10 Months old

Ryan is 10 months old today. I have two more months of fun before work. Boooooooo

Things he can do:
Stand on his own, he did this today for 6 seconds while clapping his hands! He started clapping his hands Tuesday. I have been trying to teach him this for a few weeks now. He is starting to wave and I am trying to teach him to say 'hi' while he does this. He can feed himself but still misses his mouth sometimes. He hides stuff from me! He is very adventurous and loves to get into stuff he shouldn't. 
He knows what No is and will stop and look at me to see if I am serious. I am still waiting for him to sign back to me 'drink' or 'food'. I have been trying to teach him this for four months now. He talks a lot but not really words we can understand or if they are I think it's just how they are formed. Not that he understands what the mean yet. He sings and dances also. He loves when I use the vacuum or blender. Today he was chasing the vacuum and I had to put him in his playard while I finished up. He just stood there dancing and talking.


Things he eats / drinks:
He eats about anything he can get. I have not really noticed if he has favorites or not. He pretty much loves it all. I have noticed he doesn't like warm food. He makes a face and then rubs his face with his hands like its super hot. I think I caused this because I never heat up his food. I wanted him to get accustomed to room temp or cool food to make it easier when we go out. I got him a fork and spoon so tonight we can start letting him feed himself. 
He drinks from a no spill cup or bottle. I am trying to get him to have a cup during the day and a bottle of water or weak tea at night (chamomile or fenil, black no sugar or milk). It helps him sleep and pass gas (my mother in law taught me this and I swear by it now!)
I am also trying to get him into more texture food and have been experimenting this past month. He likes it. (big shocker!)
I can not eat anything without letting him have some. He has climbed over stuff to get to me and will try to climb me to get it! He LOVES hummus and pita. I have hunted down whole wheat pita with no salt in the ingredients which are perfect.
We are still super strict about him having salt or sugar (refined or added) I know he gets enough sugar from the fruit he eats. That is when Neil is not eating his strawberries and pears with cinnamon. heh


Sleeping last night:
Last night was pretty great. He slept from 8pm-3am no waking. When he woke I gave him breast because I was swollen and lumpy. (ouch!) I followed it up with the tea so no milk would sit in his mouth. He cuddled in my arms for a bit while I hummed. I had my eyes closed and when I looked down at him he has his eyes closed with a big smile on his face. Happy baby was happy. I put him in his crib and sat on the floor. I put my arm through the crib and rested it on his belly while I hummed Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Did this for about 20 min. By 4am he was sleeping in his bed and was there till 6am. Then he came into our bed till 7 cause no way in hell I was waking up at 6am. Neil did pretty much the same thing the night before (no breast obviously) and got him to sleep in his crib till 6:30am.
I dont know if it was a fluke but I was so happy he slept till 3am. Hopefully we are nipping that 11:30pm wake up. Next up is the 3am wake up. (sometimes 4am).


He has two more teeth on the top coming in (next to the big ones on either side) they are starting to cut through. He has four on the bottom all cut out and still pushing. The one on the left top is out and the right top is pushing out. He will have eight teeth soon, crazy.


He loves to chase his ball. We have three one them. A easy to grab one we got from Jenn and Craig at his shower, a plush soccer ball Sherry got us and last night we picked up a bouncy textured one from BRU. Tara and Chris has the same one and Ryan loved it so much we had to get it. Not a bad investment for $3. He was playing with it forever last night with Neil. I think that helped wear him out.


It's so cool to see how much he has changed. I love to go back and watch old videos of him when he was a month old and how excited we were about him lifting his head up on tummy time. Now he is almost walking! Well he walks if we hold a hand. We have been practising holding only one hand and he is getting better. He can crawl like a champ and stands up super fast. 

At the hospital about to go home. He was so small! 8lb 9oz

 Playing with Dad this weekend.

Today looking out the window. 10 months old! 25.6lbs!!! and 30" tall

Video of him at 1 month and 2 days during tummy time.

Ryan playing with Roag, using my pajama string.

Ryan chasing after Roag. I was petting Roag and Ryan tried to make his move.

Still trying to teach Ryan how to be gentle when petting Roag.

This weekend is a three day one so we get Neil for three days! Ryan loves playing with dad. And we get Lucy Sunday morning till Monday late afternoon. We are doing a play day with Tumbler (Joe and Angelas dog). The weather is supposed to be nice so we are planning on some walks with Lucy and Ryan. Ryan loves Lucy so much it should be fun. And its a good test to see how crazy it would be with a dog in our life (in a few years).

New stuff Ryan is doing

I made the huge mistake of teaching Ryan how to tickle our feet. Opps.
He is obsessed with it. He will chase me down to tickle feet. I was playing on the floor and I laid down and put my feet in the air. He tried to climb my legs to get to them.


Also yesterday for the first time he was clapping his hands together! I was so proud of him. I have been trying to teach him that and waving. He sort of waves (open and close hand). He is also getting better at walking while only holding one grown up hand and standing without any help (nothing to lean on or hold) he can do it for a few seconds now before falling. I think he will be walking on his own by 11 months old. He is almost 10 months now.
Video of him clapping while I feed him.


He kept rubbing his face because his teeth are bugging him big time still.


He is pretty good about leaving stuff alone. I tell him no, leave it and then explain why. AKA "NO leave the iphone alone, that is mom's toy and you have all your toys you can play with. Thank you."


Sleep is still a huge issue right now. Though the teeth on the bottom are almost out. The one on the right is out all the way and almost done, the one on the left has cut through the gums but still coming out. The left big top one is cut out and almost done and the right big top one is just cutting out now. There is also a small one on the left top coming out. (this is on top of the two on the bottom he already has) Hopefully he will have the seven by April.
I guess its good they are all coming out now so fingers crossed in April when I go back to work we can have a few months break of teething so he sleeps.
Last night I was so worn out I just didn't even care to fight with him on sleeping. I fought at 12:30 and gave him bottle only (weak chamomile tea) and at 1:45 I put him in bed with us and got him to sleep with no drink or boob. At 3am I just didn't give a shit anymore I was so tired and I wanted Neil to have a good night of sleep I gave him boob. He was also up at 4:30 and 5:30 and then up for the day at 6:30. Tired of people telling me to 'stick it out' easy for you to say when you are not the one up all night for a week straight.
I was supposed to take the car and go grocery shopping but I am so tired that was the last thing I felt like doing today. So it is laundry and clean the house a bit day and sleep cause I have Zumba tonight.


Here is a video of Ryan dancing while I blend up some cantaloupe for him. He is now dancing when I use the blender or vacuum. Its pretty darn cute...
Dancey dance dance.


Ya know what, if all we get is a kid that has sleep issues I will take it. He is healthy and a pretty happy kid over all. It could always be much worse as we know first hand. Now to remember this at 3am when I am so tired I have a hard time walking.


Also Neil was super sweet last night and got me chocolates (the expensive kind!) and my favorite cinnamon hearts YUM! We had a great dinner out Monday (the 13th) with no kid. Went to Milestones. Sooooo yum.

Sleep issues and evil child

Our doctor at our last check up asked if Ryan was sleeping through the night, I laughed and told him no. Ry goes down about 7-8pm wakes up around 11:30, wakes around 4am and then wakes up at 7am for the  day. Lately it's worse, a lot of crying and shifting in his sleep. It's those god damn teeth.
I guess if I had five coming in I would also sleep poorly but really I just want him to sleep. Almost 10 months old (next friday) and STILL not sleeping all night.
I digress, doc said no more nighttime breast feeds. Water only. It can hurt his teeth. I checked with our dentist as well because I read some stuff online that said this is not the case for breast feed babies, only bottle kids. Our dentist said its a crab shoot. It might hurt his teeth it might not, but why risk it.
I have horrid teeth genetics. I just do. I brush and floss like crazy (even used to do it at work after lunch) but I still get cavities and I am 34. Neil has amazing teeth, almost never flosses and he has no cavities. Hope Ryan gets his teeth.


Thursday night was a living nightmare. He was up at 12am. Now normally I can rock him and hum for about 10 min and he is back out. Well not that night. Oh no. He wanted none of that shit. I had him till about 12:45am. We rocked, hummed, singed, changed diaper, tried the water, put him in his crib, left him for a few minutes at a time, put him in bed... everything. HE would just scream. Not cry, if he was crying I would have stuck with the crib and just checking on him every 3 min to let him know I was there and he was okay (read online to do this) but he SCREAMS.


Neil told me to put him in bed. Neil put his arm over Ry and was trying to sooth him. This works... as long as I am not in the room. So Neil picked up Ryan and took him in the living room to walk around. Then once he was calm put him back in bed. Screaming starts as he is looking at me. This went on till 2:30 when I caved and gave him breast.


Last night we did not cave. Tried all the crap above but instead of taking him out of the room I cuddled him in my arms rocking back and forth. He took the bottle (weak black chamomile tea) and drank almost the whole thing. Which for him is a miracle. I can get him to almost drink a bottle through the WHOLE DAY, not in one sitting. I rocked him for an hour and when my back felt like it was going to spasm I put him in our bed. Fuck the crib, lets break one bad habit at a time. Neil had to cuddle him to sleep. I think it was 3 something when he passed out. He woke at 5:30. I tried the bottle first and he started to ramp up.  I just gave him the breast. I was so tired I didnt even care to fight anymore. I figure we can kill that midnight (2am) feeding and we can work on the second one next week. I think its important we stick to our guns though. Don't cave in. Neils co-worker Liz (has 3 kids) gave him some good advice. She said Ryan doesn't remember being up for 2 1/2 hours Thursday night all he remembers is he got the breast in the end.


We have to be mean, well not too mean I dont want him to scream so hard he gets sick (he did that when he was an infant). We have to stick with it and just try to nap as much as we can during the day.
Books say the kid should sleep solid at night 10-12 hours and be taking 2 naps a day at 1 hours each. yeah right. In my fantasies. We were talking about having a second. I told Neil I don't think I want one and no way in hell we are having the talk for real until Ryan sleeps through the night. OR at least only wakes up once.


In happier news I made Butternut Squash Ravioli the other day for Ryan.

 I can feed myself?

Hey this is pretty good!

I used Wontons and it was so easy! Ryan loved it but he doesn't have enough teeth I had to cut it up. It took a while for him to eat. I ate half of his food. I just saute it in a little sun flower oil, no sauce. I also made meatballs but they are a bit dry. Gabi gave me a great recipe for home made sauce. SUPER easy to do and very plain so I am going to give him that for lunch today


Ryan loves to tickle us now. He was doing it to Neils feet the other night and Neil kept giggling. Now when Ryan touches my feet I giggle and bounce them around. Holy crap this kid loves it. He laughs like crazy! He will crawl across the house to get to my feet to tickle me. I guess that is what we get for tickling him so much.
Ryan also loves walking and pulling himself up. He does it on everything and the past few days he will pull himself up and then stand on his own. When we 'walk' him around the house and we will only give him one hand to hold. Before he would stop and look for the second hand and then either grab your clothing or stop let go and crawl. Now he is walking with just the one hand but he is a little shy about it. Every time he stands on his own I clap and tell him how great he doing. He loves it.

Bushy eyebrows and looooong lashes.

OH Gabi came over yesterday. Ryan hadn't seen her in a week. Soon as he heard her voice he lit up. HUGE smile and he did this flapping arms thing he does when excited. It was so cute. He really missed her, now to take him to visit Sandor (grandpa) as well. I know they miss each other.


I was playing with Ryans hair, I did the "Squiggy" if you dont know who this is I feel bad for you.

Mom... for real, stop it.

hehehehe

Its snowing outside, so pretty. I want to take Ryan out in it but its -12 feels like -21. Maybe not the day for snow play even with the snow suit.


Side note, I know the kid the tired because its 9:30am and he is napping already. Normally he naps between 10:30-11:30am for 1/2 hour. Lets see how long this nap is. Poor Neil is still in bed. I think this is taking a beating on him. He is so used to me taking the night shift cause he has to work so I think the sleeping in today and Monday (he has off) will do him some good. Silly man needs to go to bed earlier, silly mom should too!!!
I think we just get so excited about having the house to ourselves we stay up too late. There is a lot of things I can do only when Ryan is sleeping. I want to make my wall-dwellers again and no way I can play with Sculpty clay with Ryan awake!

Random update

Five teeth coming in SUCKS. 
Two at the bottom and three on the top.  I feel bad for the kid, I feel bad for Neil and I feel bad for me.


As most things this too shall pass.


Today we signed up for PeekABoo Day care Center on Traders Blvd. Made me sad. I hate that we have two months and a week tillI have to work and I cant spend all day with my little dude. I think it will be good for him though. He loves other kids so much and it will be good for him to play with some kids.


This morning/afternoon Ryan enjoyed some pita and hummus with me. Kid was in love. He really likes hummus.


He is also obsessed with his ball. Neil was kicking it to the wall while holding Ryan and he was laughing like crazy. I got a video, I will have to upload it later.
Its starting to get a little harder to care for him cause he is crawling like crazy, trying to walk and gets into everything. Its awesome. I am so happy he is doing so great. Not to mention still amazingly cute.


I sure do love my little man, even when he bites me heard enough to bruise.


DAMN teeth!

Skiing Adventure with Neil

 Yes a few weeks late but this is all about our skiing adventure.


 Neil and I went Saturday the 21st to Blue Mountain. Neil found a deal for $99 each that included lessons, lift tickets and equipment for skiing and snow boarding. Neil has ski before but never snow boarded so it was perfect!


 We dropped off Ryan very early (with grandma/grandpa) and were on our way. We made it to Collingwood. As we were trying to figure out where to go to get the classes and equipment we got pulled over by a cop. Our license plate was still on Oct 2011 plate. Opps. So we got a ticket. Not a great way to start our day but we were NOT going to let it poop on our parade!
 We made our way over to the correct place and got dressed in the car. Once we checked in and got our ski/snow board boots. Holy cats it is a weird feeling. I was walking like I stepped out of a western movie, a cheesy one. I had this swagger and couldn't walk very fast in the boots. Neil had no issues cause snow board boots are just like normal boots. I found the ski boots were very stiff and could not bend my ankle which I assume is a good thing. heh


 We got our skis, board, and helmets and we were on our way. Neil went into his class area and I went into mine. I put on both skis and started my class. I learned how to do ski postion. Sort of like a squat in Zumba or any other work out class. You stick your butt out and make sure your knees do not go over your toes when you squat. You slide out your heels to the side and then slide then back in with equal weight distribution so it doesn't cut into the snow. I found this to be pretty easy to do. I really think Zumba classes helped with this!


 Once I got that down we took the left ski off and lined up to go in a circle with the one ski on and our poles. I would say it was more like a round edged square. This was KILLING my shins but I didn't want to give up. I did pretty good. We switched to the left ski only. This was a little harder for me but still was okay. Then BOTH skis on. That was super hard. I had no idea how to get going. We were not on a hill. Just going around in this little round square.


 Once you were good enough you got sent to the test hill. It was about 20 feet maybe.
You learned how to walk up the hill sideways on your skis. Then you go down the hill with your skis together and stop. I got it on my second try. I felt good because there was only adults in the classes and there were a lot! Some of the people were really bad. Just had bad balance. One lady ran right into me. I felt so bad for her cause she took her skis off and looked defeated. The instructor told me I was good to go on the small real hill. ACK!
 This is the smallest hill there so you dont get on a lift you get on this sort of escalator, like they have at the airport. You ski onto it though. I fell over the first time I went on. heh
 Once at the top of the hill I found the instrutor and he taught me how to stop. I went down the hill stopping every few feet. It was just to practice. I did this a few times (and fell a few times). Then they taught me how to turn. I got this pretty good with only a few fall downs. Neil got a pretty good video of it.


 Neil was getting pretty frustrated at Snow Boarding. He was falling A LOT and it looked super hard to do. Didn't look like much fun. We took a lunch break which was a great idea. My ski boots were on wrong and it was cutting into my shins which is why I had the bad pain when I first started. DOH!
 After lunch it was fixed thanks to Neils help and I felt so much better! We did the small hill a few more times and I told Neil I was ready for the big hill.

Lets do it!

 Neil confessed he was not, he was not comfortable on the snow board yet. He went to switch out for skis which I was very happy about! I wanted him to go with me because I was a little scared.

 We found an instructor and told her I was ready for the big hill... EKKKK

 The three of us got on the lift together. She taught me about lift safety and how to land. Well that went out the window when we got off the lift. I was supposed to go right, I went left into her and she stopped me from going down a VERY steep hill.

 On the top of the real hill it was much larger up there. I was freaking out and trying my best NOT to show it. The instructor and Neil were great. We would go down the hill a little and stop. We stopped a lot. However there was one part I freaked out and feel down. I feel pretty good. I ripped up my leg pretty bad. I was shaking I was so scared to get back on the skis. I don't think it helped that the snow was starting to get icy.
 We made it down the hill and the instructor was on her way to help another person. She was kind enough to tell me she was proud. She said about 6 new people out of the whole day go on the big hill. :D
 Neil all day kept telling me he was proud of me. So when he asked if we could do the hill one more time I said okay (after sort of crying saying I didn't want to). He said "please?" and I thought to myself. "fuck it Mary, man up. You have given birth, twice... this, this is nothing."
I tell myself that a lot when I am doing something I don't want to do or something hard. Also I didn't want to end the awesome day with my husband on a sour note. Though at this point I was feeling pretty beaten up and my leg was on fire.


 So we go back up, just him and me. I am so happy we did. Neil taught me a lot. I pretty much went parallel down the mountain the whole way. I did wipe out but only once in a bad icy patch. I felt a little bad Neil babysat me but he said he had a great time. He said he was shocked how fast I learned how to do a "c turn". What he calls a type of turn when skiing. 
 It was also nice to see all the little kids doing it, I can't wait to take Ryan. He can go as early as three but I think I will wait till he is almost 4 before we go. The kids were just so darn cute.


 We ended the day with dinner out with Joe and Angela and then picking up the kid.


 It was an awesome day. I love skiing and I can't wait to try cross country if we get any darn snow this winter. I am so happy I tried it and I didn't let fear stop me.
 I think since going on rollar coasters with Neil I have made up my mind to try more things. It really started when we went to Budapest. I told myself I would try anything and eat anything there. I want to be more adventurous. I want to be a person my son can look up too instead of a fuddy-duddy mom I was becoming. 
yeah sometimes it's scary, sometimes you get hurt (see below) but most of the time you just have fun and feel sort of like a bad ass.
:)

You can't tell in the picture but it was a HUGE bruise. I thought it was very pretty (and lumpy).

Ahhhhh much better

Sun is out and we are a happy family again.

(sold this from Neil's website)

I wonder where Ryan gets his bipolar-ness from... heh.


Yesterday we had a fun night with the Doiron clan (Chris, Tara & Sloane) and the Wilsons (Dan and Vee). Neil got some photos so hopefully he will share those soon. I think Ryan scared Sloane a little. Her mom and dad are pretty chill & quiet people so she is pretty quiet. Now Ryan... well his parents are very loud excited people (most of this is my fault) so he is a pretty loud kid. He likes to do this excited scream thing. Well Sloane sort of had this 'WTF is wrong with this kid, I am just going to go over here." look on her face that made me laugh. I hope Neil captured it on his camera. 
Oh man, I also  think Ry has a slight crush on Tara. He was just so happy in her arms. 


Here is a video of Ryan this morning while I was at Zumba.
NOMNOMNOM


We got home a little late last night but Ryan was still up (well he passed out in the car for about 10 min) he was sleeping by 9:30pm. Woke up at 11:30 crying and passed back out about 15 min later. He slept from then till 5:30am. We got almost 6 hours of solid sleep. I got him back into his crib at 6am. He woke up again at 6:30 this time screaming. Neil went and got him and tried his best till about 7 to get him to sleep.
I told Neil to put him in bed with me because when Ryan wakes up screaming he will have a BAD day. I got him back to sleep and he woke up again at 8am in a GREAT mood. Neil took him out of the room and I got up 30 min later to get ready for Zumba.
(This has lead me to the idea of making his bedtime a little later. I am going to try this theory tonight to see how it goes.)


We had some eggs and Ryan played with Neil while he got photos (and video) of Ry.


I come home to a husband on the computer fixing up photos and a baby sleeping in his crib. I WAS going to get McD's for Neil but I made him a nice healthy sandwich instead as a thank you for being awesome.


And after dealing with my bitch-ness yesterday he is awesome. 

Worn out already, forgot how this feels.

Ryan took it easy on me Thursday night. Was pretty good. Friday he was in such an awesome mood. Didn't fight me on eating or anything. Just a great kid like normal.
Well last night he made up for it. He woke up at 3:30 or so. He would pass out for about a minute. Enough for me to go "thank god." and relax. Then he would wake up crying and we would start all over again.
About 5am I had enough. I put him in his crib and went to pee. Neil was sleeping on the futon. Ryan was chatting it up in his crib till about 5:40 or so and he started to cry. I woke Neil up and told him it was his turn. I was just burnt out by now. He slept till about 6:40. Neil got up to get him and I said 'F that put him in bed with us, I am not getting up yet.'
Ryan slept in our bed till 8:30am. I am so beat right now, and in a nasty mood.


Back is killing me, along with my neck and shoulders. I am mad at Neil cause he got to get sleep till 5am while I was up with the baby, like always. Then since its his day to sleep in he slept till 11am while I did dishes, cleaned up his clothing he left everywhere, feed Ryan, started laundry, vacuumed, cleaned the table in the living room for Ryan to walk around, played with Ryan, put clothing alway... and then put Ryan down for a nap.
I dont think it helps its been gray and shitty for 4 days now either. 


Needless to say I am really looking forward to Zumba Sunday morning and some mommy downtime. Its really the only thing helping me keep sane right now. (in my currant state of mind.)
I need to just suck it up, be the mom and re-center myself.


Its NOT Neils fault Ryan has these HUGE ass teeth coming in, I am tired & sore and the house always needs to be cleaned. He is amazing father and is allowed to get tired and sleep too. He does work all week and can't nap. Its also not his fault I was a dumb ass and didn't nap the past few days and have been staying up late watching Mad Men.


Speaking of which Ryan is napping now I am going to lay down even if its just laying down in bed for 10 min.

BAH!