2 whole months

2 months may not sound like a long time to some people, but for me, it's equal to more than a quarter of my whole life. So you shouldn't be surprised that a lot has changed for me in the last couple of months. I sit up all by myself now, I try to crawl and I can pull myself up to a stand if I hold on to the furniture.

For the most part, my primary focuses in life are movement and food. I really want to be able to move around the room and get my own toys without mom and dad's help. I can get up on all fours and move back and forth, but I can't really figure out how to propel myself forward. Mommy keeps telling me that I'm "so close", so I'm gonna keep trying and one of these days I know I'm gonna be able to crawl my 17 lb. bum all over the place.

Food is good, although I sometimes have a tough time determining what actually qualifies as food. If you hand me something, I'm gonna shove it in my mouth and try to eat it. More than half the time though, it turns out that what I've just put in my mouth isn't food at all, but in fact is just a toy, a remote control, or somebody's cell phone. Quite dissapointing.

I was a spider for Halloween...I don't know what a spider even is, but I know I looked damn cute. Check me out....

All sorts of firsts

I know I haven't written in a while, but I've just been so darn busy. In the past month I've had a whole bunch of firsts: rolling over, sitting up, sleeping through the night, eating vegetables. Life has been good.

So first off, let's talk about food. Food is awesome. Carrots rock. Apples, not so much. I'm a fan of Dunkin Donuts munchkins, and ice cream from Crescent Ridge.

And now that I'm eating big boy food, I figured it was time to start doing big boy things. So I sit up by myself for almost a whole minute (eventually I usually fall over, but I'm working on that). I roll over, from my back to my belly and vice versa. At first I kinda freaked myself out with that one, but now I'm into it. I'm not quite crawling, but I have learned to scoot around my crib and get things that are a little out of reach. And I'm all about standing. Granted, I need to hold onto something or to have someone hold on to me, but my legs are real strong!

Oh, a while back I promised to let you know when I got my feet in my mouth. Well I did, and they taste YUMMY!

Food, glorious food

Why did they wait so long?

I wish somebody had told me sooner that food came in forms other than boring liquid. On Tuesday, I started eating rice cereal. Mmmm, it's fantastic.

Check me out eating my cereal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSAJfe4wLCM

It's a party...and I'll cry if I want to

Yay for summer. Now that it's really warm out mum and dad are taking me to all sorts of parties. A few weeks ago we went to a party at the Marinelli's house down the street. I can't wait to back to this one when I'm a big kid - they had a moonwalk, a 30 foot inflatable lizard that when you crawled in its mouth it was a waterslide through the body and down the tail, a big baseball game where you hit balls at a fake field, two bands and a ton of food. And there were so many kids. I fell asleep, but mum said that next year I'll really like it.

For the Fourth of July there were even more parties - we went to our neighbors' (Ingrid & Raul) house, had some people at our house the next night, and then went to Grampa Alan & Lisa's house. And this past weekend, I went to two parties for Grand Papa Lenny. I ask you - who's more popular than me, huh?

There is 1 little problem...I'm not always so into parties right now. Sometimes I get bored, and I wish I had all of my toys with me. And sometimes I get tummy aches, and I just want to go home, but mum & dad make me stay. So I cry. I'm not being bad, I just don't feel well and crying is the only way I have of telling people.

So I have a message for all of the people who keep looking at me and asking "Why does he cry so much":

I have colic. That means that my belly hurts alot. I also have pretty bad reflux, which is kinda like bad heartburn. If you had a constant tummy ache and heartburn and there was nothing you could do about it, you'd cry too. So cut me some slack. Being me isn't easy - my only jobs right now are to eat, poop,and sleep, and right now the first two things on that list just cause pain for me. I'm doing the best I can.

I keep hearing people compare me to other babies. They say things like "so and so's baby sleeps so well" or "this person's baby never cries". Well, good for them. They may not keep their parents up now, but I'm sure they'll make up for it when they're teenagers.

My mum and dad know that I'm a good baby, I just hurt sometimes. And they love me just the way I am.

Changing my mind

I once overheard mommy say to someone that "A woman always has the right to change her mind whenever she wishes". Well, I'm not a girl, but I change my mind all the time, so where does that leave me? To address this conundrum, I'm now declaring the following to be true:

On behalf of all babies the world over, I reserve the right to change my mind whenever I see fit.

Even if I hadn't said this, I'm sure mommy would have figured it out because my likes and dislikes change on a weekly, and sometimes even daily, basis. If you had asked me a month ago what my favorite pastime was, I probably would have told you "sitting in my vibrating chair and staring at the hanging fishy". Ok seriously, how boring is that? I'm totally over the vibrating chair, and what good is that stupid fish if I can't fit it in my mouth? Whoever heard of a fish that you can't eat and doesn't swim?

Here's a list of things I think are way cool right now:

• My activity gyms - I have 2, the rain forest one with lights and the ocean one with the giant stuffed octopus - I know, you're totally jealous


• Playing with my stuffed puppy toy


• Shoving everything I can into my mouth


• Playing with fingers - my own and other people's


• Having people blow air in my face; Daddy & Uncle Avi do a particularly nice job


• Hanging out in bed with Daddy on Sunday mornings


• Being buck naked

By next week I may think that half of that stuff is totally boring - I'll keep you posted.

In other news, yesterday I went to Crescent Ridge with mommy & bubbe grandma to see some giant things called cows. I've decided that I really like cows. They're the same colors as Pongo (grandma's dog) but much calmer and quieter. And they're much bigger than the cats at home.

Mom also let me try ice cream yesterday. Man oh man was that stuff good. She's lucky she didn't give me too much, otherwise I'd start demanding that I only eat ice cream, no more of that boring milk. But she only gave me a little, so we're good.

It just dawned on me that not only are cows cool to look at and calmer than dogs, but they also make a key ingredient for ice cream. Do you think mom & dad would let me get a pet cow?

King Ryan

I won. I believe that daddy's exact words were "Ryan kicked my ass... a three month old utterly defeated me".

Oh yeah, I'm the man.

For those of you who don't know, the incident I'm referring to was Saturday, June 14th when mommy went to Aunt Kathleen's bachelorette party and left me at home with dad. Now I know, I could have made it easy on him and just gone to bed calmly like I do almost every night now, but what fun would that be? Instead, I saw this as an opportunity to remind daddy exactly who's the boss - me! So, I fought sleep until he was forced to take me for a ride in the car (which is one sleep inducer that I just can't fight)...I slept till 11:30...and then after I let him feed me, I cried until mommy finally came home at almost 1 am. It's not that I don't love daddy, and I do want to make him happy, but he needs to know that I'm in charge.

But then I got to thinking, I don't want daddy to start thinking that I'm good for mommy, but not for him. So just to even things out, I gave mom a bit of a hard time on Friday night when she wanted me to go to bed. Daddy was in Florida, so mom was all alone with me. And just to make sure she has no illusions about who decides bedtime, I didn't go to sleep until 9:30, and then woke up every 3 hours until 3 am. Once 3 rolled around, I decided that I had made my point, and from then on I was great for the rest of the weekend.

Moral of the story - I AM IN CHARGE - just call me King Ryan.

First hands...and now feet!

So I thought it was pretty amazing when I realized I had hands. I mean, I always knew I had them, but it was only a couple of weeks ago that I realized that they actually had a purpose. Imagine, all that time I spent laying on my back and staring at the toys that mom & dad hang over my head, I could have been reaching out and touching them. Well now that I know that I can control my hands, I'm working on getting a handle on the little things on the end (I think dad called them fingers). I'm getting better every day at grabbing things and making them move. And I've mastered the art of shoving my entire fist in my mouth, bet you're jealous, huh?

Anyhow, I definitely know that I like my hands, but yesterday I discovered something else that I have a feeling I am going to be pretty into: FEET. Have you guys seen these things? At first, they seem pretty useless. They don't go in as many directions as hands, and the things on the end (I heard a rumor they're call toes) are way too short to be of any use to me. But, they do seem to be much stronger than hands. When I sit in my swing, I can use them to push the tray way up in the air. I also have a hunch that feet taste good, not sure why, just a feeling I have. So I'm working on getting them in my mouth; I'll let you know when that happens.

Where's mommy?

I'm not sure what to make of this.

For as long as I can remember, my mornings have gone pretty much the same way. I wake up (preferably at least 1 hour earlier than mommy & daddy would like), eat, get naked, get a new diaper, get dressed again, and then hang out in the house with mommy for a while. Sometimes we stay home, sometimes we don't, but either way, Mommy always hung out with me all day.

Until yesterday!

Out of nowhere, yesterday she puts me in the car at 7 am and takes me to see grandma. Which is fine, I love grandma. But then, mum takes off and I don't see her again until more than 10 hours later. What the hell is that about?

And talk about throwing me a curveball - today she wakes ME up at the crack of dawn to do virtually the same thing as yesterday. Don't get me wrong, I love grandma, I just don't like change very much.

Well, I wasn't going to just stand by and let Mommy and Daddy think they can just up and change things whenever they want. So last night, just for kicks, I woke up at 1 AM and refused to go back to sleep until after 2. Hah - that'll show them to mess with my schedule.

I heard a rumor that tomorrow I'm going to hang out with Aunt Maryann and my cousins Aidan and Emma for the day. I think I'll like that, but if not, I'm going to have to think of a new way to get revenge on mom and dad. Maybe I'll wait till right after they change my diaper in the middle of the night, and then take a giant crap that ruins my diaper and my pajamas. That's always good for a laugh.