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!

This N That!

Just a real quick post so I don't get too far behind again!

GiGi and I got all the preparations for Riley's birthday done last weekend, so I can relax for a couple of weeks before I'm sure I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off again for the final preparations! I know! I know! Riley doesn't know, care and won't remember! But I WILL! :) Of course the theme is none other than BASKETBALL! I mean! What did you expect?!?!

I'm a little nervous the party may be too much or too long for Riley, but we'll see! It's difficult to plan when all our friends' and family's children that will be attending range in age from 8 months to 10 years old to find something accommodating for everyone! Including Riley! We're having it at Pump It Up which is an inflatable bounce house wonderland INSIDE, so it's climate controlled! Very important for a July 31st birthday party!

We went to my friend's little boys 2nd birthday party yesterday. All went well until the birthday cake and singing of the song - then Riley just started crying as everyone was singing Happy Birthday! It totally reminded me of when he used to cry when I would play the little Kindermusik harmonica for him, but then he still wanted me to keep doing it! We joked that someone must have been out of tune by his standards! I hope that's not a sign of how well his birthday party is going to go!

So as of this week - Riley's new "filler word" meaning the word he says for everything whether he doesn't know the word, or he would normally just be saying ummmm, while he's thinking of the word is Mommy! My dream come true! ha! But it's Kelly's nightmare! I went to see the Beauty and the Beast musical (LOVED IT!!!!!) with my girl friends this week, and Kelly said all he heard the ENTIRE night was Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! I thought he was exaggerating until the next morning started out the SAME way! And it's been like that ever since! Careful what you wish for! But it has to be music to a Mommy's ears! :) However, it's a little weird b/c it's almost like he's taken 2 steps forward and 1 back on his vocabulary. Maybe this is the calm before the toddler talking storm! Oh and by the way, every day on my drive home after picking up Riley all I get to hear is DaDa, DaddYYYYY, DaDaDaddY, all the way home until the garage opens and there is full on squealing until Kelly opens the garage door to greet us! The days when Kelly isn't home before us aren't fun! I try to warn Riley that Daddy will be home later, but there's always a little bit of a let down if Daddy doesn't come to the door!

Riley LOVES pancakes! He'll eat them up like the last supper! We've been having them on the weekends, and watch your fingers b/c he's coming through!! :)

He loves the play area at McDonald's too. That's our go to indoor play area lately because it's been raining so much and preventing him from going outside at school or in the evenings.

Man! Do I ever wish his last 4 molars would just COME IN ALREADY!!! We've digressed to him waking up with them about 5 days out of the week for the last 4 weeks! And Kelly and I are out of practice on the lack of sleep front!!! It's NO fun!

OH yes! A milestone today! He FINALLY blew a bubble by himself!!! Yippee! He and I sat out on our patio for over an hour practicing..and then he finally got it!! And they were cute little baby bubbles!! Just his size! Of course it took 2 bottle of bubbles before he blew any successfully! He would get so distracted trying to blow the bubble..he'd just pour the bubbles out of the bottle in his other hand! And he was so excited! He said Yea!!! When he did it too!

Okay...that'll have to do for now! I've got to get to bed in case tonight is another sleepless night!

There's no crying baseball!

Sorry! I love that line, so I couldn't resist using it for this post! Today is the first day I dropped Riley off at school, and he didn't cry one tear!! Yea!!!! I was beginning to think this day would never come! And I really didn't think it would happen after a long weekend, but I guess he had his fill of me this weekend!

Drop off time is during their outside play time, so that definitely helps. So I put him down, and he went running off like he was going to start playing! This was a first too! Then he eventually came running back to give me a hug and kisses! It's so sweet because now he'll give you a hug and kiss when you ask for one! Not all the time, but most of the time. I ended up having to hand him to Ms. Jessica (his teacher). When I did he looked at me and his bottom lip quivered for one second, then he took a deep breath more like a sigh - then he waved and say bye bye to me! Awe...I've been so good at not crying once while dropping him off at Sloan, but this almost made me cry!! My little boy all grows up!!! (Another movie quote from Old School!) You can thank my husband for all the movie quote lines...he and his friends are the ones that got me started down that path!

I haven't forgotten about the blog!

I just haven't been able to find time to do it lately!! So much going on, and with it being summer it just seems like we're always doing something during the time I would normally blog!

I don't even remember the last time I blogged! That's how bad it is!! Initially it was due to my travel schedule in April and May, but once I lost my normal time slot - I've just been struggling to get back to it! I do still walk around thinking I need to blog this or that, or just I need to blog PERIOD! What can you do?! I can't always be firing on all cylinders!!

Riley is quickly becoming more and more of a "toddler" than my little baby! :( Although he'll always be my little baby!! And my little man! And my Smoochie! He does still have his rubber band wrists and cheeks though! The cheeks just aren't as full as they used to be! And he's quickly having spouts of toddler defiance and frustration! Wowzer! Kelly and I have coined it bipolar toddler years!

He's going to school now at The Sloan School, which is a Christian school in Irving that we LOVE!! It's a long story about how we ended up there. It was always at the top of my list, but I thought he was too young to go there right now. Let's just say divine intervention was at play there, and I'm very thankful!! We ended up having 2 first weeks in daycare due to how BADLY the first place and week went! It was HORRIBLE!! It ended with Mom having a 3 hour crying session after dropping him off on Wednesday morning. Then Kelly admitted that place wasn't working for him either, so we never took Riley back.

Riley's favorite things are still basketball and dancing! And jabbering on and on! If we only knew what he was saying!! Sometimes I think he's letting me have it, but how would I know?! Oh yeah, and swimming and splash parks. My friend Darcy and I took him to an AWESOME one yesterday near her house after we went for a run with him. I'll have to upload some pictures from my phone later to share. Oh yeah and "siding" = Sliding at the playground. He can spot a 'side' from a mile AWAY!

We went on a camping trip (in a luxury cabin) for Memorial Day again. This is the same trip we went on last Labor Day too. Angie and I got to see one of my best high school friends in town fro Denver last Sunday - it's amazing. We all left Grand Saline as quickly as we could after graduation and went our separate ways. And now we all have little boys aged 3, 2 and 1! Funny how life works out that way sometimes! It was great to see Amanda! Now we're planning a girls' trip! It's a little difficult to really catch up when you're chasing wild toddlers around!

We also took a trip to see Kelly's family in Maryland back in April. Riley did so good on the plane, drive and in the hotel! It was a really good trip! It's so important to know your extended family and where you came from so I'm glad we're able to go back so Riley can spend time with them. He's still a little young to really get it, but it still matters! The highlight was probably one night at Kelly's parents house where Riley got into his 'zone' and performed all his repertoire of tricks for them! We were all laughing so hard our stomachs and cheeks hurt! And all I could think when I reflected back on that was this is the joy a child is supposed to bring into people's lives! And Riley does that on a daily basis!

I'm already feverishly planning birthday party #2 too! We're having it at Pump It Up and the theme is ......drum roll.....BASKETBALL! Imagine that!! My Mom is coming this weekend to help me figure out the final touches, so we should be all set soon! And Kelly's parents and Riley's Great Aunt Shireen are coming down from Maryland for his birthday too. So it should be a good time for all!!

Okay...I have to get some sleep now! More sooner rather than later hopefully! :)

Toddler Travel Tips

This is one I should have written notes down for! I had an entire list of "lessons learned" I was going to share with everyone, but I've been so busy lately I didn't have a chance to capture them!

MILK!! Take it WITH YOU!!! Milk is the most difficult thing EVER to find in an airport setting! And they do NOT have it on the plane!! This was our most difficult "lesson learned". You can take it through the TSA checkpoint too!

Extra protection diapers - for obvious reasons when you are flying or driving - you may not be able to change the diaper as quickly as you normally would!

The car seat is your friend!!! Heard this tip from a friend at work who travels internationally all the time with twins and an older child. His theory is by putting them in the car seat - they don't even think to argue about it b/c it's like when they are in the car! Good point! And it worked like a charm! Although, I guess that effect starts to degrade once you are "potty training".

However, you can only have a car seat on the plane if you get a window seat, and since we travel non-rev and nothing is guaranteed - I had a backup too - CARES. It's an attachment to make the seat belt in the airplane a 4 point harness. You can see it here on Amazon.

Car seat buddy to attach to suit case - this was a lifesaver when maneuvering through the airport! You can see it here on Amazon as well. Gives you extra hands! Riley could have even ridden in it like a stroller, but we took the umbrella stroller knowing we would need it once we were there.

Distractions Galore!
Magnadoodle with attached pen (SCORE) This is also how we accidentally figured out Our Baby Could Read! When we wrote words on it, and he read them! ha!
Colors
Flash cards
Books

Portable dvd - enough said! Although Riley didn't like it as much as I thought he would b/c he doesn't really watch programs. So luckily, we took the Your Baby Can Read dvds - that he would watch!

Lovey - We took Riley's Goodnight Prayer Puppy.

Snacks!! I'm sure this one goes without saying.

That's all I can think of for now!! Happy Traveling!!

Our Baby Can READ for SURE!

So a few months ago, I thought Riley read the word "blue" = "boo" in his Truck book Aunt Talana Banana got him for his birthday last year, but he didn't repeat it so I figured it was a fluke.

Well much to Kelly and my amazement - we learned on our trip to Maryland our baby can in fact read!! It's crazy! I'm going to make a video of it here soon.

We have a magna doodle we bought for our trip to Maryland to distract him with on the plane and in doing that Kelly wrote the word car on the screen, and Riley said 'Caaaarrrr' as if he's from Boston. Then Kelly wrote Shoe and he read that too! We snapped our heads and looked at each other! It was CRAZY! He can read Car, Pig, Bee, Ball, Shoe...that's all I can think of right now. Dog...and he knows the letter some of them start with - he'll say 'P', Pig. Or 'B' Ball, which is how I think his Bear got the name "B".

Anyway, it's pretty amazing to see! Even on our trip, those videos were the only ones he would watch for any length of time too, so he still enjoys them.

With Kelly and my Dad both having dyslexia, I figure it can't hurt to give Riley a head start in that area.

Reading books is still one of his FAVORITE things too. He'll bring me a book, then turn around and plop right down in my lap.

Sweet Little Muahs!! My oh my!

These deserve a post all on their own! All of the sudden Riley is a LOVER BOY! He will dish out muahs (these are kisses) left and right! He even tried to kiss a little boy at the indoor playground with Ms. Emily a while back! She said he was leaning in, and she was hoping it was going to be a kiss instead of a hit!

He gives Kelly and I kisses, but only about 1 out of every 10 requests we make! I'll take everyone I can get though!! OMG! They are so sweet!

And now....poor "B" (his Valentine's Bear that he has named "BEEEE") and Puppy (his puppy that says his Now I lay me down to sleep prayer), get mauled with kisses every morning and night or really anytime we go into his room!! So much their poor little mouths are getting dingy! Of course, he's decided to be attached to the 2 stuffed animals I have NO way of getting "back ups" of!! And probably the most toxic ones I'm sure! He's shown no interest in the organic ones I bought of course!

He actually just recently even started to pay attention to stuffed animals since he's hit the Lover Boy phase. Before that, he never even looked their way so we'll see how long it lasts!