Life As We Know It
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Friday, September 07, 2001
It's hard to remember now that Ryan was kind of late to talk and late to combine words. He is startlingly articulate sometimes now. Tonight Mark told Ryan they were reading the third book before bedtime, and Ryan said, "No, actually this is my second book." Seemed kind of impressive that he would say "actually"! And last night when I told him he had better put on two shoes instead of just the one he had on, he replied, "Yeah, 'cause I might have to walk and Kyle would make me fall down and hurt myself on the sidewalk." That was 20 words in a row, when I used to wonder if he'd ever combine 2! He continues to be nitpicky about language, too. Last night he said, "Let's go to Fuddrucker's!" (a restaurant we were about to go to). I said, "Fuddrucker's is yummy, isn't it?" He said, "No, just the food!" Groan. He also tells fairly involved stories now--tonight he was talking about how his Curious George toy was going to eat him up and the doctor would have to fix him and clean him up after he went through the monkey's stomach! An unrelated thing that amazes me is that he knows his right from his left, and has for several months. I don't think I knew that well until about 2nd grade!
We are having trouble figuring out what to do about his preschool right now. We signed him up for 3 mornings a week, but they just told us today, right before school, that not enough kids signed up for them to offer the third day of class. They had us take him to a different class today than he will be going to on Mondays & Wednesdays. But that seems confusing, and the other class has mostly older kids (3.5 to 4.5), so we are trying to decide whether to keep him in there or drop the Fridays. We need to decide soon so we'll know how much to pay for this month! He did well today, but was by far the smallest person in the class as he's even small for his own age, and seems to lack the social skills he'd need to thrive in there. But he has been SOOO difficult and strong-willed lately, fighting us about every single issue throughout the day, that I honestly think the extra break from each other would be good for both of us! If we drop the Friday class, we may use the time and money to do something else, like a Mothers of Preschoolers group, a gymnastics class, or joining the YMCA or something. Kyle is still having his usual mood swings. He is so happy when he is happy, and did great today running errands with me while Ryan was in school...something I don't usually dare to do with him. But in the afternoon and evening he was miserable and tearful. We noticed, though, that he seems to be getting a third tooth! An upper one this time. We have given him Tylenol and also bought some Hyland's Teething Tablets tonight, and hope he'll sleep fairly well. (Ha.) Unfortunately, we think he may have a cold. He coughed a lot last night and I thought maybe it was just from all the extra drool, but tonight he got a bit sneezy and stuffy, so maybe he picked something up from somewhere--who knows where, maybe a restaurant high chair or some such? He did try to eat the tablecloth at Fuddrucker's last night... Kyle is starting to recognize words and it is sooo cute. A lot of times when we say a word he thinks he is supposed to know, he tries to wave, since we've been teaching him to wave for the word "hi" and twist his arm in a circle when we point to the fan and say "fan." He also showed his first signs of interest in solid foods yesterday, finally! When we put him in the high chair, he immediately got excited, started salivating, and leaned forward. When I held out the spoon, he lunged for it. He then got quite upset to find Gerber Apples & Chicken on that spoon, and refused to eat it without spitting it out, but when we substituted some yogurt (kids' yogurt that is probably sugary...yikes), he ate quite a bit of it happily! So now we're trying to figure out what we can feed him. He apparently can't stand baby food, but has also rejected several types of table food, and doesn't seem too adept at eating Cheerios yet, either. I offered him a bite of real banana today and he was horrified, and spit it out as quickly as he could. Here are the boys acting silly "together"--though they don't really interact much, they do go out of their way to invade each other's space. ;-) Don't ask me what they were doing or why they were wearing such questionable outfits! :-) 
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