New Beginnings

Where to start? At first I thought that blogging was for people with way too much time on their hands. People that had no lives and wanted to blab about nothing on the Internet. Then I thought it was just for stay at home mommy's who can blog while their baby is sleeping. Finally, I realized that it's for anyone. Mainly those who want to show off their little one and basically brag about how awesome he/she is. Well in thaaaat case, sign me up! :)

I suppose this is the best way for people to keep up with the day to day hectic-ness that I call life. I can sit down when I have a minute to myself and tell everyone (that cares) what's new.

The newest thing in my life would have to be my ten and a half month old son, Ryder. The most important "thing" in my life. Before he was born I never saw myself having children. Not that I don't love kids, it just wasn't "for" me. I have nieces that I love to death and close friends with babies that I love too but I just never envisioned myself as a mom. Now that he's here, I just can't imagine my life without him. Not a day goes by that I don't sit and stare in amazement at this beautiful thing that I created. That I brought into this world. And that I get all to myself for the next eighteen years. (Whether he likes it or not!)

It's amazing to me how quickly he changes and grows, even on a daily basis. He's already in 12 month clothing and his pediatrician says he's in the 95th percentile in height. He gets that from both Mommy and Daddy. He's already very independent and although I like to see him accomplish things on his own and then praise him, only to see him get SO excited, it still hurts me a little bit that he doesn't "need" me anymore. He has two bottom teeth and doesn't seem to be getting anymore any time soon. His lack of teeth doesn't stop him from eating EVERYTHING he can get his hands on, even non food items. He has already decided that he's past the jar food stage. Has been for several months, whenever we try to feed him he just slaps the spoon away. We gave up on that a long time ago. Now he just feeds himself anything we put on his highchair tray. There really isn't anything he won't eat but he definitely prefers peas and green beans over any other food. He drinks his formula from a cup now and only takes a bottle to go to sleep at night. He also likes juice and water which I'm very happy about since he'll be off formula altogether very soon. As for non food items, well no matter how many times we vacuum/mop a day he'll still find the smallest things and out them in his mouth. I'm not sure what his fascination with trash is, but he's definitely turning into a little boy!

He's been what I would call an "early" developer since he was born. He rolled over at two months, he sat up on his own at four months, he crawled at six months and he's already starting to walk at just ten months. Of course, every mother thinks their child is the smartest baby ever but I really do believe he's a smart baby. He can give high fives, wave to you, he recognizes Mama and Dada and says both of our names when he wants our attention. He mimics simple words like hi, bye, kit (kitty) Nana, ba-ba and uh oh. Although we can't get him to say those words on command, he does do quite a bit of baby babble on his own.

We love to take Ryder everywhere with us and try not to let him stop us from doing day to day activities. We take him with us to visit friends and go on play dates. He loves visiting all his aunties and playing with his friends. He's always very good whenever we take him anywhere. He loves the car, his stroller and shopping carts. We never have to worry about him causing a scene because he's too busy being nosy and taking in his surroundings to make a sound. He's quiet as can be every time we go out and just likes to wave to people and smile at strangers. Even at restaurants people will come over to our table and tell us how well behaved he is for someone his age. I just smile and tell them how lucky we are to have such an amazing son.

He still doesn't sleep through the night which is sometimes frustrating to us because there's no rhyme or reason to the number of times he'll wake up a night. Some nights he'll go down around eight and stay asleep until four that morning, only to drink his bottle and go right back to sleep until eight in the morning and other nights he'll go down around nine and wake up five times to eat and then gets up for good at six in the morning! We've tried keeping him up later at night to see if he'll sleep longer, we've tried putting cereal in his bottle (his pediatrician's idea) to keep his belly full longer, we've even tried not letting him take an afternoon nap so he'd be "sleepier" at bedtime. Nothing helps. We just never know what we're in for each night until it happens. The one thing that we do every single night is stick to a routine. He has a bath which he loves, he gets all lotioned up and into his jammies, then he has his bedtime bottle while being rocked to sleep. Whether it's Mommy, Daddy or Nana we always do the same thing every night so he knows it's bedtime. Regardless of the days activities and how tired he may or may not be he still makes his own sleep schedule each night! On the weekends I wouldn't mind waking up with him five times a night but it always seems that he only wakes up once a night on weekends and has restless nights during the week when we both need to get up for work the next morning. It always happens that way! When we have plans early one morning he'll be sound asleep and we sometimes have to wake him to go out. Other mornings when we have lazy days and just want to sleep in, he's up with the sun! This is very tiring and starting to get old but I wouldn't change a thing. I love being Ryder's Mommy! :)