Yellow Yellow Everywhere

Last night was Belt Ceremony at Karate. My amazing little man was awarded his Yellow belt. He puts his whole heart and soul into it everytime he goes. I am so very proud of him!

This was Jimmie's 1st belt ceremony as a student. He has been working so very hard to earn his orange belt. I'm thinking he worked a little too hard because for the 1st time since the school was open, they have a student who skipped a belt. Yep, Jimmie was awarded his Yellow belt also last night. He skipped right over his Orange belt. I'm not sure who was more shocked, Jimmie or Ryan. It's a nice, healthy little competition they have going on.

I am so very proud of my 2 men. I am so glad they have found something they both enjoy so much that they can do together.

Way to go guys!!!!!

Tis the season... decisions, decisions, decisions

We are 3 very busy people. I'm tired. Jimmie is tired. Ryan is tired. I think we all need a 3 day long nap. We went to our town's tree lighting ceremony last weekend and had a great time. We actually met up with a little girl he goes to preschool with and he wouldn't leave her side. It was so cute. They sang and danced together the whole time. We had a couple of nice sleigh rides and got to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas. Who would've thought a kid would need more trains?!?! No interest to actually sit on his lap though. Oh well. We may try again this year or wait another year. He is a big scary man you know.

On Monday night, Ryan tested for his Yellow belt in Karate. There were a ton of people there and he had just woken up from a nap. He was a little freaked out but finally came around. He did very well. The belt ceremony is next week and he will be so excited. He has been working so hard. He gives 110% every time he is in class.

Last week we had parent teacher conferences at his school. They gave us a paper that says he is doing great. I asked if there was anything that we should be working on or any trouble he is giving them. He is a perfect little boy when he is there and they just love him. They said he is remarkable with his numbers. It just was so nice to hear all the good stuff. We did talk about switching him to 5 days instead of 3. They felt it would be a great idea. We just got the new tuition info for if we switched so now I just need to sell my soul to be able to afford it. First we need to decide if we really think it's a good idea to switch and then decide if we can stretch the rubber band called our finances. Right now, it's stretched a little too far.

Dentist anyone?

Yesterday was our first official trip to the Dentist. We went about 3 months ago just so he could sit in the chair and she could count his teeth. He really didn't want to let her anywhere near him so that's all we did.

I have been talking this up for about a week. I let him know exactly what was going to happen and how much fun it would be and how easy it was. He definitely does much better in new situations if he knows exactly what to expect. He did GREAT! He did everything asked of him. She polished his teeth and flossed them. His teeth are in great shape. He is doing a super job brushing and the spacing is perfect right now. Hopefully we can keep it up and avoid any issues for as long as we can.

Pre-school is going great. He loves it. He has made so many new friends. I need to hook up with a couple of moms to set up play dates. He keeps asking me about it. I'm not too sure about French though. I think he already knows more words than I can remember :).

We go to Locomotion every Saturday morning. What a difference the summer made. He is so much more independent now. He really enjoys working with Bill and playing in the wonderful obstacle courses he makes.

We went to our first Karate tournament on Saturday. We went just to support the kids from our school and to show Ryan what it is all about. He left there talking about how he wants to compete next time. We had a great time. All of the kids did great and thought it was awesome that Ryan was there cheering them on the whole time. He has kind of become like Norm from Cheers to everyone. He is always the first one everyone talks to and they all flock to him. It is really funny to watch. He is doing great and may even test for his next belt in December. I don't think he's ready to move up but the experience of testing will only help him later. Jimmie is testing for his next belt too so it's kind of a little competition at the house. Of course, Ryan is an orange belt right now while his dad is still a white. Sorry Jimmie :). Good luck to the both of you.

Liking the color Orange

Oh my... I need to do a lot of catching up :). Preschool seems to be going great. His teachers both say that he is doing wonderful and that he is a pleasure to have there. He on the other hand, doesn't seem to like to talk about it. He has made a lot of new friends and is always excited to go. Dropping off isn't quite as smooth, but after a little time, he willingly says goodbye. I hope that part gets easier soon. It breaks our hearts some mornings when he just wants you to stay. I am going to stick with the assumption that unless I'm told differently, things are going great.

Gymnastics started back up a couple of weeks again. We didn't know what to expect. Last year, one of us did it with him because they were so young. This year, he's on his own. Let me just say that we were all pleasantly surprised. He runs right in and does a great job. He is becoming so independent. It is a wonderful thing to see.

Karate... WOO HOO! My little man was promoted to ORANGE BELT last night. Last week he tested for his new rank and did perfect. Sometimes it's hard to remember that he is only 3. He didn't know he was getting it. We just told him there was a party at Karate. Someone must've slipped because all of a sudden he yells "I"m getting an Orange Belt, WOO HOO". He was one VERY excited little boy. Baby Doll has been bitten by the Karate bug now too and we think she will try it out this Saturday. I am having many, many mixed emotions about this. Time will tell.

Day 1.... A SUCCESS

Pepere and I went to pick him up yesterday. We weren't late, but the other parents were really early. Poor Ryan was standing there, just watching the door, in great anticipation. He saw me and lit up like a light bulb :). He was smiling away. It was a little crazy with everyone there so all's I got was that he did great and he was wonderful. We left and went out to lunch. I kept questioning him but he was too pre occupied playing to really give me the low down. He did say that he liked it and that he wanted to go back. He liked the cheese they had for snack time :). This morning, he ran into the playground and starting playing with all the other kids and forgot I was even there. Miss Arlene said he was wonderful yesterday and that he was a very happy child. It was nice to hear.

Preschool Dropoff

I am in tears. He's fine. We went to open house last week and have been prepping until we were blue in the face. Preschool is only for kids, we drop you off and then will pick you back up before lunch, you will have new friends, new toys, new books to read, great teachers... You get the point. I walked him inside to drop his stuff off and made a quick trip to the great little kids potty. Then we met his class outside on the playground. He found a corner with trucks in it and was in heaven. He looked up at me and said "Are you leaving now mommy?". That was when I knew he would be ok. Miss Pat took my hand and said it's ok, we'll see you at 11:30.

Vacation week

Oh so much to catch up on. We were on vacation last week and had a perfect week. The weather was wonderful. We went to NH for 3 days and went to Storyland. Ryan loved being in a hotel (except he kept calling it the hospital???). He loved Storyland. When we went on Tuesday, it rained a little in the morning so the park was empty. It was great. He only wanted to go on the tallest or fastest rides. He LOVED the roller coaster and log flume. He is such a little thrill seaker. We also went back to the little train museum down the road. He could literally spend hours and hours just looking at all the different setups. We will definately miss the place is it ever closes.

Potty training is offically done! I can't remember the last accident. However, he has now taken to calling us into the bathroom to show us his "big beautiful poop". Yeah, they are going to love him in preschool.

We go to visit preschool on Sept 4th and his first day got moved to the 8th. This really stinks because I need to be at work that day and Jimmie has his riffle course that day. I'll make it work, somehow.

Karate has changed him. He LOVES it and would go everyday if we could take him. Right now he goes 3 days a week. He just earned another star for his uniform. When we went to Storyland and needed to wait in line, he was fine. It didn't bother him that people were close to him or than they were even behind him. Karate has helped him in so many ways. I am so glad we found it and stuck with it.

He has his first sleepover last week. He slept at Memere's house. He went to bed late and slept through the night. He thought it was great.

He is just such a joy right now. I didn't want to come back to work this week :(. I can't believe how fast he is growing. He called me at work yesterday and told me that when he grows up, he wants to be an astronaut. I love you buddy and I hope you know that you can be anything you want to be.

Just a little update

We had PT eval this morning. There are still some areas we need to work on. We are going to do some special things at home and go back in 1 month for another eval. If he is still behind, we will resume weekly sessions.

Karate is gong GREAT! He even talks about how much he likes it. I am so very proud of him. Every session, they have an oath they say at the beginning and end of class. He has never even uttered one word of it. He would do the hand gestures but that was it. On Monday, he said the oath at the end of class, from start to finish. Mr. Lovely was amazed. He is so funny. He won't do anything until he knows he can do it completely and correctly. The first time he counted, it was to 20. The first time he tried his ABC's, he said the whole thing. Correctly. I am sure this part of his personality is why he only said one word at age 2.

He is continuing to do great with the potty. He even sleeps in just underwear and no accidents.

I have been trying to prep him for pre-school which starts in a couple of weeks. I have been trying to explain to him how we drop him off and he stays there by himself and then we will return to pick him up. I know he is understanding what I am saying because he will even say it on his own. Now, I'm just not sure if he is going to like it. Of course, it doesn't make it easy on him that the only people we have ever left him with are my parents. Oh, and poor UB when he was 6 months old.

We are on vacation next week. As much as I love my job, I so need this vacation. We are going away for a couple of days and then will hopefully get some work done around the house. If we just cuddled all week, that would be ok too :).

Just one more minute

Nap time seems to be a thing of the past. Sorry Pepere :(. It seems like we are now at the point where he will take a sporadic one here or there, but for the most part, they are a thing of the past. This means that we have pushed his bedtime back down to 8. So far so good. However, a couple of times a week, when he has had a really busy day like Monday, he will fall asleep on me while we are doing our rock and read. Every night we sit in the rocking chair and read 2 books of his choice. When the 2 books are done, he knows it's bedtime. This has always been our special, quiet daily bonding time. I LOVE this time. Last night was one of those nights that he fell asleep while reading. I know that someday, this time together will end. I had to hold him just one more minute and make sure I thanked God for my most wonderful gift. I don't know how I ever existed without him. I still get tears in my everyday when I watch him.

He had PT yesterday morning and is progressing wonderfully. I can't wait for the day when he has graduated from all of his services. He has come so far!

We also had Karate last night. Just me and him. We got there early and I need to say... it went GREAT! There were a couple of kids there and some bigger kids. He earned another tiny tiger patch because he always brings so much energy to class and is so good at following instruction. I am so very proud of him.

Going to consider it a success

I believe we are POTTY TRAINED. WOO HOO!!! He has not had an accident since Tuesday and has done wonderful. He is still wearing pull-ups at night but for the last 4 days they have been dry in the morning. I am so very proud of him.

Karate on Saturday was great! Ok, he was the only one there again but that is ok sometimes. He worked hard for 45 minutes straight.

We went to Palace Playland on Sunday with Jack and Ella. He is definately a thrill ride seeker. He loved the faster/higher rides. He had so much fun. He just idolizes Jack and would do everything Jack would do. He and Ella act like best buds. I am so glad we went.

It's days like this that I waited for

Yesterday was GREAT! Buddy was in the greatest mood. No attitude, no crying, just happy laughs. Potty training was great. No accidents. Karate was great. He went on the mat and was loud and did everything asked of him. He even earned 2 elastics. He acted up with Colin (the older 3 year old there). It was pretty funny to see them playing together and getting into trouble together. He's never reached out to the other kids before. We got there early and he went on the mat with Mr. Lovely alone for about 15 minutes. He then even waited on the mat for class to start. I'm not sure if this is what helped or if it was the vanilla ice cream with extra chocolate sauce to keep him awake because he hadn't napped. His father showed up 1/2 way through and was amazed and how well he was doing.

I'm not sure what happened last night though. About 1:30 he woke up. When I went in he was upset about shadows in his room. He kept asking to come sleep in my bed with me. I kept explaining to him that he needed to sleep in his room and tried to get rid of all the shadows. I finally crawled back in bed about 4:45. Uuuuggghhh.... I'm dragging bum today.

A little accident or 2

3 pee's in his pants and a poop as Pepere was asking him if he needed to go :(. We made a new rule. If you go in your pants, you put a car back into the bucket. The afternoon he did great and so far so good today.

OMG... Maybe just a fluke?

Today, he went all day in just his underwear. NO ACCIDENTS :). He even made a poop on the potty. His first time. When he got up he started crying and was yelling at Pepere to "get it out". Pepere was the wonderful man he is and explained that it's ok and what to do with it. Crisis averted. I am just so amazed at how well he is doing with it.

Karate. We are at our wits end. I don't get it. I don't get why it was ok and now it's not. I don't get why he won't go out on the darn mat. I DON'T GET IT. Jimmie is so frustrated. He spent yesterday yelling and Ryan spent the day crying. Yep. Great progress. Maybe he is just too young. I worry that if we don't stick this out, we are setting ourselves up for failure in many things to come. I feel that we need to do this for him. We will try again on Wednesday. Mr. Lovely said we could come in a 1/2 hour early to work alone with him. That would be great except it takes an act of congress just to get him there for class, nevermind earlier. Part of the problem yesterday is that he was awoke from his nap to go. Lately, his naps are not consistant and are getting later. I'm not sure if he's trying to give them up but he is a bear when he skips them so I feel like he still needs them. I think this is part of our Karate problem. He is either overtired come 5 o'clock because he hasn't slept or he was awoken from his nap and is a bear. I will try to get him there a little early on Wednesday to see if it will help at all. Stay tuned...

Mommy.... I went pee pee!!!!

A couple of weeks ago, I went shopping and bought a boadload of Matchbox cars and Hotwheels. I put them into a basket and called it the pee pee bucket. I explained to him that eash time he went potty, he would be able to pick a car. It was really sporadic for a couple of weeks. He would only go when prompted. On Thursday, Mackenzie came over in her big girl panties. She was doing great going on the potty. This must have intrigued my little wonder. He wore big boy underwear all weekend and did great! He would tell me when he needed to pee and ran over to the potty. I am so proud of him. I knew he would do it when he was ready. It looks like now may be the time.

No karate on Saturday. There was a match out of town. Today is Monday. Let's see what tonight brings.

I am so happy. Ryan had PT this morning. He hadn't been in 3 weeks because of scheduling conflicts. New Jen put him through a small test and he has already met quite a few of his goals. He was asking he to do the hard stuff and she is jsut amazed by him. His abs are still weak so we will keep working on those. I am so proud of my little buddy.

Karate....

On Saturday morning, before we left for camp, I took Ryan to Karate while Jimmie slept. He did GREAT :). It really doesn't matter that he was the only kid there does it?

Monday night was Belt Ceremony. Of course, Ryan wouldn't be getting a new belt but he would be getting his patches for his uniform. The place was packed with people. And guess what... Ryan did GREAT. He was on the mat and did everything asked and even went up and got his stuff. I think I've figured it out though. I think he felt safer on the mat than he did on the floor because there were so many people sitting on the floor. Kind of ironic how it worked out.


Wedensday was just me and him at Karate. Yep, it stunk again :(. He wouldn't go on the mat so I made sure he understood that he needed to sit and watch and that if he was too tired to go on, then we needed to go home and go to bed. When they took a break, I finally got him on. He wouldn't go to his point tough and was jsut playing in the mirrors. Ms Lovely said it was great that he was just on the mat and it was ok. When he tried to run past her, she held him on a point for 2 minutes. He screamed bloody murder. But once it was done, I held him and calmed him down and got him right back on the mat. At that point class was done but he seemed fine so we will see how he reacts on Saturday. This is becoming almost fun. Ms Lovely did say that it took one of the other kids 1 1/2 months to even step on the mats. That was a little encourgement.

I just wanted to update on his new meltdowns. They have slowed down greatly and we have been able to manage them much better. I think we are over that little bump in the road. Let's see what is next on the horizon.

On Saturday, we left to spend a couple of days at a camp on Sebago Lake with Jimmie's family. They rent a huge camp and everyone stays over. The weather wasn't the greatest, but we had a good time. Ryan slept with us in a king size bed and did wonderful. He LOVED playing in the sand on the beach. We really need to get working on building his sandbox before he turns 18. We left early Monday afternoon to head back because there was a belt ceremony for Karate that night that we didn't want him to miss. We really wish we had been able to spend more time with the family and let him play with his cousins longer. He really idolizes Jack. It's amazing how much he looks up to the little man. The kids all play so great together. We are going to try to get together with all the kids in August. I need to make that a Must do.

Karate.... it's killing me. Ryan started Karated 3 weeks ago. His first 3 sessions were wonderful. He had a great time and participated fully. Nothing happened to change this. However, since then, he sits on the bench and looks scared. He won't join in. This is the whole reason we decided to enroll him. He is socially handicapped. He is scared of other children. I know this is our fault but we are trying to correct it. He has not had many playdates with children his own age and when we take him to the playground he is beyond cautious and it limits his ability to have fun. Living where we do, the opportunity just isn't great to get out and be with a group of other children frequently. Mr & Mrs Lovely at Karate are wonderful. They have dealt with this many times are trying to help us to help him to work through it. Their patience is amazing. On Saturday, we will have another go at it, just Ryan and I. Wish us luck :). I would like him to be a whole lot more comfortable around kids before he starts pre-school in September.

Does every kid like a Hooker as mush as mine? Does every kid run around the house looking for his Hooker? You know, tow trucks or cars with a little hook on the back to pull other cars. What were you thinking???

On July 4th, I decided to sleep in a little bit. When I got up, Ryan was in his room playing with his "B" (pacifier) in his mouth. I had been prepping him for a couple of weeks that it was almost time to throw them away and that he didn't need them anymore. He had been really good about using it mostly just for bedtime and naptime. When I saw it in his mouth, I got annoyed and said "Oh, is it no more B day?" He jumped up from playing, gathered up the 3 that were in his room, walked over to the trash and threw them in. He then said that he needed to go get Memere's. We went to Memere's where he found all of their B's and walked to the trash and threw them away. We then went back home to his naptime cup and he dumped those into the trash. I wasn't sure what was going on and if this was going to be for real so I went behind him and pulled a couple back out and washed them and then hid them. That day when it was nap time, he asked for his B and I reminded him that he threw them away and it was a no more B day. That was the end of it. At bedtime, he again nonchalanty asked for his B and I reminded him where they were. Last week was really rough. He didn't ask for them but I hadn't realized what a crutch they had been for him to wind down when he was upset and for bedtime. When he would be upset, he would take a break on the couch with one. I had no idea it would affect him they way it did. We spent the week with a little tazmanian devil who was lost. We tried to teach him that when you need some time to calm down, you just go sit down someplace quiet and take a couple of minutes to yourself. This seems to have made a world of difference. This week he is only 1/2 a tazmanian devil.

We spent this past Saturday in North Conway, NH. They were hosting "A Day Out With Thomas". If you know anything about Ryan, you know that he is obssessed with Thomas the Train. It overflows our living room and plays in the van when we drive. If you ever get the chance to do this, DO IT. It was wonderful! He smiled from the minute we got out of the van until he fell asleep on the way home. We took a small train ride that was simply perfect. He was so excited. It was well organized and a great time. He is still talking about it.

Last night, we went to the top of the hill in the back yard to pick blueberries. It seems kind of early this year but there were plenty of them ready. We picked just a handful or so and walked back down and sat on the swing. Then he got his little bucket and went back to pick some more. When he returned, he had 3 blueberries LOL. He ate them and then went back for more, again and again. I think some people may think this is some form of child abuse but I look at it as great exercise :). When he got tired of eating them he fed the rest to the dogs. Boy do they love him.

Just trying to set this thing up :)