Rylen's New Word...

Well he can say the basic "Mama" "Dada" as well as some other words like "Pappa" for food, and "Bob" for Unlce Bob of course , but he discovered he can say a new word a couple of days ago. "DANGER" is his new word. In an effort not to overuse the word NO with him, I tell him "danger" when he's doing something that he is not supposed to do and that is well...dangerous. I use it when he's about to do something like attempt to plug in something in an outlet (don't worry they're covered but it's still a favorite of his) Well he's caught on, so this last time he was about to unplug a nightlight and I told him DANGER, so he points his finger at me and says his own version of danger which is just about as clear as you can get for an 11 month old. It was the cutest, and really did shock me. I didn't expect for his next word to be danger, maybe cup, milk, or something simple like that. He's a smart cookie that RyRy!

9 Month Stats & A New Word...

Ry had his 9 month check up on Thursday. He is...
17 lbs 10 oz
27 inches long
10 th percentile for both height and weight
He's crawling, standing, cruising, playing peekaboo, playing pat a cake, and seems to be a bottom dweller cause he eats anything he finds on the floor...anything. He's also still BFing but enjoys an occasional bottle.

So he's a little on the small side. I knew that. His brother and sister were both much chubbier than he is at this age. Brit was the chubbiest by far. Rylen eats really well too. He'll eat anything really, except jarred baby food.He'll eat a damn spider but will gag at the jarred green beans. Strange little guy.
Oh and today he said a new word...
Dada.
His Daddy was so proud. It took a little bit of coaching, but he's been saying it all day. Yesterday he said pappa which means food to him. I'm so proud of my big boy and very very sad that he's growing up so fast.
I still remember when he was in this (days before I had him)...


Now he's like this (attacking Brit's dollhouse)...


Here are Caden and Brityn at 9 months for comparrison I think he looks more like Brit than Caden...

SickER Children...

I probably shouldn't have complained about them being sick a few days ago...that was a walk in the park compared to last night!
Brit woke up...puke...Caden woke up...puke...RyRy woke up nursed then...puke. And that's pretty much how the night went from about 2 am till 7 am.
I've done A LOT of laundry all through the night and did more cleaning and disinfecting than I care to do in a long time.
I felt so sorry for them!! Those poor pitiful little babies. Caden was doubled over in pain saying "somebody save me" that broke my heart. Brityn was ok in between being sick, but asked for chocolate milk this morning...yeah I don't think so. My poor RyRy was a strong little guy. He actually looked better than the other two.
Our sleeping arrangements weren't too bad though. I didn't condemn them to a basement floor as Kate Gosselin does. Although if I had a basement that would not have seemed like a bad idea. I had both big kids in Brit's room on the floor, and Bryan slept with Rylen on the bed. I only got maybe 3 hours of sleep, the kids didn't sleep much either.
The culprit....well we went to a party this past Sat. and as it turns out at least 10 people that attended were all sick last night. Viral, food poisoning...who knows. I am just praying that Bryan and I will be spared. I'm exhausted from taking care of sick kids, and I soooo don't want to be sick myself.

Sick Children...

My 3 have a cold, I really hate summer colds. Last night Caden kept waking up whining cause he couldn't breathe, even after I slathered on the Vicks. Rylen kept waking up too. Well, he did sleep a 2 hour stretch from 2-4. Then he was awake from about 4:00 - 4:45 am. He wasn't too miserable, he wanted to play a little. He let me know by slapping me over and over again. Then he'd kiss me, then slap me again. He was just restless and was having a hard time nursing from being so stuffy. I layed him down and patted his back for about 30 minutes, and the kid would not fall asleep. Finally, I asked Daddy to intervene. He got up, fixed him a small bottle, and sure enough got him to sleep. Daddy says Ry only pulls that act on Mommy, not on him. Brit seems to be surprisingly ok, except for her out right defiance to pick up toys, but I'm not sure I can attribute that to being sick...she's just being Brit.
Now I've got a terrible headache from having a crappy night, and know it will probably repeat itself in just a few hours.

Happy 8 Months!

Rylen's 8 months old today! He's growing too darn fast! The other day I was putting away some of his outgrown clothes and going through all his newborn stuff, and I cried. My very last baby, and he's just getting so big. He's independent like his brother, wanting to crawl and cruise everywhere. He just started cruising around on the furniture, moving from place to place on his chubby little feet. These 8 months have flown by.

My Fluffy Stuff

My Mommy's gone nuts. She's going crazy just to keep my tushie comfy and cozy. So the other day she got me these cool new diapers. She said something about my chunky butt and how I needed a bigger size in my cloth diapies. The smalls don't fit anymore, and the mediums are getting snug.
So the mail man brought her a package, and boy you should have seen her face. She loves getting new diapers. There was a super cool punk rocker diaper, but she has to send it back cause it was too big for my heiney. So Mom washed the green and oranage ones asap and put them on my heiney. I'm so embarrassed...she even took pics!! While I do admit, I look pretty cute naked, I just know that these diaper pics will come back to haunt me, like say when I bring home a hottie. I'm sure Mom will pull out these pics then.
Anyway, here's me and my new fluffy stuff.

KnickNappies Disposanot

Bum Genius 3.0 (MOM'S FAV!!)

We Have A First Word....

It's "MOM" !! I've been "coaching" him for weeks. Repeating " Mom" or "Momma" over and over again. He says "MMM" but not the whole word. Well today he wanted to be nursed so he crawls over to me and starts pulling up on my leg and he's whining "mmm" and he said "mom". It was just the most precious thing! I tried to get him to say it for daddy and of course he doesn't say it on command. So right before bed I was changing his diaper, washing him up, and getting some new pjs on him and was coaching him again and he said it again. A while back we caught him saying bye, a few times, but then he stopped saying it so I don't think it was a real word. Not this time. It was not a fluke but his real first word ! I'm so sad, he's growing so fast. Here's some pics of the little guy!

"Driving" Grandpa's new Cub Cadet



The Arce Kids after church



Eating breakfast in his new highchair



Splashing in his baby pool



Eating his first ice cream cone - yes he ate the cone and all!!

Soooo Disgusting

Rylen is all over the place these days. He does his commando crawl mixed in with some bear crawls and just gets where ever he wants to go. Needless to say, it's getting harder to keep him in one spot. He's also very very curious, he's got a keen eye for objects that he shouldn't get. Paper, a leftover cracker piece, BUGS! Yes, I keep a clean floor- vaccum 2x a day sometimes but with 3 kids crap on the floor is inevitable.
We live in between huge corn fields and we have seen plenty of spiders. We have sprayed some sort of kid and animal safe spray all over the place to keep them out of the house cause I HATE spiders. I'm not one that is super scared of bugs, but I hate spiders.
Well those damn things still get in from time to time.
Yesterday while I was cooking lunch, I saw Ry in the corner by the back door. I went to move him closer to me and saw he had something in his mouth. Yeah you know where this is going....
So I freak out and swipe out his mouth and it was a freakin spider leg. Ewwww how disgusting! I rush him over to the sink to wash his mouth out the best I could and to make sure that I got it all out. I went back to the corner he was in to find a dead spider missing a leg. That little stinker had found a dead spider and decided to taste it. GAG. It's still grossing me out. I remembered the time that Caden took a taste of lady bug when he was about Rylen's age, so it must be a boy thing. Ugh, but it's just so disgusting.
Today Granpa gave him the nickname " Spidey". Fitting don't you think?

7 Months!

Well I am 7 months old today, well that is if my mommy gets this up before midnight. I am only 5 months away from being one! I think my mommy is sad about that, but I am loving growing up. I can eat all sorts of things now, I tried a gram cracker yesterday! I can also get around this place pretty easy, all I have to do is crawl, well it's more like commando style but hey-it gets me where I need to go. I am also starting to pull myself up. I sure am brave! Before you know it, I will be walking on 2 feet like my brother. He was walking when he was 10 months, so I guess I have to show him up! Look at me...daddy was just watching UFC tonight, and not paying attention to me so I did this to get his attention..



Here's another picture, my mom goes crazy with the pictures! I was bathing in the sink! What was mom thinking??

Battle of the Boob

I love breastfeeding. It's just the sweetest thing to have Rylen look at me and smile while he's nursing, and to have him reach up and touch my face while he's having mommy's milk. It's just our time.
BUT...at night my little leach, I mean sweet baby boy is stuck to me. All night long. I know he's only 7 months old, but many babies are sleeping through the night around now. Not Rylen, I have to pry myself away from him after nursing him at night, and hope that he doesn't wake up and start crying for more.
I breastfed my other two, and they were ferocious nursers also. Caden especially, he nursed every hour at night. Brityn did that sometimes as well. I tolerated it, sleeplessness is part of having a baby right? I stuck it out and figured I would just get rest when they were weaned. I could run on 5-6 hours of interrupted sleep no problem. Not this time.
It's much harder to tolerate this time around. I have 2 other children to take care of everyday and I need my boobs back so I can get some rest or I am just a grumpy, bitchy mess. After nursing my other 2 I figured I'd be a pro at this. Wrong! I need sleep, or at least less night time nursing sessions.
I have started to give him one bottle before bed so that he'd fall asleep with his tummy a little fuller. He's still waking up every 2 hours at night and about every hour from about 5-9 am. I tried just patting him back to sleep, and that's not working. I have even tried putting him in his crib which is a BIG step cause we're co-sleepers, and even that isn't working. Although I do sleep a little better in between feedings. I know I can't give up, I will nurse him till he's at least a year. It's just taking a little more effort on my part to not just throw in the towel. I keep focusing on the good, like the satisfaction I get by knowing I am the only one who can give him what he needs. I only hope that he'll ease up on the booby at night or I learn to just live like a sleep deprived maniac.

Chef Mommy to the Rescue

My little guy decided he wasn't going to like the jarred baby food. I tried as hard as I could mainly for the convenience factor, and he said NO! Well he didn't really, but I could read his face and that fact that he would gag with each spoonful said plenty. Grandma was sneaking him tastes of all kinds of things, scrambled egg, tortilla, avocado (his fave), and God know what else. It's no wonder he didn't want bland, watery baby food. So I had no choice but to cook up some baby food. I did it for Caden, and a few times for Brit so I knew what I was doing. On the menu for this week was
Baked Peaches with a sprinkle of cinnamon
Baked Apples with cinnamon and a teeny tiny bit of brown sugar
Baked blueberries, mainly to mix in with the apples for variety
Baked carrots
All smashed up to perfection! I didn't puree because Rylen has teeth and is learning to chew.
He enjoyed some carrots and peaches for lunch and dinner and LOVED it! So till he can feed himself finger foods like bits of chicken, I'll be making him yummy yummy food.

Here we go.....

He likes it!

6 Months Stats....

My big boy isn't as big as I thought he would be. We had thought that he may be closer to 20 pounds, it feels that way when I have to carry him as I'm doing chores around the house.
He was
16.5 LBS
25 1/4" Long
He's about the 25 percentile on everything, except his head. I can't remember the exact circumfrence ( I never remember the head measurements) but it was above average. LOL....what else can I expect, he's going to be a smarty pants! Anyway he's right on track on all his milestones. Healthy happy boy! (except for the shots)

6 months already?

Yes my little RyRy is 6 months old today! I can't beleive we're already half way through his first year. He just started to crawl, I love to see him do new things, but he's just growing too fast. I guess it's even more bittersweet because he's my very last baby.
Here's some pics from today.

My baby's been brainwashed

He's absolutely in love with Barney. What is it about Barney that just draws them in? I am not at all crazy about the idea of him wanting to watch tv. Neither of my older kids took an interest in tv until they were about 2.
It's totally my fault though. When he was about 3 months old I would place him in his boucey seat while I got stuff done and I would flip on the tv. I turned to pbs and the rest is history. As soon as he hears the good bye song he's all smiles. He sits there and tries to sing along "mmmm maaaaa". So here is my little guy and his best friend.


This was today...


Rylen and Grandma at Universal Studios Barney show