2 more months Rylan, 2 more months

That's how long Rylan has to be all terrible two-ish. I thought it was over. We've had some pretty magical weeks for about a month now. Rylan was amazing everyone with his increased talking, a tiny bit of sharing, playing with toys lots and lots, learning to potty, and helping mommy out with tasks like getting a new diaper for Max and such.

And, I'll tell you. I did this silly thing. I thought we'd been lucky enough to skip certain things. Like hitting. He really hasn't been much of a hitter, very occasional hits and they were more overzealous "I like you and I must touch you a little too strongly" type hits. I also thought he'd skipped the picky eater phase. And I really thought we'd said good-bye to the constant "no's" and I thought we'd cut down the whining considerably.

This last week was a real bitch. And I'm not going to apologize for that swearing. Cause, not only did return of the Two-ness come at us, but this weather change set off both boys' wheezy/coughy crap for airway selves. Cue albuterol induced crazy toddler and baby. By Friday, Rylan had bloody lips, I had a bruised toe and missing hair, Max had a bruised eye and a boo boo on his finger and everyone's nerves were frayed. The carpet had new spots on it, the air conditioner vent fell off and I think I gave myself lock jaw from grinding my teeth when I was stressed. Okay maybe not, but I might have been on my way.

On a bright side, our carpets are professionally cleaned and our cocker, Lola, got groomed. Lola tends to look like Alf when she's ready for a trim, and our carpet was starting to beg for a good wash. Both cleanings should help decrease the allergen level in this house and good moods happen naturally when things look cleaner and your cocker isn't bringing leaves and garden gnomes in matted in her hair.

The other good news is that we had a weekend of restarts and refreshment. I've put together some stuff to help use Rylan's energy for good instead of evil. Good boy charts, preschool packets, and some field trips to help the matter.

Before the crazy albuterol/terrible two induced craziness, we marveled in the decrease in temps and met up with our friends Krystal, Harper and Hayes at the zoo.

So excited to see each other

Harper loves her some Rylan

Really, really loves him

Max checking out the elephants

Our first time on the train

A stop for some lunch. Rylan spilled salt and Harper was teaching him to "clean up"

Massive turtle

A shared moment at the penguin tank

So, there are many differences between Max and Ry. Max is a seriously chillaxed baby, but one thing that Rylan has on him is, what I call, he's an "easy transfer". If he falls asleep in the car, I can get him into the house for a good nap *most of the time*. Even now, at almost 3, I carry that extra extra tall toddler in and get him cozy for a good snooze. Max....not so much. Even when he was an infant, I'd tiptoe into the house carrying his carseat, gently place him on the floor, look down, only to see his big eyes staring at me. At first you hope for both kids to nap at the same time, so you can nap or have some peace, but I've come to enjoy our afternoons where its just me and him. With the second, you get so little one on one time.

At first Max crawls around looking for Rylan and tries to break into his room to get to him, but then there is a moment when he realizes he has free reign of all toys. And he quits looking for Rylan and goes to town!

Here's some pics of such a day in our life. I must go now, part of our refreshing restart is getting my booty in shape.

I didn't get up at 5am

I had that whole intention. I also had the intention of starting my 545am workout regimen. I have crap for will power. I do. I admit it.

The truth is, our little dog and pony show has had a tough summer (year? year and a half?). And I know my my Bleaders (blog readers) are as tired of reading about our latest insect infestation/crazy illness/asthma flareup/ear infection as much as we are tired of living it. It'll get better, I know it will. Just feeling a tiny bit impatient on that one.

Howeva.......

Me and Rob? Got some cute kids. Like real cute. Here's a update on that business.

This baby????

Why, this baby is 11 months old. How did that freakin happen? He was born yesterday, I swears. I'm totally in love with this kid, he's the happiest kid on the planet. Except when you aren't holding him. But then don't sit down to hold him, cause that's super boring and he must get down. He has a LITTLE problem with biting, for which we are doing the totally correct thing that I'm sure we should write a book about: putting a pacey in his mouth. The way I see it, he's biting because his shark mouth has 8 teeth and more on the way and he doesn't understand that my fat thighs are not teethers. He isn't going to kindergarten with a pacey. I hope not anyway. And if its still a problem, I'll just homeschool. I have it all planned.

He has said his first word: LOLA. The two of them have a love like no other. Lola tolerates him pulling at her ears and crawling on her, in return she gets lots of yummies dropped in her general direction from his high chair.

He is a lover of all things meat. Its like he's on a self imposed South Beach diet. Well, if bananas and cheerios were allowed on SBD.

He is definitely sleeping better. And Rob and I grew some guts and have let him cry it out and go to sleep on his own. Some nights now, he almost seems thankful to be put in his crib, flops on his belly and is out, other nights, he tells us in baby talk that we are the worst parents on earth and he'd like to phone a friend (or Grammy). He's on about an 8pm to 6am sleep shift, and this I cannot judge.

I learned with Rylan to slow down and enjoy the ride. Enjoy them as babies, you don't get it back. Well, Max doesn't want to be a baby. He wants to hang with Rylan. He ate baby food for maybe 5 minutes, he crawled at 6 months, he'll be walking within the month, and now he stands up in the middle of the bathtub "look ma, no hands."

This big boy?????

Is 99.9% potty trained. And you'd never know he was adverse to the idea of peeing in the potty a day in his life. And that e-book I followed to do the super crazy 3 day training? She kind of knows what she's doing. I'm not saying its for everybody or even normal at all. It just worked for us. It was more like 5 days, and I changed some of the rules. But, the end result was that he's potty trained, he now tells me when he's got to go and we've used a million and a half public potties with success.

And sure, he did pee at Whole Foods next to the play area. And we did stick a diaper on him before driving 3.5 hours to see my parents. And I put a pull up on him to go to a play date cause he'd had some, um grossness the night before and I'd rather take a step back in potty training than clean grossness off of someone's furniture. But, I am soooooo proud of that kid.

We've been trialing him off of dairy for the summer with some luck. He's always had some stomach issues. I finally talked to one of the GI docs I work with and he gave me a list of symptoms that kids with dairy intolerance have. They include bumpy skin on the cheeks, arms and legs, lots of ear infections at an early age, asthma, and diaper grossness. Rylan got a checkmark next to every thing on the list. His, bathroom issues are sooo much better, and most of the other issues are too (minus the asthma one).

That's them in a nutshell.

Wanted: blogger that keeps up with her blog!

Before you see a tumbleweed blow across my blog, I'll get right on updating it. Not exactly immediately or anything, I'm just updating you all that I'll soon be updating you more.

1. Potty training takes longer than 3 days. Just sayin'. And doing it the fast way can wear a sister out!

2. A week after Max got the Herpely Derpelies, Rylan got the Herpely Derpelies. He would grab his throat and say his tummy hurt. It would have been funny if it was so pitiful. Sadness abounded. Babies needed mama rocking them.

3. My mom came to visit us. Read: save my sanity. The boys both had asthma flareups and Max had an ear infection/clogged ear tube followed by a week of potty training in which poor Max got the Herps, then Rylan got the Herps equalled yet another month gone by with us mostly stuck in the house. Thank you mama, I'll gladly throw blogging out the window to hang with you.

4. We went to visit my parents. As if we hadn't shoved our insane/insect infested/herps having mugs in my mom's face enough, we took our crazy show on the road and went to Mountain Home for the weekend. Ahhhhhh fishing for Rob, sleeping in for me, long talks with mom and sister. We unlabored for Labor Day.

I have a new goal to get up at 5am and blog/clean my house while everyone else is still asleep***. You'll be reading the fruits of that labor soon and very soon.

***I am aware that it is super sad I have to get up at 5am to be up before my kids who are 2.75 and 11 months old. This is why anyone who complains about their kid getting up early at 7:30am gets a face from me that requires at least 3 chins. 7:30 is a dream. A fantasy. I wish I was you!!!!