All About Ayden: The 2.5 version

Technically, Ayden and Rylee turned 2.5 last month.  I'm just well overdue writing this post!  Ayden, Ayden, Ayden.  This post is all about this handsome little dude of mine.

Ayden has grown a full 2 inches in the last 6 months, so is 37 inches tall and falls in at 75% on the growth chart (a full 10% more than at his 2 year well check up!).  He weighs 34 lbs and is at 88% on the chart.  The doctor didn't seem too concerned at his weight, but did ask if he was eating a balanced diet and asked what type of milk he drinks (2%).  She was pleased that they don't drink a lot of juice (only a couple times/week).  The thing is, this kid doesn't carry a lot of extra fat on him, but he does feel like a ton of bricks when you pick him up!  I guess the best way to describe it is that he's just thick.  He has a cousin that is the same way.

Ayden is wearing size 6 diapers.  We'll be tackling potty training with him in September.  We have a big road trip coming up and we'll be gone for a week.  Between moving and that trip, I decided to wait.  I don't think potty training is going to be an easy fete with him, so why make it harder by throwing a 12 hour (one way) road trip, where we'll be away from home and Daddy for a full 8 days?  We'll wait.

He's in size 3T tops, but is actually starting to wear some 4T.  He has a long torso, so he usually ends up outgrowing his shirts length wise.  He's wearing size 2T bottoms, but is starting to wear some 3T now too.  He's in a size 8 shoe.

Ayden has always been a climber, but he's really starting to become so much more athletic. Just recently he has mastered some of the park playground equipment.  He's really quite impressive actually!  He used to make me soooo nervous just climbing up the steps on playground structures, but now he's taking on the climbing walls successfully!  He's also started climbing trees.

He's so proud of himself!

Something he just started doing a few days ago is hanging from a monkey bar and then dropping to the ground, landing on his feet. He was at least a foot off the ground!  He asked to do it over and over again. He still needed help reaching the bar.  His mommy's good for something, lol!  The kid has no fear, I tell ya.  However, that doesn't mean he doesn't still get into his fair share of predicaments.

He was legitimately stuck in this chair! 

Besides climbing, I'd say Ayden's next favorite activity is pushing his dump truck around everywhere.  He's got a truck inside and another for outside, and he pushes them both everywhere.  This often results in skinned up knees when we are outside, when he gets going too fast and the truck gets away from him, but yet he still continues to do it.  In addition to his dump trucks, he "drives" all his other cars/trucks all over the house, all over the walls and furniture.

Ayden loves to play in water, but he HATES with a passion to get wet from a sprinkler or a shower, sprayed with a hose, or to be splashed.  If he's not getting wet on his terms, then he is not a happy camper.  We are currently taking swim lessons (parent/tot class).  He absolutely loves to go to the pool.  He's very good at climbing both in and out of the pool, but is currently not a fan of jumping in (a change from last summer).  He's good a blowing bubbles and listening to the fishies (ear in the water), but greatly dislikes having his head under water.

He's also a bug kid.  He loves to terrorize ants and beatles by chasing them around and catching them (repeatedly).  The poor bugs don't usually survive (I'm not really sad about that).  He points out all butterflies, flies, and bees, but doesn't actually really get the difference between them unless he's pointing them out in a book.

"Look Mommy!  A bug!"

Ayden is still behind in the communication department.  However, he is definitely improving!  He does talk a lot and has many words, but he doesn't necessarily put a lot of words together for short sentences yet, which he should be by this point.  With that said though, he LOVES to count.  That is how we get him to pick up all his cars and trucks, by counting them as he puts them away.  He randomly will count various things all the time.  He also can recognize and name colors now.  One of the things he says all of the time is "of course."  That is often his answer when you ask him to do something.

Me: "Ayden, it's time to eat breakfast."
Him: "Of course, Mommy."

Me: "Ayden, let's put your shoes on."
Him: "Of course!"

Me: "It's time to put your cars away."
Him: "Of course."

You get the idea.

He has a very soft voice and doesn't talk very loud at all.  He's quite a little cuddle bug and loves to be held and hugged.  He is most definitely a momma's boy, which can be very difficult sometimes.  Hard on me, because I sometimes never get a break.  Hard on daddy, because he wants to be able to comfort him too.  Ayden loves his daddy and will snuggle up with him sometimes, but if he's in a mood at all, I'm the only person he wants.

Speaking of moods....  That is our biggest struggle with Ayden.  He whines.  He whines a lot.  A LOT!!!!  There are days that he spends the majority of the time whining/crying/screaming about something or other for hours.  He is not very good at not getting his way.  If he can't play with something he wants (such as another kid's bike/ball/toy), he throws a major temper tantrum.  We have to make sure he doesn't get too hungry ever, because that's when it gets really bad.  And if he's tired AND hungry, oh milanta.  It's exhausting and it's my biggest struggle as a mother to keep my patience.  I know people could say it's a normal 2 year old thing, but he takes it beyond that normal range.  We are hoping it's a phase.  (Please let it be a phase!)  We are hoping that as he continues to learn how to talk, that the whining will subside.  We constantly try to encourage him to use his words rather than the whining/crying.

Okay, more favorites.  Ayden loves Nemo and Dory, anything with Mickey Mouse and friends, and Buzz and Woody from Toy Story.  His favorite book is Llama Llama Hoppity Hop and What a Wonderful World.  He likes the first because it's action based (jumping, stretching, clapping, etc.) and the second because I sing it to them (and so far they don't hate my singing voice, haha!).  Ayden also really loves hanging out at his grandparent's farm, where they get to see a pig named Peppa, a horse, and several cows.  They love to explore the property, ride on the tractors, and ride the zip line their Grandpa rigged up.

Ayden, the cow whisperer

Even though we sometimes often struggle with Ayden whining and throwing temper tantrums, when he is smiling and having fun, he lights up our world.  He has the best smile and he is so gosh darn cute when he is happy!  It is amazing to watch him learn new things, and especially rewarding when we get to see how proud he is of himself when he accomplishes something.

Playing Catch Up

I'm back to the land of the living, or at least the land of having internet once again.  After our move, it took THREE weeks to get hooked up to internet.  When I called the first time to get it set up, I was told it would happen the following week.  Not ideal, but whatever.  We could live with that.  Then on the day it was supposed to be installed, I got a phone call saying that there were no lines hooked up to our house and they couldn't get a tech out until the following week.  That was frustrating, but what tipped me over the edge was when on that second week, I received ANOTHER phone call to schedule installation for the NEXT week.  I was livid.  So anyway, we spent the first three weeks without internet access except through our phones, which cost us only an arm and a leg.  But now, we have internet.

We had a whirlwind of a move.  The house we found to move into was available right away, so we ended up moving within a week.  Hiring movers (Tony's company paid all moving expenses) made everything SO much easier in most ways, but challenging too.  It was nice not having to pack anything at all, but that made it a little more difficult when it came to finding necessary things once we got here.  We are mostly settled in, but still have a few more boxes to unpack and I need to organize the garage.  We haven't hung any pictures on the wall either.  Honestly, we've been here a month now, but we have only had one weekend where we were actually home.  We didn't get anything done that weekend either because Tony somehow hurt his back and spent the entire weekend laid up in bed.

I've missed this space.  There's been so many things I wanted to write about, but had no computer (internet) to be able to sit down and actually blog.  But let's be honest, I wasn't blogging much before that either!  We've moved TWICE in just a four month period!  Ridiculous.  We've move three times in the last 13 months, and still have another move on the horizon when we hopefully buy a house in about a year, which better be our last move for a long, long while.

We made a not so great impression on our next door neighbors within the first day of moving in.  Tony's parents were here on moving day to help watch the kids while Tony and I directed the movers on where to put things and worked on unpacking.  At one point, I saw Ayden pushin his MegaBloks truck around outside.  I commented on how that's supposed to be an inside toy, but let it slide in all the craziness that was going on.  The next day, I unpacked the same truck out of a box of toys and wondered how the heck it had gotten packed back up.  I didn't put too much thought into it though.  I thought somewhere between the movers, the in-laws, and Tony, someone had just put it back with all the other toys.   Well, turns out that the truck wasn't Ayden's!  He took it right off our neighbors front porch. I learned this when the mom came knocking on our door a few days later asking if we might have her son's truck. ding, ding, ding!  It all made sense then!  I found the neighbors truck in our backyard and returned it.  The mom was not very friendly or understanding at all.  She wasn't rude, but she was nice either.  I noticed later that they no longer keep any of their son's toys on the front porch at all.  They also never smile or wave when they see us.  It's kind of awkward.  So much for making friends with our neighbors.

Other than moving, the biggest changes for us have been Ayden and Rylee!  They turned 2.5 in June, and they are learning new things at a rapid rate right now.  I'm going to do individual posts for each of them, hopefully this week.

I'll wrap this up by sharing that Ayden and Rylee were in their first wedding two weekends ago!  They were flower girl and ring security for one of Tony's cousins.  It was pretty special for us, because this cousin and her brother were the flower girl and ring bearer in our wedding almost 19 years ago!  I know I'm biased, but I have to say that Ayden and Rylee were the cutest kids there!  We were nervous about how they would do.  Let's be honest, we were nervous how AYDEN would do!  We were pretty sure Rylee would do okay, but Ayden is rarely still and does not like to be contained at all.  During the rehearsal, Ayden ran all over the place!  During pictures before the wedding, he had a major meltdown and wanted nothing to do with being in any of the pictures.  However, he pulled himself together and they both did AMAZING during the actual wedding!  Then, they danced the night away afterward.  Is there anything cuter than two year old's dancing?

Ayden's hand gesture shows what he really thought about being in the wedding pictures!  His suspenders, bow tie, and boat shoes melted every adult in attendance though, along with sweet little Rylee.