Category: Ryan

First Summer BBQ

My dad and his wife, J. (technically my step-mom, but I don’t think of her as that, since they got married after I was already on my own), have a beautiful back-yard, and are very gracious and generous about hosting parties, BBQ’s, family dinners, engagement parties, baby showers, baby welcoming parties, and so on.

Yesterday they hosted the first BBQ of the summer for our family, which included my siblings, cousins, uncle, step-sister, and her husband. We had a lot of fun, and the weather was perfect. Their yard faces west, so sometimes when the sun is shining, it can get really hot, but yesterday there were clouds all afternoon and evening.

Ryan and Cole did great- Ryan was so busy running around and playing ball, frisbee and soccer, with his uncle and second cousins, that he barely even ate. He developed a “crush” on my cousin, E., who just turned 12. He was at her side all night, holding her hand, and basically looking at her with puppy dog eyes. Cole did very well too. He is comfortable with my dad, so he let him hold him for a while, and they played. Joe held Cole too, and he also sat in the grass and entertained himself with rocks in J.’s garden. This was the first bigger family event since Cole has been born, where if I didn’t hold him the entire time, he cried. So that was a nice change!

Even though this was a BBQ, I brought along a cake for Cole, so we could have an informal celebration of his first birthday that will be this week.

It was a chocolate Oreo Cookie cake. I cut a slice for him, and he was a little hesitant to eat it, but once he got started, there was no stopping him. He wasn’t content with just eating the cake that was in his bowl, he had to reach out, and start scooping hand-fulls of cake from the entire cake. He did his first cake proud.

Unfortunately, our camera ran out of memory, but we got some shots of him covered in cake, and icing, on my sister’s camera, and I’ll post them as soon as I get them from her. Joe taped him on our camcorder though, so I am glad we’ll have that to look back on. However, here are some other pictures of the BBQ.

Cole enjoying his dinner

Having fun playing with his foot

Me, with my darling boys 🙂

The B-Day Boy, checking out his cake (in the background, you can see my step-mom holding Maelin)

We all had a wonderful time, and a big thank you to my dad, J., and my sister for organizing the whole thing. Can’t wait for the next bash.

Activities Cole Household Ryan

I Just Couldn’t Stay Away

I ended up going back to the consignment sale on Monday for the last day, where almost everything was 50% off. (If a seller didn’t want to reduce the price, they marked the tag with a star, and then you knew the item wasn’t reduced.)

I got a few more shirts for Ryan, and a couple more rompers for Cole which ended up being $1 each- can’t beat that. I also found a little Baby Bjorn Potty for Cole that I had been wanting to get for him, for some time. I am hoping I can start potty training earlier with him, and these little potty’s are supposed to be pretty good. He has already started sitting on it. When I was checking out, an older lady saw it and said, “Oh, what a cute fire man hat.” It was upside down at the time, and kind of looked like one. I smiled to myself, and then her grown daughter said, “No mom- that’s not a hat- it’s a potty seat.” We all started laughing- it was pretty cute.

I think it is funny how excited I am on finding a good deal on boy’s shirts, shorts, and underwear. I remember the days, when I used to get that excited on finding something for me!

I got a few rompers for my neice as well. My sister said she didn’t have very many and now that it is getting hotter, she really wished she had a few more. They have been putting her in dresses, but they creep up, so the rompers are nice. I ended up getting 7 really cute ones- for $8!

Finally, as I was leaving, Cole needed to nurse, so I went back to the corner of the building where my sister nursed Maelin the other day. There was a table and chairs back there, and I noticed there was a little chair and ottoman from IKEA. I LOVE IKEA, and wished we had one in our state. My other sister has one near her, and we always go there and find great stuff when I visit. Anyway, this chair was there the other day, and Ryan wanted it then. He looked so cute sitting on it, and he does need a new chair for himself.

It was pretty dirty and kind of beat up, and after seeing how Ryan climbed around on it, I can only imagine how many other kids had been jumping around on it all weekend. BUT, it was 50% off, and I looked and saw that the covers could be taken off and washed, and I know IKEA makes good, quality furniture so I was sold.

When the covers were in the wash, I cleaned up the wood, removed the crayon marks, and polished it. I was happy with how it turned out, and the best part is Ryan just LOVES it. He is having a ball sitting on his “grown up chair,” and even wanted to take his nap on it. He grabbed one of Joe’s woodworking magazines yesterday, after I put the cover back on, and he got to sit in if for the first time. Of course, here are some pictures:

The chair ended up being $15, and I think it has already paid for itself. Ryan says, “I’m a hard working man,” before he flops down in it now to relax and read his magazine. 🙂

Activities Cole Family & Friends Mothering Ryan

My Special Day(s)

I had a terrific Mother’s Day Weekend. Yesterday, (Saturday), Joe got up with Ryan and Cole, and made waffles with them. I got to sleep in for about an extra half hour.

After the boys woke up from their afternoon nap, we headed down to my dad’s house, for Ryan’s big sleep over. We nearly avoided ANOTHER car accident- one block away from our house, a teen-aged boy dashed out in front of the car on his bike, obviously trying to ‘beat’ the car across in the middle of the street. Joe hit the breaks, and started again, when another kid, out of no where started to do the same thing. Joe instantly slammed the breaks on, and the kid on the bike did the same thing, stopping about 1 foot from the car.

Joe and I were both so mad, we just glared at the kid. He said, “sorry” and then muttered something like he was going to stop. I wanted to ask, “when, when you crashed into the hood of the car?” He was doing something so stupid, and was lucky he didn’t get hit. The sudden, hard, breaking scared Ryan and he started crying, and screaming. We had to calm him down, and after a few minutes we were on our way again.

We made it to my dad’s with no more excitement (thank goodness). We got the boys settled with some dinner, and then Joe and I were off to dinner. Cole started to cry, and I felt bad leaving him, but we figured he would start to eat his dinner, and stop crying after a few minutes.

We ate at a grill in a neighborhood, about 10 minutes away from my dad’s house. It was a really nice atmosphere- not too loud, or too quiet. I ordered blackened flank steak salad, with blue cheese crumbles and blue cheese dressing, and a fuzzy navel. Joe ordered mushroom beef stroganoff, and a beer.

We had a great time, just enjoying each other’s company and some uninterrupted conversation. We ordered a slice of fudge chocolate cake to go for dessert. We ended up staying about an hour and a half, and figured we had better get back; we both had a feeling that Cole would be crying.

We arrived back at my dad’s to find Ryan eating a s’more that they made in the back yard fireplace, and as expected, Cole crying. Dad said he pretty much cried the entire time. Cole saw me, sniffled, I nursed him, and after about 5 minutes, he popped off, smiling, and ready to play- the little munchkin.

My dad’s wife had pretty much been entertaining Ryan, since Dad had been trying to calm Cole, and Ryan was playing Thomas trains, and watching a Thomas video. Dad blew up an air mattress for Ryan to sleep on, and then he and Cole jumped on it for about 20 minutes, until it was time for us to go.

Ryan barely kissed me goodbye- he was so anxious for us to leave. He told me if I missed my big boy, (refering to himself) then I could hug Coley.

Cole fell asleep five minutes into the ride home, and about half way home, I got this very strong urge to hug Ryan. I realized this was the farthest he had ever been away from me, and I him, and I had to fight back tears. I knew he was safe, but it still hurt knowing I couldn’t be near him.

When we got home, I changed a very tired and half-asleep Cole into his pj’s, and he nursed for a few minutes, and then went right back to sleep in his crib. I guess all that crying, wore him out.

Then Joe and I watched TV, while he gave me a foot and calf massage (ahh…)

This morning, Joe and Cole got up around 8, when Cole woke up, and Joe left me to sleep in again. When they came back and woke me up, it was 9, and Cole wanted to nurse. The next time I woke up, it was 10, and then I dozed off again, until 10:30! I have not slept in that late since before Ryan was born. I guess after 3 1/2 years, a girl is entitled to sleep that late. 🙂

I laid a sleeping Cole down next to a sleeping Joe, and got up, made some coffee and called my Dad. He said Ryan did fine- they all went to bed about 10:30, and they all woke up at 8, and Ryan had slept like a rock. I talked to Ryan for a few minutes on the phone, and he told me Grandpa had made him waffles this morning. Ryan sounded so different and grown-up on the phone. It made me realize he really is a little boy now, getting bigger every day. My dad said he’d bring Ryan home after lunch.

A few minutes later, Joe and Cole came down stairs, and we ate a light breakfast. Cole played and hung out with Dad, and he seemed like a different baby. He was so content, and wasn’t crying for me every few minutes, like he normally does. I am not sure why- maybe he liked the one-on-one attention he was getting from us, or maybe he could actually focus on something longer than a few seconds, before Ryan usually comes over to him, to see what he is doing. It made us wonder if maybe Cole isn’t getting enough attention from us, so I am going to try to start devoting 10 or 15 minutes in the morning to some exclusive time with him.

Joe hung up my information board, and I got our schedules written down for the week. After I got Cole down for his nap, I got the rest of the flowers planted for our front yard, and then my darling boy was home.

He came and hugged me for a minute, and then wanted to go ride his scooter. He told me again, Grandpa made him waffles in the toaster. After Grandpa left, Dad and Ryan cleaned out the garage, and did some yard work, and I got to dink around on the computer, and organize some of my pictures.

When Cole woke up, we went and got some dinner at a noodle place. We took a little drive to the country, and then came home, gave the boys a bath, and put them to bed. As I was nursing Cole to sleep, Ryan came in and hugged me, and whispered, “Happy Mother’s Day, Mama.” It was so sweet, and I felt very appreciated and loved by my family.

I can’t believe that four Mother’s Day’s have passed already. Here are a few pictures from my first three:

My very first Mother’s Day- 2004 (Ryan was 4 months)

Mother’s Day-2005 (Ryan was 16 months)

Mother’s Day-2006 (Ryan was 28 months, and I was 8 1/2 months pregnant with Cole)

I hope all the mother’s out there had a wonderful day. We work so hard all year, it is nice to have our special day. 🙂

Activities Family & Friends Mothering Ryan

Happy Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day on Sunday! This will be my fourth “official” Mother’s Day- (fifth if you count when I was pregnant with Ryan). Joe and I are going to head down to my dad’s (about 50 miles away), to drop the boys off for a few hours, and we are going to go out to dinner! We figured it will be less crowded tomorrow night than on Sunday, and plus Ryan is going to spend the night for the first time with this grandparent! He is SO excited. I just hope he doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night and want me, because we aren’t just down the road. He is very comfortable with my dad though, so I don’t anticipate any problems.

I love being a mother more than I ever dreamed, and it is truly one of the greatest gifts I could have ever received.

Here is an essay by Anna Quindlen that I read a few years ago. I read it every Mother’s Day- to remind me- to take it easy, not to stress too much, and simply enjoy my dear, sweet boys. I hope you like her essay too, and I hope everyone has a special day, no matter how you choose to spend it.

On Being a Mom
by Anna QuindlenIf not for the photographs, I might have a hard time believing they ever existed. The pensive infant with the swipe of dark bangs and the black button eyes of a Raggedy Andy doll. The placid baby with the yellow ringlets and the high piping voice. The sturdy toddler with the lower lip that curled into an apostrophe above her chin.

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past. Everything in all the books I once pored over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories.What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations –what they taught me was that they couldn’t really teach me very much at all.

Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout.

One boy is toilet trained at 3, his brother at 2. When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow. I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton’s wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month-old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk too.

Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the Remember-When-Mom-Did-Hall-of-Fame. The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, “What did you get wrong?” (She insisted I included that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald’s drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I included that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less. Even today I’m not sure what worked and what didn’t, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I’d done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That’s what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.

Activities Family & Friends Household Ryan

I Love A Good Deal

I went to a pre-consignment sale last night, thanks to a pass from one of my friends. It had 300 consignors and over 20,000 items! I found a lot of summer clothes for Ryan and Cole, some toys, and I was able to get my sister a couple items she still needed too.

Today she came up for a visit, and we ended up going back to the sale, mainly because I saw a tuxedo last night in Ryan’s size. He is going to be the ring bearer at my older brother’s wedding in July, and it seemed perfect for him, but wanted to make sure it fit before I bought it.

Well, we found it- it was still there. I stripped Ryan down to his undies, and then put on the pants, buttoned the shirt, and buttoned the jacket (it has a cummerbund, but it was sewn to the jacket, and I didn’t want to break the seam), and it fit perfectly! If I had set out to find him a tux. at this sale, I know it wouldn’t have happened, but he looked just like a little man in it! He looked awfully cute, if I may say so. I’ll post a picture soon of him in his tux!

My sister sat down to nurse in a corner, and the most unusual item caught my eye. It was a hand made bulletin board, with seven little chalk boards with each day of the week written in French. It is really pretty, and I just really liked it. It didn’t strike me as something even a child would use- it is so big. I don’t even know what to call it- an information center?

Our calendar doesn’t have much space to write all our activities down, and sometimes it just becomes a jumbled mess. So I liked the idea of writing down what each person has going on each day of the week, and the bulletin board is HUGE! I can tack things up there I need to take care of for the week, invitations that need R.S.V.P’s too, my to-do-lists-, grocery lists, and of course pictures of the boys. With some gentle persuasion from my sister, I am now the new owner.

I am going to give the chalk boards a good cleaning with water, and then polish the wood, and then have Joe hang it up for me, but here is a picture of it:

It is 46 inches tall and 36 inches wide, and even came with chalk. It cost a whopping $29- a great deal I think, considering small cork boards at Target are about $20.

Grand total I spent was under $100 for all the clothes, the tuxedo, toys, and the information center. Not to bad- now if I can just stay away on Monday, because that is the last day and everything that is left is half price. 🙂