just waved and said "Hi" back!

He's growing up so fast!! It makes me sad!!!! But it's so rewarding to see him blossom into his own little personality! He's definitely NOT shy! I think he spoke to EVERY person we passed in the grocery store tonight! Cracks me up! He literally says "Hiiiii" and "Byeeee"to every person we meet, every car we pass, anything!

Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mamma! Mommy!

Careful what you wish for!! :) Wowzer! I've never heard Mommy so many times in my life! It's music to my ears of course! But wow!

Here's a video that depicts a day in my life! Except I don't say "WHAT?!" (yet!)! I say "Yes" and Riley's reply is "MommYYYYYYYY"! So SWEET!

Family Guy Scene


I don't care who you are...that's just FUNNY! That's why it's so hard not to laugh my pants off every time he does it!

Funny Things!

Just had to post a few of the funny things Riley has done just since we got home today.

At dinner he picked up his grape and said "ball". I said well technically I guess it is a ball! Ha!

Then we're playing with Play-doh he got for his birthday, and we made another 'ball', and he picked it up and said 'shoot shoot' while making his arm shoot, so I said why not?!

And his big thing this week is "uh-oh", so he's saying that non-stop and bringing me back flat balls to re-make for shooting.

It's funny, but not really, but he gets TOTALLY freaked out when you push the play-doh thru this press that makes it come out the other side like spaghetti. He literally starts crying about it! Then when I make it back into a ball, he gives it back to me and says "push push" so I'll do it again! Too funny! He's a glutton for punishment!!

He's doing a little better at school! Only havin a couple of timeouts a day! Ha!

iTwo going on iThirtyNine!

So we went to Riley's 2 yr old well appointment on Friday.

Height: 37 1/4" 97%
Weight: 33 3/4 lbs 95-97%
Head size: 20" 95%

Basically, the pediatrician said he's the size of an average 39 month old!

Ironically, he also told me (without me even telling him about the aggressive behavior at school), that I am going to have to be cognizant as his parent to remind people that he's only 24 months old. He actually described what I had sort of felt like was happening at school - just because he's BIG, people have unrealistic expectations about how much he should talk, how mature he should be, what he can handle emotionally, and his ability to communicate his needs, etc. So to hear that from my pediatrician, made me feel better about the emotions I was feeling around the school thing! I mean the teacher mentioned moving him up to the 3 yr old class! I was like NO WAY! He's BIG, but he's not ready for that! Like I said in the post before....stay tuned!

Riley's Introduction to Time Out!

Well...we knew it was inevitable! This past Tuesday when I picked Riley up from school he was sitting in time out! Nice...his afternoon teacher who is not his teacher all day said he pushed a girl TWICE, so she put him in time out. No biggie. I totally agree with that approach! It was just the first official time, AND it just so happened to be the 2nd day he was in the much larger 2 year old class. I went home and thought nothing else about it!

Then......fast forward to drop off Thursday am, and his normal teacher basically gives me a 20 minute rundown of how aggressive Riley is being by pushing and wrestling even the little girls that are half his size. So much so that the little girls are running behind the teacher to get away from him! Wow! To say that's not a good way to start your day would be an understatement! So I call Kelly and have a good ol' cry all the way to work, then put on my happy work face for a 2 hour meeting! :)

Let's just say I was a little distracted in my meeting...and I started to think about everything the teacher said. She basically said she usually gives kids that have just moved up a week grace period before she starts disciplining them, but that since the girls are running behind her and he's bigger than pretty much every boy in his class she had to start putting him in time out on Wed to protect the other kids. I TOTALLY agree with protecting the other kids. Obviously, I don't want my child to harm another child!

However, I started thinking about the fact that Riley has only been in "group care" for 6 weeks. AND he's the youngest kid in his class. His birthday is 2 days before the cutoff, so it's almost like reverse discrimination! Just because my little boy is so BIG doesn't mean he's ready or able to comprehend BIG boy concepts! And his world has TOTALLY been rocked in the last 6 weeks, so maybe he just needs a little help adjusting from being 1 of 1 with Ms. Emily to 1 of 4 with Ms. Jessica to 1 of 11 with Ms. Amber.

Anyway....things didn't really improve the rest of the week, so I'm not exactly looking forward to seeing how things go this week! Kelly's reeled in the playing aggressively with him at home at least for the time being until he simmers down at school or begins to get the concept of ok with Daddy does not mean ok with little girl at school.

I really like The Sloan School, so I hope this isn't the beginning of the end! Only time will tell. I guess this is the good and bad thing about having him in a small school. By the time the teacher talked to me on Thursday, she had already discussed Riley's behavior with the owners, director, assistant director and his previous teacher! I was like! Wow! We went from 0 to 60 quick! I figured they would at least talk to me before involving the entire administration of the school! And I'm not meaning to be insensitive, but I'm pretty sure Riley isn't the first child to exhibit aggressive behavior! In fact, the teacher even said he's not doing it to be mean, it's just when they get near his toy, and sometimes he's even smiling when he's doing it like he's playing! I'm like that's because he IS playing! You should see the testosterone filled wrestling matches that occur on my sofa and living room floor! Which is why Dad's going to cut back on some of the testosterone playing for the time being! 

To be continued.....

Riley's 2yr Old Photos

Here's just a quick sampling of 4 of the shots from his 2 yr old photo shoot! He worked it for the camera as usual, but Ms. Jessica is great at capturing the essence of Riley and his playful personality b/c she just goes with it! She doesn't try to force him into poses, etc.

OMG! I LOVE HIM!!!!!! 

Mischievous! :)

What?! Where's my LITTLE boy?!

Seriously? Where is he?! At least we still have the cheeks and the rubber band wrists! WE haven't lost those YET! :)

More to come! These are the only 4 pics I've seen too! We just rushed these so I could have prints of them to put on the table at his birthday party!

iTwo! iTwo!

He and I had been practicing all week - I'd ask him how old he was going to be on his birthday, and he'd say iTwo! iTwo! And instead of holding up his 1st and 2nd fingers, he'd hold up his thumb and index finger! I was like that counts! It's still 2 fingers! 

MAN OH MAN has Riley had a record birthday!! We celebrated for 4 days straight!!

Day 1 - His actual birthday. Cupcakes with his class at school! Yummy! And he didn't cry when they sang Happy Birthday to him, so that was a success!

Here are his basketball cupcakes! Yummy!

Here he is at school with his buddy Jacob! 

His current classmates are the 4 along the bottom - Riley, Jacob, Kayla and Cody (with the plate to his face). 

A closeup of the birthday boy. You can see his face is still a little red from when they all sang to him! Sweet!

Day 2 - Splash Day at school! This was a coincidence, but one of Riley's FAVORITE things is Splash Parks, so it was meant to be!

Here he is all decked out for "splash day" in his board shorts and surfing shirt! So cute!! He looks like Daddy!

This is also one of his birthday presents! A Little People Race track!

Day 3 - His actual party at Pump It Up! OMG! I was worried he'd be too young for it, but that wasn't the case at ALL! He LOVED it!! He had a BLAST!! And I think everyone else did too! Adults included! :) It was a resounding success!! I can't think of one thing that didn't go as planned or that I would have changed, so we're 2 for 2 on successful birthday celebrations! But I'm setting the bar high! Not sure I can maintain these standards long term!

Photos to follow! We had Ms. Jessica (the girl that does ALL his photos) come to his party to take pictures too! That way I wouldn't be stressed about that as well as everything else going on! I did capture some cute videos I'll have to edit down small enough to post eventually! To say Riley had fun would be the UNDERSTATEMENT of the year! He was the life of the party!! Even our party "attendants" were carrying on about how into it he was for his age! 

Day 4 - He opened his presents from his birthday party! He had so much fun at the party, he was too pooped to open gifts! And at this age, it would have been torture! It basically took hours at home b/c he'd have to take a break from opening presents and play with each present he opened as he opened it! Good Times!!

I forgot to take pictures of him opening presents! Oops! I think we may have a few after he opened them on the good camera. You can tell all the pictures taken here were with our little point n shoot, and it just doesn't cut it anymore! He's too fast for me! So Kelly bought me a nice Nikon camera for my birthday last year. I'm just still not that great at all the features!! I'll add more pictures later though if I have them!

Another Apple Post

He also LOVES a few games on my iPhone. Peekaboo Barn is his all time FAV right now! And the Peekaboo I love you from Baby 1st TV. He just giggles and giggles at that one! And sometimes he'll hand it to me and say you do it b/c he's cracking up so much, he can't touch the thing he's hiding behind. Those are some other words - iTap, iTouch, iFindHim.

I swear...I can still pretty much take or leave my iPhone, but talk about a savior! I've had many more bites of dinner out at restaurants than I normally would have if I didn't have that phone! :)

My Little Apple Boy

Not the apple of my eye...although he is that too! :)

No...he should be getting paid fees for marketing for Apple lately because he is the iAnything and iEverything boy!! OMG! It's like the flood gate has been opened! I knew his vocabulary would increase once he started school, but I was beginning to wonder when that was going to kick in. Every now and then, he'll just randomly point to something like the wall and say "wall". And I'm thinking...I haven't said that word that I know of. Either way...he's the Apple boy. Here's a rundown of the few that Kelly and I can think of right this second.

iOpen
iClose
iJump
iRun
iWalk
iMarch
iBubble (one of my favorites when he blows bubbles)
iEat
iDink (Drink)
iPush
iCatch
iShoot (Bball of course...and he says bball ALL the time!)
iKiss (another one of my favs!)
iSide (aka Slide)

Pretty much iEverything. He hasn't started 'I do it!' yet! Thank goodness! It's funny for some reason I thought kids usually say Me do whatever...but I guess not. Either way...so cute and sweet!

One More Thing!

So I tried to do this via text last night, and that was a complete bust! It broke my long text into many and posted them in the wrong order - so here it is!

OMG! You can't take your eyes off Riley or leave him alone for ONE second!!!!! And if you can't see him and he's quiet - you better RUN!!!

Here's the quick rundown of just the highlights I remember from this weekend!

• He pulled my dresser over almost on top of him. I was so scared that when he looked up his teeth were going to be knocked out or something! Thank goodness it only scared him to death!
  
• Well scared him for a 2nd because the very next day, I caught him grabbing the top of Kelly's dresser and trying to pull it over too! Guess we better reevaluate and do another round of "toddler" proofing this time!
  
• I turned around and he was about to stick an ear phone jack into a plug.
  
• A different time a set of pliers into a plug.
  
• I turned around and he was peeing on my bathroom rug! Twice!! Like a puppy! So much for the let them run around naked to help with potty training. Of course,this was right after he got out of the shower too!
  
• I came around the corner and he had pulled almost every single baby wipe out of the container and was giggling like crazy with every 'yank'!
  
• I turned around and he had written all over his knees with a pen!
  
• Everything in my house has crayon scribbles on it! Thank GOD they are washable!
  
• I'm pretty sure Kelly & I will be frantically looking for a set of keys in the am because he's been playing with our keys all weekend while we've been down organizing on the 1st floor.

The best thing is that when he does something "questionable" sometimes the only reason I'm able to stop him is that he'll pause and turn around and look at me with this smirk on his face - like am I going to get away with this or is she going to catch me! I watched the Super Nanny yesterday....and I'm thinking we may have to start the "Naughty Step" timeout method sooner rather than later! ha!

That's all I can remember right now! He's becoming an even busier little boy! I didn't think that was possible!!! Throw in a dash of mischief and we have a recipe for some pretty memorable moments I'm sure!