Baby Dickey » Development

where did my baby boy go?

babydickey — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 14:46:03 +0000

Ohhhh, Ryan. I don’t know where to start! I feel like I’m about to write an essay about you. You amaze me every single day with the things you’re learning and doing and saying and the things you understand.… when did you get so big?!?!?! Seriously, where’d my baby boy go? (ahhh, I’m going to start crying! lol)

You aren’t speaking a whole lot yet so sometimes it’s easy to forget what a big boy you are–but then you go and show us how to do something and it’s just amazing. You’re clearly watching our every move and picking up on everything we say and do <—scary thought, right?

Every morning, you make my coffee for me. I put you on the counter in front of the Keurig and you take it from there–for the most perfect cup of coffee ever. And it makes you so proud

If I ever hurt myself, like… stub my toe, and say “ouch!” you come running over to kiss my boo-boo. If I get frustrated, you give me a big hug. If I’m reaching for something or trying to open a jar, you run over to be my little helper. You’re the sweetest boy EVER. Even your playgroup teacher said so. <– proud mommy

You are talking more and it’s getting easier to understand what you need, which helps us both out a lot. Here are some of your recent favorites and most used: juice, again, door, go, more, no, dipe dipe (diaper), bomb (bottom, like for a diaper change), keys (you LOVE to use our keys to open the front door or car), book, car, and my favorite… MOM!

What happened to mama and mommy?? It’s exactly like that Family Guy commercial where Stewie says mom over and over. If I’m not paying attention, it’s “Mom. Mom. MOM. Mom. mom. Moooom. Mommmm. Mom. MOM,” until I just can’t help but start laughing, it’s too cute.

You love to do everything mommy and daddy do. One morning I noticed you paying particular attention to me when I was putting on my eyeliner. Later in the day, I was packing stuff in the bedroom and you disappeared. After a couple minutes, I hear “Mom. Mom. MOM.” so I come and find your face covered in my eyeliner, hahaha. You tried to get it around your eyes, too!

You love brushing your teeth with mommy and feeding the cats and helping me do laundry. You help clean–you love to take towels and “dust” or wipe up spills on the floor. Actually, the other day, you spilled some food on the floor and you started to pick it back up and put it on the table. Then you looked at it, shook your head, and put it BACK on the floor! I watched, curious. Then you ran off and came right back with your little play vacuum cleaner (ya know, the kind that doesn’t actually suck up anything, but it makes sounds like it!) and tried to vacuum up the pieces. CUTE! And when mommy vacuums? You help by moving light furniture and toys out of the way as I come through. Ahhh, I love you.

my little stud

You’ll be 22 months old in just under 2 weeks. You’re in size 24 month/2T clothes and you love wearing hats. Your shoes are size 6. You’re still in cloth diapers (but you have to wear disposables at playgroup and you’re in size 3–4). Sometimes you take your diaper off and ask to use the toilet, but have only actually gone to the bathroom in the toilet once (YAY!).

You’re still breastfeeding… kind of. You really only nurse once a day–first thing in the morning. You wake up in your crib, call for “MOM!” and I pick you up and put you in my bed–really, that’s more for me, so I have a chance to slowly wake up, haha. That’s when you nurse… sometimes during the day you’ll ask for it, and I let you, but you latch on and are right back off again, pulling my shirt back down and saying, “no.”

We ask you where the baby is and you point at my belly and sometimes give it a good pat to say “hi.” I’m so excited for you to have a baby sister because I know you’re going to be the best big brother ever! In the picture below, you’re resting your head on my belly like a pillow because I asked you to talk to your baby sister.

Okay, we’re not always sunshine and glitter, right? Although I do feel like there have been less tantrums lately… the word NO is your new favorite, so there’s a lot more… defiance. We regularly battle when it’s time to change your diaper or your clothes or put your shoes on or get in the car or… anything else you feel like saying NO! to. We’re working on it… counting to 3 or mentioning a time out work some of the time.

You’re a little daredevil. You have tumbling class once a week (where you’re the only boy) and you love to climb and jump and swing… they even have a zip-line that you love to ride over and over (and that mommy wishes she were small enough to ride lol). Remember falling off the dock into the lake? And the rock-climbing wall?

You love cars and trucks and buses and tractors. You get SO excited to see a big yellow bus drive down our street. You yell, point and put your hand on your forehead, like “OH MY GOSH!” It’s adorable. You love “choo choos” and we play with your trains a lot–we even got you a little “choo choo” couch. You have a cozy coupe car you love riding around the house and fixing the tires with your screwdriver (because you saw daddy do it once). You love having your own little chairs. You love music and you love to dance (a video post on that coming soon!) and you kinda sorta are starting to watch TV–and by that, I mean you’ll look at it for a couple minutes instead of not at all. You love Sesame Street and Big Bird. You LOVE reading books and when we reach the end, you say “AGAIN!” So we read it a second time… and then you say AGAIN! So we read it a third time.… and then you say AGAIN! And mommy (or daddy) reads the same book over and over as many times as we can stand it, haha.

oreo cookie mouth

You know every animal imaginable. We got a new book called Curious Critters with real photography and you can amazingly point out weird things… like the katydid (what the crap is that, right?!), jumping spider, screech owl, praying mantis, bluejay, salamander, monarch.… you’re just so smart!

You’re starting to recognize some letters, which always blows me away. You have alphabet books and magnetic letters for your easel… I can ask you to show me a letter and you will. Or you’ll hold one up and say the sound it makes or a word that starts with that letter. B for ball, M for mommy, T for TV, D for Daddy, R for Ryan… once I asked you what B was for (you always say ball) and this time you thought for a second then took off in the other room and came back with a ball in your hand. Awwww, LOVE YOU!

The past (almost) 2 years have flown by way too quickly and I look forward to every day with you and watching you grow into a little man. You will always, always, always be my baby boy.

Love you to the moon and back,
Mama and Dada <3

13 months: developmental milestones

babydickey — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 14:00:37 +0000

When Ryan turned one, I wrote a post about making milestones and decided to keep it up. He’s now 13 months (almost 14!) so let’s check it out… thanks to babycenter.com…

13 months old

Mastered Skills (most kids can do):
*uses 2 words skillfully
*bends over and picks up an object

Ohhh, Ryan’s a pro! He easily bends and grabs and here’s a list of words he says, off the top of my head: hi, mama, dada, kitty cat, cracker, milk, stop

Emerging skills (half of kids can do):
*enjoys gazing at his reflection
*holds out arm or leg to help you dress him

Hmm, I don’t think I’d say Ryan enjoys gazing at his reflection. Sure he’ll look in the mirror at himself (if I tell him to) and he’ll smile, but he certainly doesn’t gaze. I didn’t know ANY toddler sat still long enough to gaze? Haha. But really, he has no interest. But we’re good to go on the other one–he holds his legs up for pants and then lifts his butt so we can pull the pants up, haha.

Advanced skills (a few kids can do):
*combines words and gestures to make needs known
*rolls a ball back and forth

Ryan does make gestures for what he wants–he’ll point, wave or grab at–but it’s never combined with a word… only with a noise like a whine or grunt! As for the ball… I just saw him do this for the first time about a week ago!

Who doesn't love a dancing baby?!

babydickey — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 02:51:49 +0000

Making milestones?

babydickey — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 00:45:33 +0000

I’m stealing this lovely idea from Crunchy VT Mommy (who also stole the idea from someone else… we’re all just a bunch of thieves! Babycenter.com has milestone charts where you can check monthly milestones to see if your child is on track. I don’t really care because I think Ryan is just peachy but I thought it’d be fun to do.

SO — my big boy is now 12 MONTHS OLD!!!! And here is what babycenter claims:

Mastered Skills (most kids can do):
–imitate others’ activities
–indicates wants with gestures

Ryan definitely imitates activities. Anything remotely shaped or sized like a phone gets put to his ear and he starts jabbering away. He puts my hair brush to his head… the other day he managed to get my toothbrush and he also but that to his head (like he was combing his hair). He loves doing “Soooo Big!” and will imitate faces too.

But I’m afraid we’re behind on the second task. He doesn’t really gesture… he definitely doesn’t point… he might lean toward something or put him arm out in the general direction and whine. That’s about as far as we get with that one!

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do):
–takes a few steps
–says one word besides “mama” and “dada”

Ohhh yea, we got these down! Ryan is practically running these days. He has been walking (or taking steps) for a month now, I think. And mama and dada are his main words, but once in awhile you can get him to say “cat” or “kitty cat,” which comes out a little more like “kkki kkaa.”

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do):
–walks alone
–scribbles with a crayon
–says two words besides “mama” and “dada”

Yep, he walks alone!

Ummm… a crayon?!?! Now I feel guilty because we haven’t even tried! I kind of picture that as more of an EATING CRAYONS event, than a DRAWING WITH CRAYONS event. Anyone?

And no, we’re not there on 4 words total yet. Ryan speaks Russian, I swear, so I’m not sure what words he’s saying He sure tries hard though!

I got a bloody nose from a bully. His name is Ryan.

babydickey — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 20:33:21 +0000

Umm, I thought the “terribles” didn’t start until they were TWO? Okay, Ryan isn’t terrible, but… he’s violent! Anyone else have this problem??! He doesn’t get much interaction with other babies his age, but it’s not just kids he’s violent with, it’s us too.

He currently likes to slap the face–and while his hands are in the vicinity, he’ll grab a chunk of skin too. Or claw and scratch. The other day he got my nose and when I put my hand over it because it hurt so much, my hand was dripping blood.

It’s an issue because Ryan will whine because he wants to be held–okay, not a problem–but then we go to hold him and he won’t stop hitting us in the face, scratching at our eyes, or pulling our hair! We sternly tell him to stop and that it hurts, but it’s not working. We set him down and walk away (which makes him cry). But he hasn’t learned ((yet??!))

So I figure it’s normal for a baby his age? But then my ICAN ladies come over for our monthly meeting and one of them brings her 15 month old. Ryan pummels him, tries to crawl on top of him, pulls his hair, takes his toys, goes for his eyeballs. And what does this poor kid do? Nothing. It’s not like I expected him to “fight” back (okay, maybe I kind of did), but he just went on his merry way, not even once concerned about knocking over Ryan or grabbing his nose. ((And yes, I intervened when Ryan was acting like this and told him to play nice, don’t hit, etc etc etc))

So why does Ryan do it!? Is it NOT normal? Or even if it is, what are your best tips to teach him to stop?

Ryan on camera!

babydickey — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 21:00:33 +0000

I don’t post enough videos here of the lil guy! Partially because he’s impossible to video. As soon as the camera goes on, he stops everything and either just sits there or comes after the camera, trying to take it from me! But in this one, he was being entertained by my sunglasses and by his uncle (Steve’s brother)–he’s the one screeching in the background, haha.

Ryan at 9 months old

babydickey — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 03:04:45 +0000

I KNOWWWW he’s almost 10 months old. But at least I actually took these pictures two weeks ago (yea, when he was about 9.5 months old). I’m behind! I’ll catch up next month?!

Dear baby boy,

You’re growing so quickly! You’re still not walking yet, but you’re getting braver. We’ll catch you standing up without holding on, but as soon as you realize you’re doing it, you’ll drop to the ground. I’m excited for your first steps, but like I said last month, can you slow down?! The term “time flies” has never had so much meaning.

You’re still mainly breastfed, but we’re trying to add in 1–2 meals a day for you. Sometimes when we’re eating you YELL for some food, haha. You really like tomatoes and toast! Yogurt and applesauce are pretty good… and cheerios. I guess you’ll eat just about anything, really!

You get in to everything. The tiny rocks in the fireplace (which quickly led to another gate), the drawers in the bathroom (which led the keeping the door shut), oh and you love to put stuff in the hole of your diaper champ and move the handle… disgusting, really. So we’ve turned it around to face the corner. Little stinker! You LOVE playing in the fridge:

You also love pulling everything out of everywhere… the clean clothes out of your drawers, trash out of the garbage, dishes out of the dishwasher, toys out of your toy chests, clothes out of the dryer… and speaking of the dryer, you were helping me with laundry one day when I looked down and you had climbed INSIDE the dryer! Have I mentioned that you’re a little stinker?

You bear crawl when you’re outside to keep your knees off the grass, it’s too cute. You can go DOWN steps now! And you’re so careful too. When you first learned to stand, you’d be so careful sitting back down, dropping so slowly. When you go down a step (or even down from the couch!) you go up to the edge and survey the situation, turn around, drop one leg and then the other. Mommy and daddy are amazed!

You’re still chatting away! You’d think your daddy and I spoke a language other than English for all the sounds you’re making. You have SIX teeth now! The top 4 came in almost all in one day, it was crazy. Apart from a runny nose and some fits of biting your mama while nursing, you handled it like a champ.

Daddy takes you to music class once a week where you have fun crawling up to all the other babies to say hi He has so much fun with you, mommy wishes she could go too! But we get lots of cuddle time at night! You take all your naps in your big boy crib and you start out there at night for a few hours. The next time you wake up after I go to bed, you crawl into bed with me

When you were born, you were identical to your daddy, but now people are saying you’re starting to look like me and that makes your mama pretty happy You’re one adorable little boy! You’ve discovered your teeth and sometimes grind them together, but most often you make this face… we call it your “tough guy” face because it makes your jaw stick out, it’s pretty cute. You also make another new face when you’re starting to get upset–your face gets all scrunchy, haha. Who did you learn that from?!

I just changed your diaper and it reminded me… that task has become nearly impossible. You love the part where the diaper comes off. You have no problem sitting still for that! You usually giggle about it and even if you’ve been crying it suddenly makes you happy! But that’s where it ends. The new diaper doesn’t stand a chance against your will to flip over, grab anything in sight (including my face), try to get off the changing table… we have to get creative every time with a new toy to distract you, haha. Let’s just say we’re getting pretty speedy at diaper changes out of necessity! (Stinker!)

I’m going to guess you weigh around 20 pounds… you haven’t been to the doctor in awhile, but you go for a check-up next week. You’re in size 12mo clothes now!! Sometimes you wear size 18mo too, oh my gosh. That makes you sound way too old, baby boy!

You’re sound asleep right now… tonight you had your first bath like a big boy! Most of the time mama likes to shower with you or I used to sit in the bath tub with you. Tonight I put a couple inches of water in the tub, laid a towel on the bottom so it wasn’t slippery, put in some bath toys, and you had a blast! It was great to watch you crawl across the tub for the first time–with your arms and legs in the water–you splashed around and giggled away

And pretty soon it’s time for me to get my cuddle bug and go to bed!

Love you to the moon and back 9,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 times
<3 momma and dada

Our poor attempt at babyproofing

babydickey — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:08:21 +0000

Ryan started crawling a few weeks ago and shortly after he started pulling himself up to stand. Just the other day he started scooting along the side of the couch while standing. We have a mobile machine!

And we totally weren’t prepared. I figure you should probably babyproof BEFORE your baby is able to get all over the house, so you don’t run into problems like this:

Little stinker! And outlets are even more attractive to little baby fingers when they’re low to the ground and baby can crawl right up to them. How do they always know what they aren’t supposed to do? We learning quickly that outlet covers were a MUST HAVE.

Depending on the layout of your house, baby gates are allow probably a must have. We have a pretty large room and we’re able to close a sliding door to the kitchen and french doors to the porch. That leaves us with one opening–to the main hallway. Problem is, it’s like a double-sized doorway… we’re going to need one of those jumbo sized gates. We haven’t gotten around to buying one yet (any tips?!?!) so we’ve been using couch cushions! We have a MASSIVE couch (an “L” shaped one) so a few missing cushions don’t really matter. But I can’t say it looks very nice, haha.

Furniture? How do you handle desks and tables with all those sharp corners? Most things we just watch out for–we keep an eye on him, but now that he can stand, it’s a little bit harder. He’ll use our ends tables to pull himself up and unless we go pull him away, there’s the danger of him falling or hitting his head when he plops back down. (Yes, once he did this and I saw blood and I FREAKED OUT, but he had only scraped his gums (or something) and was totally fine and back to playing about 2 minutes later.

We have totally removed our coffee table. It was too big of a target for him! But I’d love to have one, so I’ve been looking. Even if you get a round or oval one, it still has edges, you know? So I’ve discovered ottomans. Anyone else use these as coffee tables??? There are some cute ones! This one has storage too (toy box?!) and is only like $70..

Not bad, right? And soft for Ryan!! But I need to find a matching one… I’ve seen bumper-like things?? That people sell to babyproof corners of furniture. But — ugly! Right? I’ve also seen corner protector things you can snap on? But I’ve heard (and I’d imagine!) that the baby can pull those right off!

Cabinet locks. We don’t have any of those on yet, mainly because Ryan doesn’t really go anywhere with cabinets. Sometimes we let him crawl around the kitchen, but only when we’re in there–and our cabinets are kinda babyproofed already! I mean, they snap shut, so they’re pretty hard for him to pull open (so far).

WHAT ELSE?! What else do we need, what’s unnecessary? Like the toilet lid locks… really? I suppose I’m thinking of Ryan as he is right now–but I guess when he’s a bit older and way more mischievous, we’ll want a toilet lock?! Haha.

Tips and stories appreciated!

Does your baby like the car?

babydickey — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 03:18:04 +0000

I posted just the other day about how Ryan’s personality has flipped and he’s so happy and smiley all the time. That’s true, but… his behavior in the car has also flipped. He used to love riding in the car… he’d sit back there and play and talk away to himself… if he was tired, he’d fall asleep. It was awesome.

Now? He SCREAMS. The.whole.time. No matter where we go, even just 5 minutes down the road. Screams. Even if he just woke up and just nursed and has a clean diaper.… screams. Even if I play his favorite music and sing to him. SCREAMS!

As soon as we stop the car and turn it off, he stops. He knows we’ve arrived somewhere and he gets to get out. It’s driving me crazy! Like I don’t want to take him anywhere! A 5–10 minute drive, okay. But the 45 minute drive to the lakehouse? UGH. Or even the 20 minutes drive across town? I turn the radio up and he just screams louder.

Ya know what else is weird? He absolutely will NOT take a pacifier anymore. He only ever really used to when he was tired… he’d take it and fall asleep. Now if you try to give it to him, he’ll cry about it and shake his head back and forth violently… making it near impossible to get it to his mouth anyway. So now what puts him to sleep? Yea, me. Told ya, boob man. But he has always been a boob monster — and he has always taken the paci.

This is all new since I came home from BlogHer. Related at all?? and WHY???? It hasn’t really been an issue (the paci thing… the car thing IS) because I’ve been off work the past week and a half. Ryan hasn’t needed a bottle. But what happens when I start my new job on Monday and Steve has to put Ryan down for naps? And he won’t take a paci anymore? I suggested Steve offer his nipple.….….….….….….….….. he didn’t like that idea. I could care less that Ryan doesn’t take a paci anymore, but it might affect Steve’s ability to put him to sleep–I guess we’ll find out!

Does anyone have ANY ideas??? Why he suddenly hates the car and why he suddenly refuses the pacifier? Is he worried I’m going to leave again and he doesn’t want to give me up? And in the car he can’t see me?! I have no idea! AH!

Ryan is CRAWLING! (vlogs)

babydickey — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 03:04:34 +0000

Seriously, it happened overnight. He went from rocking on his knees to CRUISING. We are SO not ready for this! I thought they eased into it more? Okay, the rocking should have been a clear sign, but… we are SO not ready for this! He’s a mover. And he seems to know exactly what he’s not supposed to have or where he’s not supposed to go. Umm, baby cage, anyone? So help me out, what are the must-have baby proofing products? What do we really need and what are your favorites???

This first video is pretty much him looking cute, refusing to crawl for the camera, haha.

This one has some more crawling action… followed by pure monster action:

Baby Dickey » Development

where did my baby boy go?

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Ryan at 9 months old

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