Finally walking (sort of)

So we are still very wobbly, and if he slows down or gets distracted...down he goes (the bruise you will see on his head in the video is proof of one of his many falls!) But it's pretty funny to see your child walk like a drunk man. I swear, he gets more fun by the day! The only problem is, now that he knows he can (kind of) walk, it's all he wants to do....all.day.long. He knows it's faster to walk holding your hands, so he always wants you to get up and help him march back and forth and back and forth. He crawls over to you, climbs up on you and almost pulls at you so that you will get the idea that, damn it, he wants to walk now!! haha. And when he's walking on his own and falls then he gets ticked (as you can see in the video) because again, all he wants to do is be up and moving around! Let's just hope that he will get much better at this sooner rather than later. It will make my life so much easier (and probably harder too all at the same time!)

First hair cut!

As many of you know, one of Ryder's nicknames is "Bad Hair". I mean, really I love his hair--because it's so crazy and wild. But because he had a bald spot on the back of his head from when he only slept on his back and didn't move around in bed, the hair in the center-back of his head is shorter than it is on either side of his head. So we finally decided to trim his hair so it would be even at least...he was starting to look like a raggedy homeless man. No really...seriously in this picture below, he looks like a homeless man "living under a bridge" to quote my Mother-in-law!!! bahahaha (she meant than in an endearing kind of way, FYI)

So here are two before shots:

It's kind of hard to tell in this picture because a)he wouldn't sit still so we could take a picture and b) we combed it out so it would be more straight and easier to cut, but you can see the straggly hair.

Here is the small pile of hair we snipped off. I say we, but really it was actually Joe who volunteered to cut it. I let him---just in case it was bad then I wouldn't have to look at him every day and think of what a bad job I did. So Joe did it, but actually he did a great job!


He would NOT sit still (can anyone really make their 16 month old sit still for a picture?? If you can, please let me know your tricks!) so here is a side shot. See, we still left it longish so you could see some curls/waves, but it's just even now.
And here is the best straight-on shot I managed to get.

So we're all trimmed up, and looking so handsome. Just in time for when he starts his ECFE sessions this Fall (That would stand for Early Childhood Family Education). I registered him today for Tuesdays this Fall at the local elementary school. It's 12 to 23 month old kids--for an hour and a half that basically will get him more used to being around other kids his age, in a more structured environment since he is mostly just with adults all the time. That should be interesting to say the least!!

Weddings, a sleeping Cubbie, and Jcrew

A couple weekends ago was my best friend's wedding--and it was also the first wedding I've been in besides my own, of course. It was a huuuge wedding party (27, including the bride and groom) but it was SUCH a fun time! What was even better was that I knew all nine bridesmaids really well--many of them since we were just kids. Friday we did the typical: mani-pedi party and lunch afterwards with all the girls. Then the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. I was skeptical that we would all get our hair and makeup done on time on the Big Day-but all 12 of the ladies getting their hair/makeup done were completely ready to go by 10am!! Can you believe that? We headed to the Church to do pictures before the ceremony. The bride and I managed to get a snap shot in quickly before all the professional pics started:

The five girls in the bridal party that weren't part of the family had some time to kill while all the family pictures were going on. Things got a little crazy in the library of the Church, let me tell you ;)

Amanda "playing" the piano for me :)

Silly Manda ;)

Pretending to have a "serious" model/leg shot...we failed!

The ceremony was beautiful and Jon and Jenna never stopped smiling the whole time. And I was also surprised that Jenna wasn't crying the whole time either...she held it together pretty well! Then the party started on the party bus....

Mr. And Mrs. Juris!!

Trying to fit everyone infront of the bus for a group pic was difficult!

The bride and me

And the party continued at the reception. I felt very honored to be part of Jenna's day! Congrats to Jon and Jenna!!!!!


On to less fun (but still oh-so-important) things. I feel comfortable enough after almost a week that we are back to a normal sleep schedule with Ryder. We got back on schedule, increased the size of his bedtime snack...and things fell into place! Thanks for all the advice all you Moms (and non-mom friends!). I appreciate it!!


And the last comment I would like to make is this: I wish Jcrew would stop sending me catalogs because it makes me want ridiculous things like black Italian leather knee-high boots that are a only $325. Ahhh, if only working part time (and not having normal, realistic responsibilities) could afford such luxuries!!!

Moms...give your input please!

Yes, he may be sweet:

But he's been killing Joe and me lately. He used to be such a good sleeper (to bed at 7pm and didn't make noise till 7am or even 730am). Over the last two weeks most nights, he will wake up crying sometime anywhere between 2am and 5am. Now, only once or twice has it been where he wakes up screaming bloody murder, so I thought that it might be night terrors, but all the other times he wakes up with only a little fussing--almost just talking-- at first (which I ignore hoping he falls back asleep) but then it gets louder and louder until he actually is crying really loudly and really hard.

A little background so you can form your opinions: the last almost two weeks we have been out of routine a LOT. I was in Jenna's wedding and was gone that whole weekend (Joe was gone too attending the wedding festivities as well). Friday my mom was with him all day from 9am till we got home from the rehearsal dinner at 10pm, so she put him to bed. The next morning I left first thing and my aunt picked him up from our house at 1030 am and kept him all night over night while we were at the wedding and I didn't get home till after lunch Sunday. THEN....Joe and I got sick last week (thankfully Ryder didn't) and were out of commission. When he was with us, we were watching movies/cartoons and weren't really playing because we felt so crappy, but most of the time he was at Joe's mom's house-overnight one night too. Joe and I really didn't feel back to normal until Sunday. I know he was very upset that things were out of routine, even when he was with the both of us, he still could tell things were "off". I will also throw in that all last week when we were out of routine he would barely eat anything. He wasn't fussy at all or warm or acting sick at all, and we're done teething (he has them all!) but he was really fussy only if we tried to get him to eat (even pizza...a favorite...) he would take only like three or four bites and then be done. I think he was way out of sorts.

Anyways...back to the waking up. So when he does the night waking, it's not something you can ignore. He's screaming bloody murder for Heaven's sake and he will just keep doing it. Last night when he woke up at 430, we let him chat...and then eventually cry until I finally went in there at 5am. I don't normally do this, but I had a feeling he was hungry. I made him a piece of toast and he ate the whole thing in about two seconds. He cried hard when I tried to put him back down in the crib, so I rocked him for about 5 minutes and then put him down. He was still awake when I laid him down (so it's not like I rocked him to sleep in order to get him back into the crib), but at that point he didn't cry. He just watched me walk out of the room and never made another peep.

This is kind of how these nights have been going. I have only given him a snack twice now (which both times he gobbled down), but I don't know if the night wakings started because he was out of routine but now it's becomming a routine...? Has anyone else had periods where their once great sleeping children now are waking up? I would like this to stop (obviously....) but how do I stop it? I can't just let him scream for hours in there (which he's a stubborn child...he totally would too). What the heck do I do??? Is he just playing Joe and me for dummies or is this normal?

For those of you who have no kids...sorry this was a long rambling post. But you can give your opinions too! Anything helps!

Per usual

Well, per usual, I have been a slacker once again in the blogging world. BUT I feel as though I have some good excuses. For one, I was in my best friend's wedding last weekend. So it's safe to say I was fairly busy (a blog about the wedding weekend to come later). Two: Wednesday night when I was working, I had to come home because Joe was sicker than a dog vomiting/in the bathroom since he had put Ryder to bed that night. I assumed it was food poisoning or something and someone had to be there and functional in case Ryder for some odd reason woke up. So I came home around midnight Wednesday night and by Thursday morning at 8am, we were both begging Joe's mom to come over to pick up Ryder because we were both out of commission. Turns out that the "food poisoning" that Joe had was round #2 of the rotavirus flu (we had it back in the winter too). So if anyone has had the rotavirus...you know how much FUN it is!!! Pssssyyyych. BUT if I had to have any kind of flu, I would take that one because that's the type of flu that babies are vaccinated against. So Ryder skirted that one, thankfully! Unfortunately I had to miss another day of work (well, I'm not that sad about that..haha) and a good work friend's wedding in the process :( Boo.


Last week before Jenna's wedding festivities all started, I did manage to meet Amanda and Camille at her apt pool for some fun in the sun. Ryder decided to throw his hat in the pool and then he wouldn't wear it when it was all soaking wet, so Camille was nice enough to borrow Ryder her pink bandana to cover that big old head. I think he pulled it off pretty well, actually!

Notice the dripping pool of water under Ryder's chair. That's from the swim diaper draining the gallons of water it can hold!

And the bathtub one below is just to show off his nice body. Although, I do believe we are going through our first "food jag". He is not interested in eating much of anything lately. It's pretty much a fight at every meal over the last week and a half to get him to eat anything, even a bite or two of food. He's still his happy-go-lucky self, but not eating. Maybe because I keep posting these sweet body shots that he feels he needs to get it together and go on a diet? haha, kidding. I love that body!

Karma

Sometimes I really really need to step back and say "chill out"....maybe then I could avoid situations like tonight. Joe suggested we go to the grocery story together (much easier and faster than doing it by yourself with a child), and we'd kill two birds with one stone and drag all the dry cleaning in too (our grocery store has a dry cleaning place inside the store). So I told Joe to start shopping and I'd take all the dry cleaning to the counter and get that done. Well, I sat at the counter for ten stinking minutes (I know this because I painfully watched the clock above the lady's head tick ever.so.slowly...) Anyways, so this lady obviously had no clue what she was doing. She couldn't get anything right. I was seriously getting so annoyed. After telling her that I had four pairs of pants ("Five?" "No four" "Oh, I thought it was five" "Nope, four" Staring at me, so I count out "one. two. three. four..." "oh, okay then" uuuuuh).

Anyways, after giving out audible sighs and I probably looked more annoyed than I should have, but we got it done. And we finished shopping while I was all huffy and puffy to Joe telling him about the "idiot" working the counter. We get home and we are putting Ryder to bed and the house phone rings (It never rings unless it's telemarketers and the only reason we have a house phone is for a fax machine for Joe's work). ANYWAYS...the person calling leaves a message saying that I left my purse at the dry cleaner counter. Sweet.

I drive all the way back and go to the main service counter and who comes out with my purse?? The "idiot" lady at the dry cleaners. She says--in a genuinely nice way---"wow, you're hard to track down! I couldn't find you in the phone book and I had to look you up online because I couldn't find your # anywhere for some reason" Aaaaaaand I go home feeling quite stupid. This lady, whom clearly had annoyed me because I made it fairly obvious, spent time figuring out how to track me down so I could come claim my purse. I wouldn't have blamed her if she threw it in the trash!

Moral of the story? Chill out and try not to be such a b*tch!

On another note: here's a picture of my most favorite little fat face :)