all things RYAN: 21 months

Ryan turned 21 months on March 27th.  That means only 3 months til he's 2 years old.  Sniff, sniff.  Though he's about to be a big brother, he will always be my baby.

~ He weighs about 27 pounds.  And is, uh, tall.

~ His speech has taken off...
* For 'yes' he started with 'ya, ya, ya' and moved to 'yep, yep, yep'.  He almost always repeats it, quickly,  
   3 times.
* 'May'  or 'May May' for Mazie
* While he can say 'Mama' and 'Mommy', he most often calls me 'Me Me'
* He knows all his animals sounds and refers to animals by their sounds not the animal type
* He calls his sitter, Lacey, 'C'
* He uses 'Dada', 'Nonna', and 'Poppa' regularly
* And of course he says 'No'.  Repeatedly.  Frequently.

~ He continues to be such a sweet, loving boy.  When we read a book that mentions family he will always lean over and hug me or Chris and if Chris isn't there he air hugs dada.  So sweet.  When Barney sings 'I love you' he will always hug and kiss me or Chris.  When his talking bear says 'hug me' he will find one of us and give us hugs, then he usually presses the bear to say it again and repeats the love.  We always do a family hug, a family kiss and a circle kiss before bedtime.  He sometimes presses my face into Chris's to make us kiss.  And sometimes, in the midst of playing, he will just run over and give me a hug or kiss and then run back to play.  I could go on and on.  Seriously, sweetest boy ever. 

~ He's down to one nap.  It lasts anywhere from an hour and a half to 3 and a half hours.
~ Until this month he wanted nothing to do with ice cream.  He didn't like the cold.  Recently he's come to realize just how good the cold stuff is and he now indulges in milk shakes with Daddy on a regular basis. 

~ I know toddlers are copy cats by nature but I think he takes it to the extreme.  Every. Single. Thing. we do gets copied.  Chris scratches his arm, Ryan does too.  I pop my neck, Ryan 'does' too.

~ For about 1 week, when upset or frustrated, Ryan decided it was a good idea to growl at us.  At first we laughed but when we realized he was continuing to do it we decided to completely ignore it and it soon disappeared. 

~ He knows all his letters.  He will point to any letter on request and he will repeat the letters when we say them

~ At 20 months he moved from size 3 diapers to size 4.

~ Like his mom, he loves a good salad bar.

~ He strives at his color matching game (matches a card with a color square to a picture of the same color).  However, if you ask him what color something is, there's a 90% chance its blue.

~ His physical abilities continue to increase.  He runs almost everywhere.  He's hopping (not quite jumping yet).  He's much more capable on stairs, though I don't trust him alone just yet.

~ People ask me what Ryan knows about the babies.  Well, he often lifts my shirts and kisses the babies.  And yes, he knows what babies are.  Constantly points them out when we're in public.  He even tries to feed the babies through my belly button.  However, I'm fairly certain he hasn't a clue the babies will actually come out of my belly and be brought to live at his house. 

~ He continues to be the MOST loved baby-ever to be born!