It amazes me everyday the things Ryder proves he knows. Take today for example:
Marc was going to take Ryder out with him to get a cup of coffee, and he said to Ryder, “I can’t find my wallet” to which Ryder responded, “money!”
Then, Marc said, “Well, maybe we’ll go down to the cupcakery” and Ryder said, “Helado!” which is the word he uses for pretty much anything sweet, but cupcakes in particular.
Ryder was sitting on his changing table and I was putting on his jammies for bedtime. He was wiping at his tongue saying, “pelo doggie boca acky.”
Translation: “Dog hair in my mouth. Yucky.”
How awesome is that?
For about 4 months, Ryder was eating any finger food I would put down in front of him. I was so proud of my big eating boy! Now, he is starting to get a bit more picky … vegetables are dipped in hummus or doused in butter and paremesan cheese. And even then, sometimes tossed for the dogs.
Enter “Deceptively Delicious” – the cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld that incorporates healthy fruit and veggie purees into family-friendly meals. I’m sold.
After spending 8+ months pureeing Ryder’s food, I was actually starting to miss my quality time with the Food Processor. Deceptively Delicious is helping me get back to it!
Most of the recipes I’m planning to try use purees of cauliflower, broccoli, spinach, butternut squash and carrots. Since these are all in season right now in Western Washington, I’m pretty psyched to hit up the Farmers Market this Sunday and spend my afternoon steaming, roasting and pureeing veggies to put in the freezer.
I’m even going to use my SoEasy freezing trays again. Even though the recipes call for 1/2c. + of puree, the cubes are easy enough to measure out (2 cubes is about 1/4c.) and it’s just so darn convenient.
First off, I am having a really hard time believing that Ryder is a “toddler.” Yeah, sure he’s been walking for 4 months now, is fully communicating in two languages (three if you count pointing) and has a mouthful of teeth … but he’s still a “baby” in my mind!
But, alas, he is a toddler and he is starting to assert his independence. Which is making for some very challenging nights in the Angelo household.
I posted in September how his new molars were causing a ruckus in the sleep schedule. 3 are fully through now, yet the sleep issues continue. It’s come to be that he is in the habit, now, of waking at 11p in a fit and spends the rest of the night waking, wrestling, sleeping and asking for milk.
Last night was horrible. He woke at 11p and refused to go back to sleep until nearly 2am – wanting, instead, to read every book in the library, drink a gallon of milk and point at animals on his new Olympic National Park picture map.
I met with Rebecca Michi, a sleep consultant, today to get her take on the situation. She suggested something so radical, it had the 4 other sleep-deprived parents at the table gasp in shock. Ryder is in a pattern of waking at 11p every night. To break this pattern, I am to wake him at 10:45 so that it will disrupt his sleep cycle and “reset” it, so he will go back to sleep. The idea is that he will then go back to sleep for the remainder of the night (like he used to). I’m just out of my mind enough from lack of sleep that it seems like a reasonable approach. I will try it tonight.
The other thing she mentioned was this notion of my “independent toddler.” He is pushing the limits to see what he can get away with. Waking when he wants, playing at 2am, getting a bottle of milk whenever he chooses. It’s time for us to be firm during the night and set the boundaries. It’s time for sleep. It’s not playtime. No, you don’t get milk in the middle of the night. Makes perfect sense, really. He’s been pushing us for the last three weeks … earlier wakings, coming to our bed, increasing demand for milk, until finally the culmination of craziness last night.
It’s going to be hard … but ultimately, I know we’ll be happier for it.
Stay tuned.
Ryder’s language skills have been blowing up! So much so, that it’s difficult to keep track of all the things he knows and says.
Here’s the most recent list of words out of our babe’s mouth:
A little over a month ago, I reported the sure sign that Ryder had more teeth on the horizon (white bumps on his lower gums). While those particular teeth have yet to actually break through – his mouth has been an explosive of new chompers! I can hardly keep up with all the new arrivals, but I can say for certain that there are two large teeth on the upper and one large molar-sized baby on the bottom.
All the teething would explain why Ryder hasn’t been sleeping for the past three weeks. Our angelic nights of sleeping from 8pm-5am (then drifting back off with a bottle in bed until 7am) have been replaced by 3am hollering and cries for “moooomy” and “daaaadaaa.” Sometimes we have luck by bringing him to bed with us, and he’ll sleep until 6am.
But now I’m starting to wonder … is he just falling into a new pattern, and not really suffering from teething? He’s pretty locked into the 3am wake ups, ala the old routine he used to follow.
At a loss for what to do.
After a pretty long lull in the teething process, it appears as though Ryder has two new lower teeth coming in. The tell-tale white lumps have been showing up for a couple of weeks, but now they are hard and he is biting on everything!
It seems like things on the language development front have been moving so fast, I can hardly keep up myself, let along blog about it.
Here’s a little summary of all the nifty new tricks Ryder has put in motion over the last three weeks (or so), in as close to order of adoption as my memory will allow:
I hope I’m not jinxing us – but Ryder has slept through the night for almost two full weeks! Put him down at 7p and don’t hear from him until 5am, when I bring him to bed and he chills out (nursing) until usually 6:30 or so.
Marc reports that Ryder slept until 8am last Saturday! Figures, it was the day I was up at 4am to run a half marathon.
Last night I hear him peeping and crying a bit, but it wasn’t more than a minute and he was back to sleep on his own.
Next project: Get him to start going to sleep on his own, without the aide of a boob or bottle.
Many months ago, I posted about how I was trying to get Ryder to take a “lovey” and we introduced the Cozy doll. He seemed to like it ok for awhile, but he never “attached” to it. I had decided to move on from the idea, thinking that it’s probably best to not get attached to an item that can easily be lost, when it occurred to me that Ryder was using my bangs (and ponytail and hair in general) as his lovey to go to sleep at night.
When I’m nursing him or rocking him, he always reaches up to my hair and twirls and pulls it. Sometimes, on really tough evenings, I would find myself leaning into his crib so he could stroke my hair and drift off to sleep.
My hair is probably not a good solution for a lovey.
So, for his first birthday – I gave him a stuffed Lion from Playful World that has stringy hair on it. Slowly, but surely, he has started to stroke the Lion mane as he drifts off to sleep. He’ll still take my bangs over the toy any night – but I think he is finding comfort in his new friend during the night.
