Summer Updates

I suck at this. It's been 3 months since I've updated because I feel like I never have anything thrilling to say!

Earlier this month we went bowling for the first time with Ryleigh. She did awesome. She carried the 6lb ball all by herself and threw it down the lane. While she didn't break 50 she did get 43 points! We also experienced fingerpainting at home. For those that know me well I have a huge issue with messes so this was quite a feat for me! She did good though and only touched the walls once when she was finished. Luckily I bought the washable kind :)


Ryleigh is now cutting her 1st 2 year molar. It has taken forever to come through. I've been able to see it for about a month now but it wouldn't come through! About a week ago the corner popped through so it's on it's way.

I took Ryleigh to the dentist over the summer. She did awesome! She layed on me while I layed in the dentist chair. He checked her gums and teeth to make sure all looked ok. She didn't cry at all I was so proud! Dentist said everything looked good and to come back in 6 months. She wasn't ready to get her teeth cleaned yet so it was just a check to make sure all looked good.

Took Ryleigh to her first movie at the Free Summer Movie Series. We saw Madagascar 2. It was interesting. She did good for about 40 min and then we had to talk a walk. Then about 30 min later we had to talk another walk and then she lasted through the rest of the movie. She still talks about going to the movies so maybe next summer we will try it again!

In July Ryleigh started at a pre-school. She is only going part-time so I was pretty hesitant as to how she would do not going consistently. But she is doing good. They have art time, story time, song time, etc. Things that she doesn't have at her other babysitters house. Her favorite is outside time. There are days where she clings on to me but when I come to pick her up she screams because she doesn't want to leave so that makes me feel good!

At the beginning of August Ryleigh kept waking up at night crying that her tummy hurt. This then turned in to a round the clock thing. I took her to the urgent care one weekend and they said it was a urinary tract infection so we started antibiotics. 2 days later her ped called and said the urine culture was negative for a uti but she still complained of pain. 2 days after that I figured out that she hadn't had a good bowel movement in almost a week. She was screaming and throwing herself around on the floor so we did a suppository. She went but continued to scream and throw herself around on the floor. Called the ped and they said to do an enema. Did that and she went again but continued to cry of pain. The next day we went into the office for an x-ray and found that she had stool backed up to her ribs! She has been on Miralax since she turned 2 but we now have an increased dosage to keep her going regularly and boy is it working!
Ryleigh is still going to swimming and doing better and better. We go to the Y so she's in a class called pre-pike. It's for kids more advanced than Skip (6-36 mo) but not yet 3 so can't go to Pike class. We now have had 3 instructors tell us that she is ready for Pike but due to the age restriction she can't move up yet. So that tells me she's a good little swimmer! She is also still going to The Little Gym and looks forward to it every week! She's doing better at listening to the instructor and allowing him/her to work with her rather than me having to do it. I'm hoping that once she turns 3 to move her into a dance/tumbling class and see how that works.

School has said she is very smart for her age as she knows most of the basic colors, counting, number identification, shapes and her ABC's. They said most 2 1/2 year old's aren't this advanced so that makes me a very proud Mommy! Listening to her sing her ABC's is SO cute! Though most of the time I have to coax her in to doing it.

We are still struggling with potty training but I keep hearing it's still a little early yet. She gets that she's supposed to go on the potty and tell me that she has to go but she has yet to put those two things together so when we try it for awhile there are accidents non-stop!

Well I think that's all for now. I'll try next time not to wait so long in-between updates!

Big Girl Bed

This past Saturday I was laying in bed watching a movie while Ryleigh napped. About an hour into her nap I heard a thud but didn't hear anything else so I didn't think anything of it. Then I start hearing a rattling noise...I get up to investigate and am met by Ryleigh in the hall. I said how did you get out here she replies "Rywee get out my bed myself" So I put her back in and asked her to show me how she got out. Low and behold she threw her leg over and climbed right on down.
That night she climbed out of bed twice. Had been coughing some and coughed so hard she threw up all over her new rug! (dang it...and it won't come out!). So after getting cleaned up and some extra cuddling I put her back in bed and no more problems. Sunday morning I wake up to her starring at me saying "Mommy wake up!"
Sunday night I tell her that she can't keep climbing out of bed that she might hurt herself. And told her if she did it she would be punished. So she stayed in bed but climbed out again Monday morning. I woke up to her knocking on her door trying to get out. (Josh shuts her door when he gets up in the morning to avoid waking her up and the door sticks so she can't open it herself).
I was dreading moving her to a toddler bed as I just like putting her in bed and walking away. But after climbing out again Tuesday morning I figured it was time as a friend who kept avoiding it ended up in the ER with her son and he had a broken collarbone.
So yesterday my cousin came over and helped (well really he did all the work) convert her bed into a toddler bed.
She came home and I showed her the "big girl bed" and she was ecstatic! She was in and out all night playing. But when bedtime came she did excellent! She stayed in bed and didn't get out until she woke up this morning.
As a precaution we did put a gate at her door so in the event she did get up she wouldn't be able to wander the house.
So hopefully we will be lucky and it will continue on like this and she will do well with the conversion as she has with everything else we've changed (bottles to sippy's, no binkie's, etc.)

Go Big Girl Ryleigh!

Hmmm...what's new

Before Tara gets on me about updating this again I thought I had better get started :)

Not much new has gone on. Ryleigh's toe is just about healed, still a little piece on the inside of her toe that isn't quiet healed but the doc said we could go about normal activity.

I started Ryleigh back in swimming 4 weeks ago. She LOVES it! She is using the block floatation devices now. First week we did 4 blocks and and first she struggled but then quickly figured it out. Then we tried 3 blocks and she did great keeping herself upright. Then we tried 2 and down she went! If she would just keep her mouth closed and not swallow the water she would do great on the 2 blocks. So we went back to 3. She is able to move around without me holding on to her too! She is getting better and getting up on the edge and jumping in to me as well.

We are still in gym class but not sure if we will continue over the summer. If not we will definitely start back up in the fall. Main reason I was thinking about taking her out was because she doesn't listen and just runs off and plays. So last week we talked about staying with Mommy and listening at gym class...we get there and she's great! She does the warm up activities with me and all so now I'm in a pickle as to what to do.

Ryleigh has been talking up a storm lately too. She will try to repeat everything you say. Perfect example...I spilled water all over the floor the other day and said "Oh shit!" and she says "oh sit!" I said "Ryleigh Mommy should not have said that and it's a bad word so we don't say that ok?" She says "o-tay Mommy." She's doing excellent with her colors too! Still trying to count in the correct order to 10 but so far she's doing good. She's learning to show me her numbers on her fingers but keeps getting that darn middle finger up showing me "1"!

She's had a ton of constipation issues lately. She was on Miralax 1/2 tsp once per day, then we up'd it to 1tsp once a day and now it's 1 tsp twice a day. After 2 days of that, on Saturday she had 4 massive diaper explosions! So hopefully she's getting back to normal and I can wean her off the Miralax. The doctor said that if kids realize it hurts to go (esp when they get constipated) they won't go and then it backs up inside. Which makes sense as several nights last week she woke up screaming saying her tummy was owie.

So that's about it for now. Have a great day all!

Neon Yellow Cast

Since Tara's griping at me to update my blog...

We finally get over the pneumonia! Tuesday night Ryleigh is in the basement with Daddy. I hear her scream bloody murder and jump up. Josh is bringing her upstairs. He says "oh, she just dropped a weight plate on her foot" and goes back downstairs like it's no big deal!
There is a little cut on it, not much blood and she's screaming in pain. I give her some motrin and lay her in my bed to watch "Babbules" (Blues Clues...how she came up with that I have no ide).
The next morning she gets up and won't put any pressure on her foot. Her toe is very swollen and bruised. We were already going to the ped for a re-check on her x-rays so I call tell them what happened and the ped wants to see her.
In the meantime she finally learns that she can't play or do anything without walking on her foot so she learned the limp...walking on the side of her foot or her heal. I'm thinking it's just badly bruised.
We go to the ped and they do the x-rays. The chest looks great...the toe is broken! It's broken right where the toe and foot meet. So he refers us to a pediatric orthopedic surgeon and says they will probably put a sturdy hard boot/shoe on her.
We go to the orthopedic surgeon appt and they again confirm it's broken. They tell me we can do a the boot or a cast. I tell them that I'm out of a job and my insurance isn't the greatest. They said I should go with the cast as the insurance will pick it up and they won't the boot since it's not considered a medical necessity.
Ryleigh gets to pick out her color and she picks NEON YELLOW! Which goes with almost nothing she wears but I figure she doesn't get to decide much in life right now so no biggie. She did great getting the cast on. So they say that it will probably take her 2-3 days before she can walk well with the cast. She got right down and started walking away on it. Nothing was going to stop her.
I was worried that she wasn't going to sleep well with it on but so far she's done fine. They think she will only have to keep it on for 2 weeks since we did the cast instead of the boot. So we'll see...we go back on April 9th for it to be x-rayed again.
Stay tuned!

Pneumonia

So Ryleigh had been coughing off and on for a few weeks. When we saw her ped at her 2 year visit on 2/9 I told him we'd be back and he said to be optimistic...yeah ok.
So Saturday she woke up very congested and coughing like crazy so I take her in at 10:30. He checks her over, no fever, ears are good, chest sounds clear and gives us an antibiotic for a sinus infection. Saturday afternoon she is burning up. I take her home and she has 102.7. Sunday she's up to 103.6! I'm freaking out calling the physician's exchange and they say as long as she's drinking and moving around they don't worry until 105! I was shocked. She's coughing so much she's throwing up and so today I called the doc back. She hadn't eaten anything since Saturday and was still running a fever. We go in at 12p and he sticks a long swab up her nose to test the mucus, takes x-rays and tapes a urine bag to her to collect a urine sample. We were there and hour and the entire time she is screaming. He comes back and shows me the x-rays...pneumonia! I couldn't believe it but was glad I decided to call him back today and go in.
He then gave us the option of different antibiotics or hospital. He felt that kids seem to do better in their own environment so his recommendation was to try the antibiotics. If she's still running a fever in 48 hours (about 99.5) or still wheezing (that's another thing I've had to give breathing treatments every 4 hours!). So she's on augmention which I'm not a fan of either since it causes bad (and I do mean bad) diarrhea but it's better than sitting in a hospital room right now.
So far she's actually doing a little better. She ate some french fries (great I know but she loves them so I thought I'd at least try) and played some this evening. She's been in bed for 30 minutes and I've heard zero coughing out of her so hopefully I can finally get some much needed rest tonight!

TWO

Well Ryleigh turned 2 on Saturday! I can't believe it!
Friday night Grandpa (my dad) came into town and we went out to dinner. Then Grandpa came over and put together my red BMW toy car he got Ryleigh for her birthday.
Saturday when Ryleigh got up she was terribly cranky! Everything tipped her off. Luckily after a 2 hour nap she was good to go.
Her party at my mom's house started at 5p. We immediately ripped into the presents. Ryleigh was so excited! Some stuff she wanted to open immediately others she tossed aside and said "more". We had pizza and birthday cake. Ryleigh finally dug into her cake this year! She helped me "blow" out her candle too!
Sunday we had Ryleigh's friends party at The Little Gym. She had so much fun! She was upset to leave the play area and eat cake. She ate about 3 bites of cake and wanted to go back in to play. They put her up on a little pedestal to open her gifts which she loved!
Today we went to her 2 year doctor appt.

At 18 months she was:
24lbs 10oz
33.25 inches tall

At 24 months she is:
27lbs 10oz
34.5 inches tall

She has pretty well evened out. She's a little above the 50th percentile for both height and weight compared to 18 months she was at the 90th percentile for height!

Well that's about all for now. We are entering the "terrible" two's! She's already having TONS of tantrums but I'm sure we'll get through it!

SNOW

Obviously there has been snow since Ryleigh was born but today was the first time she's actually noticed it. We walked into the kitchen and she ran to the door yelling "What's that!" over and over and over. We had to stand there and look at the snow for at least 5 minutes! Hopefully we'll have enough that we can finally go out and play in it since we have 2 snow suits and snow boots that have yet to be used...stay tuned!

So we played in teh snow for about 40 minutes! Ryleigh was great while I got her all suited up to go outside. The snow wasn't a wet packing snow so we really just played with her ball and then went out back and she went down the slide several times on her climbing gym. When it was come in side she threw a fit and wanted to stay out and play. Even after I stripped her out of her snow gear she brought it all to me wanting to put it back on!