4 years old!

(Please excuse all the empty space - I don't know why it's there.  In the editor, it's not.  Oh, blogger.)

On May 7, Ryan turned four years old!  And we were far too busy celebrating for me to blog about it :)  But, nearly two months later, I thought I'd do a round-up of all of the fun things I can think of about Ryan as a four-year-old.

 

Ryan has come out of his shell a lot lately.  We had some friends over yesterday evening and the moment they arrived, he started talking and didn't stop for a solid five minutes.  Even when we've had workers or other strangers (to him) over, he has been quick to chat them up.  It's been cracking Mason & I up.  Now, if you get him in a big group or ask him to do any kind of performance in front of somebody other than immediate family, he is still our same shy little boy.  But it's been a lot of fun to watch him grow and change in his interactions with others.  His preschool teacher told me at the end of the year that she couldn't believe how far he had come since the beginning - he'd gone from not participating in circle time at all to fully participating and even initiating games and activities with his friends.

Speaking of friends, Ryan loves his friends and is blessed to have so many of them!  He has his playgroup friends who he's known since he was a baby, his preschool friends (who he is missing this summer!), and his church friends.  And he loves hanging out with all of them.

Enjoying a cookie with his lifelong friends, Emelia and Sophia, on our front porch

His very best friend of all, though, is his brother, and while I generally don't like this expression, it makes my heart smile to be able to say that :)  I was honestly quite nervous about having them both home so much over the summer and having to constantly referee, but I have been pleasantly surprised.  Their increased time together seems to have only brought them closer, and I love the way that they are able to play together now.  The other day, Ryan was doing a puzzle in the dining room and Kaeden was wandering around elsewhere.  He called out, "Ry Ryyyy" and Ryan answered "I'm in here, Kaeden" - it was such a simple interaction, but so sweet.  They both love each other's company, and while I know that won't always be the case, I am so blessed by it right now.  Oh, and Ryan often calls Kaeden "sweet boy", which I just love.

My boys together at Duke Gardens

 


Ryan also loves his cousin Atticus and especially loves how much Atticus loves him.  When I say that we're going to see him, Ryan usually replies with something like, "Atticus will be so excited to see his Ry Ry. He loooves me!"  Yeah, humility is something we need to work on a little bit around here.  But really, he enjoys being the big cousin as well as the big brother and loves every chance he gets to chase Atticus around in circles :)  

Ryan is also very excited about the new baby and often comments on how my belly is getting bigger and gives "the baby" kisses.  He still claims that it's a girl (we'll hopefully find out for sure on July 12) but given his relationship with Kaeden, I think he'll be just fine if it's another boy.

Ryan continues to be a rule follower by nature, although I am learning more and more that he is even more of a follower than a rule follower.  While he almost never comes up with mischief on his own, if he is playing with his friends and they do something that is not allowed, he doesn't think twice before following right along.  This has been a subject of much discussion between the two of us and some anxiety on my part (thinking ahead to older years), but I really can't complain - he always has been and continues to be a pretty easy child to parent, and I'm thankful for that... especially given that #2 is proving to be a little more challenging.

 


Ryan took swim lessons in May and June and really enjoyed them.  They have been great for me, because they more or less eliminated his fear of water getting in his eyes, which means bath time is a whole lot easier these days.  He got to where he could take a few strokes on his own before he came up gasping for air, but that is still a long way from where he was, so I was pleased with his progress, as was he.  He will tell you now that he knows how to swim.  Like I said, humility...

Building is probably still Ryan's favorite activity, although in the past couple of weeks, he has begun another puzzle phase, which has been great considering how hot it's been here.  He's doing 100 piece puzzles mostly on his own, and he even enjoys doing bigger ones with me or Mason.  It's been a lot of fun for us, since we both enjoy doing puzzles as well, and it's a nice chance to just spend some quiet, restful time with Ryan.



He has also become quite the little artist, and spends a lot of time in the office working at his project table.  It's fun to see his ability grow, but even more than that, his creativity comes out a lot in his art, and I really enjoy getting glimpses of that.  

Just being goofy - he has unique ideas about what will make a good photo sometimes.

 He still LOVES books and enjoys our fairly frequent trips to the "librarian" to pick out new books.  We don't ever stay long, because Kaeden has trouble being patient and quiet, but we often spend the majority of the remainder of the day reading.  Whenever he gets bored with other activities, reading is his go-to.  While it's a special thing to get to snuggle on the couch and read to him, Mason & I are both looking forward to the day when he can read to himself.  I just know he will love not having to rely on us to read to him all the time.

TV is also still completely engrossing for him, probably because I don't let him watch it all that often.  He gets "movie rest time" every Friday afternoon, which he loves... and so do I!  He gets to watch TV shows while Kaeden naps rather than resting in his room, and I get a bit of an extended time to get things done or just relax myself.  His favorite show at the moment is Wonder Pets.  Other top choices are Busytown Mysteries and Bob the Builder.  

Enjoying movie rest time soon after moving in, before we got our couches!

We've said it his whole life, but Ryan is truly a sweet child.  There is just no better way to describe him, and I am so blessed to be his mommy.

Here are his 4 year photos from Duke Gardens.  He loved the tree!

A very sweet elderly woman offered to take our picture together.  This is what we got :)

18 months

(or 19 1/2.  oops)

This is what I wrote at the beginning of May:

Kaeden turned 18 months old this week.  I was about to say that I don't know where the last 6 month went, but I do... they were spent putting the house on the market, selling the house, finishing the new house, moving into the new house, and continuing to move into the new house.  But that's not to say that I haven't enjoyed my Kaeden plenty during these times.  He makes himself hard to ignore!

As soon as Kaeden started to walk, his personality completely changed.  As a baby, he was so timid and fearful, but once he could walk, he was ready to take on the world... and determined to do so.  It has been fun (and also a bit challenging at times) to watch his personality bloom and grow over the past six months.  He has strong opinions about the way things should be and is quick to throw a fit if they don't go his way.  I am very relieved and thankful to say that in the past few weeks, he has become reasonable... at least some of the time.  He still throws his share of fits, but I feel like we are starting to understand each other a little bit more.



And now I'll pick up with Kaeden as of mid-June :)  I'm sure he's changed a good bit in the last 6 weeks, but it'll be close enough!

 

Kaeden is a passionate little child.  He has been both a challenge and an incredible joy to parent.  It is mostly a lot of fun to be around someone who is so expressive and lives life so wide open.  But as a rule-follower with a rule-follower for a husband and a serious rule-follower for a first-born son,  I also have no idea what to do with a child who takes so much delight in breaking the rules.  There is nothing that Kaeden enjoys more than standing on a table or opening the drawers that he's not supposed to or running away when I ask him to come to me.  At this point, he is still cute and "innocent" enough that it's hard for me to get upset or angry, but that will change soon enough and I already feel like I need a plan.  In reality, I know that I just need to trust that God will guide me in the right way to parent this unique little child of mine :)

 

It's also been a lot of fun to watch Kaeden's relationship with Ryan develop.  They do actually play together fairly often (mostly parallel but some cooperative) now, and they truly enjoy each other's company.  There are also plenty of squabbles and plenty of times when Kaeden would prefer that Ryan just leave him alone, but they do have a sweet brotherly friendship.  One of my favorite routines of the day is putting Kaeden down for his nap.  We read a book and Ryan helps me sing "You are my Sunshine" to Kaeden and then Ryan kisses Kaeden goodnight (or goodnap, I suppose).  Ryan starts to leave the room, and Kaeden puckers his lips and holds up a finger to say "one more"... Ryan says, "okay, Kaeden, one more" and comes back and kisses him again.  They do this a few more times, depending on the day (and how eager I am to get Kaeden down!), and I just love it. 

One of my biggest challenges with Kaeden is getting him to eat meals.  He would be happy to eat fruit and crackers all day long, and some days, that's just about all he eats.  I finally cut him off from pureed foods a couple of months ago and now give him what we have for dinner.  Most nights, he eats his yogurt and that's it.  But, he's still sleeping fine and his weight doesn't seem to be suffering, so I guess he's okay.  I just hope he learns to eat meat and veggies sooner rather than later.  He does like ham and bacon as well as scrambled eggs, he regularly eats peanut butter and honey sandwiches, and he'll suck down a green smoothie in a matter of minutes, so I have some ways of getting protein/spinach in him, but I'm sure he could stand to have a little more variety!



Kaeden's been in a daddy phase for quite a few months now.  It helps that "Daddy" was one of the first words that he was able to say clearly.  Mason's ankle injury unfortunately didn't allow him a lot of chances to play with Kaeden for a couple of weeks, and he did some serious attaching to Mommy during that time.  Now, he yells "Nah-nah" (it's actually somewhere between Nana and Mama) probably a hundred times a day, just to make sure I'm nearby and paying attention.  Don't worry, though, he still LOVES his Daddy!

 

Kaeden's newest favorite activity is building.  Just in the last few weeks, he has taken an interest in building blocks of various types, and now he will sit for up to 30 minutes at a time with a pile of duplos (or other blocks) in front of him, putting them together and taking them apart.  It's great. 



Trucks (and pretty much anything that makes a "brrmm" noise, particularly vacuums and blenders) are another favorite of Kaeden's at the moment.  Which brings me to...



Books!  Kaeden will finally sit through a book.  And his very favorite book right now is "Little Blue Truck" - we read it multiple times a day.  A story about trucks and animals that rhymes?  How can you go wrong?  (don't answer that)  Anyway, some other favorites are the Little Word Book (he just likes to point at everything and have me tell him what they are), The Big Red Barn, Goodnight Moon (hearing Kaeden say "hush" at the appropriate times is a highlight of my day), Baby Beluga, and Brown Bear.  



Talking has been a high priority for Kaeden lately as well.  He has all kinds of words now, at varying levels of understandability by those other than myself :)  Some particularly clear ones are "Daddy", "Cracker", "Cookie", "Truck", "Car".  He cannot make a "B" sound, so "book" is "gook", "ball" is "dall", etc.  He is very interested in learning new words and spends a lot of the day trying to repeat new words that I say.  He is especially determined to figure out our family.  For a long time, I was "daddy" also.  Now that I have my own name, he frequently points to Mason and says, "Daddy", points to me and says, "Mama" (or whatever it is), points to Ryan and says "Ry Ry" and then points to himself and looks at me like "so, who am I?"  He still does not even try to say "Kaeden", but I'm hopeful that he'll figure it all out soon. 

As of today, Kaeden has 20 teeth!  He got his last canine tooth in today, and boy, did it make him cranky!  He's also done with his first round of molars, so I'm hopeful that we'll get a little break from teething for a while.  While he's not miserable when he gets new teeth, it does seem to bother him more than it ever did Ryan. 

So, that's pretty much the Kaeden summary for the moment.  I'll leave you with some more pictures from the past few months.  I love all of his expressions!

"Cheese!"

Cool dude :)

 

Taking after his brother, developing an interest in trains

Apparently feeling very powerful

Just wandering in the yard - he does a lot of this.  He's his own little person.

Back in May, I took both boys to Duke Gardens for Ryan's 4 year photos (post with those hopefully coming soon!) as well as Kaeden's 18 month photos.  Here are some more of Kaeden's...

 

Look at that mischievous face

Blueberries!

 Today we took the first of our usually numerous annual trips to the blueberry farm.  It was one of the most fun mornings I have had in a long time.  Auntie & Atticus were able to come with us, and we all had a great time. 

 

The boys did really great.  Kaeden & Atticus had a hard time initially with the whole "blue only" idea, and that made it a little bit hard on the moms - it's difficult to pick many blueberries when you're constantly having to show your child exactly which one he's allowed to pick next.  But, they surprised me, and by the end, they really seemed to understand and did a great job finding the blue ones and picking them.  Nobody made a fuss at all about not being able to eat them while we were picking (another miracle!) and all 3 boys seemed to really enjoy it.  Ryan didn't want to stop!  I think he probably ended up picking more berries than any other individual.  He was a great little helper.

 

 

 

 Of course, berry picking can only entertain 20-month-olds for so long, so Atticus and Kaeden found some other ways of entertaining themselves.  My favorite by far was their holding hands interaction:

"Hey, I'm bored.  Want to hold hands?"

"I think this might work better. Let's try both hands."

"Umm, Kaeden?  I think we're being watched."

"Here, let's hug and be done with it."

We tried to get some photos when we were done picking, but they weren't exactly being cooperative.

The idea for this photo was that they would all be standing up, holding their buckets, looking at the camera.  Yeah, not so much.

It was a gorgeous day, so we decided to make a morning out of our outing.  The boys enjoyed checking out the animals:

 

And then we headed to the pond for a picnic snack.  It was lovely!

 

Of course, we had to let them try some of the blueberries too!  I think they liked them :)

  

Based on these photos, Ryan may have been more interested in counting his berries... I'm not sure.

 

And, once they were all filled up with snacks and in a better mood, we decided to try once more for a group photo with their prized berries.  Success!

 

 Many thanks to Herndon Hills Farm in Durham for yet another wonderful blueberry picking experience :) 

Ryan quote of the day

Ryan wanted to play on his new play set when we got home from church today, so Mason & I agreed that he'd be fine on his own - we told him to go ahead as long as he was careful and stayed in that area of the yard.  The following dialogue happened next:

 Ryan: "Can Kaeden play on my new playground too?"
Me: "No, I need to get lunch ready, so I can't watch him outside."
Ryan: "I'll take care of him. I'll make sure he doesn't fall, and I'll call you when he gets hurt." 

Yup, sounds about right.  Oh, kids.

Where I've been

In general, I try not to go too long without updating my blog.  When I get too far behind, I find it really hard (and a bit overwhelming) to get caught back up.  But, sometimes life happens, and you have to put the blog on the back seat for a while.  And lately, it feels like life has been happening a lot.  So, this post will be to hopefully catch up on the big picture of what's been going on in our lives and then I really do hope to go back and fill in my gaps.  

 May always seems to be a crazy month for us.  For one thing, there are just a lot of birthdays (including Ryan's 4th)!  Combine that with end-of-year preschool happenings and the various other typical things, and it can get a little wild.  This year was made even more crazy by the continuation of house settling-in, and our biggest news of late... 

I'm pregnant.  Surprise!  We actually found out in early April (10 days after moving in... no wonder I was so tired!), but the first trimester was still in full effect for most of May.  While I am thrilled about this newest member of our family, this pregnancy has been much more challenging than my previous two, with a good bit of nausea and extreme fatigue.  Thankfully, I have now reached the beginning of the second trimester and I've been feeling much better.  I was able to have a 12-week ultrasound, and it was wonderful to see our little baby with a strong heartbeat and moving all around.  If you don't like ultrasound pictures, skip ahead now.

Hand

Head/torso

 

 

 

 

 

3-D Photo... apparently he/she was feeling shy :)

Not surprisingly, Kaeden is completely oblivious, but Ryan is very excited.  When we told him, he just got this big smile on his face, reached out and touched my belly, and then leaned over and kissed it.  He is quite adamant that the baby be a girl, so it will be interesting to see how he reacts if he's wrong.  He loved seeing the ultrasound photos, and quickly decided that he was going to draw the baby a picture.  This is his depiction of what the baby looks like:

The circle is my belly, baby's in the middle, the brown stuff to the right is the umbilical cord, and the red and yellow stuff in the bottom right corner is the food.  I guess he does listen to what I say after all.  Note that there is a bow in the baby's hair... we could be in big trouble.

During May, we also had a wonderfully refreshing trip to the beach with Mason's parents and a fun visit from my parents and brother.  After a rough couple of months, both of those weekends were incredible and I am so thankful for supportive families!

June was supposed to be our catch-up month.  We don't have a whole lot going on... school's out, so we have a lot more flexibility during the week, and fairly wide open weekends.  Well, on May 31, Mason badly sprained his ankle playing ultimate frisbee.  So much for our catch-up month.  Mason's had to be off his feet most of the time (all of the time during those first few days), and I've been taking care of the boys, house, etc. pretty much on my own.  It's been challenging for sure, but I am just so thankful that I am at least feeling better now.  While it's still quite painful to be up on his feet for very long, Mason has been able to walk without crutches the last couple of days and can help out a bit more.  We'll take what we can get!  

I feel like life hasn't been "normal" for a very long time now (with selling the old house, preparing to move, moving, settling in, first trimester pregnancy, etc.) and I am someone who craves routine and consistency.  So, it's been a challenge for me lately, but I know that God is teaching me some important lessons through all of this, and I am learning to take things as they come.  The day-to-day is not always easy, but I am extremely blessed and thankful for God's abundant gifts.  

And that's where I've been.