The Halpern Home: 21 Month Update

I've been terrible about blogging as of late, but I do have what I believe to be a pretty good excuse. I'm pregnant. I'll save those details for a separate blog post, but needless to say, I've been exceedingly low on energy lately.

Ryder, on the other hand, is not low on energy lately. He's a hustling, bustling little 21 month old who makes me want to burst with joy while at the same time makes me want to yank my hair out. But goodness gracious I love the little booger.

Although he didn't start walking until 19 months, his gross motor skills have improved by leaps and bounds. He skipped the wobbly, walk-and-fall phase, and within a month or so, you couldn't pick him out of a line-up of toddlers who had been walking for ages. If given a test by a PT specialist, he would currently still test slightly behind in gross motor development, but he's close. My guess is that by 2 years old, he'll be 100% on track.

He's talking up a storm these days. No full sentences yet, but he is definitely starting to string some words together ("more, please") ("mommy, sit") ("light, off"), etc. His vocabularly can no longer be quantified in a list either. He says new things every day, half of which I don't even know where they came from. Along with his developing vocabulary and increased ability to communicate has come.... opinions and demands. He's officially bossy and strong-minded. Combine an already tempermental kid with these new traits and you get... well... a handful.

I was chatting with my mom the other day, and I figured out how to sum things up for Mr. Ryder Dylan. It goes something like this: In certain ways he is an easy toddler, and in certain ways he is a difficult toddler. He is an "easy" toddler to the extent that he isn't wild. He's not a rambunctious boy that is in to everything. He is mostly reserved and fairly containable. He tends to be mild-mannered (unless he is pissed), and he definitely isn't the kid that is going to disappear to another room when you turn your back for 10 seconds and unravel an entire roll of toilet paper. He is not particularly mischevious and he is not a dare-devil. I appreciate these aspects of Ryder. On the other hand, he is a "difficult" toddler because he is super tempermental and high maintenance. He is not chill. He is not laid back. He is not low-key. He is not happy-go-lucky. He is not a content child. Consequently, you have to expend large amounts of energy (which might other wise be spent chasing a wild toddler around to keep him/her out of trouble) trying to keep Ryder happy. He is clingy and likes to be carried a lot. He is demanding. He is generously exploring the world of toddler tantrums. This "difficult" side of Ryder is going to make things very interesting when a new baby is added to the mix. God help us all.

Although both items are limited to naptime and night time, Ryder is still very attached to his loveys ("Fuvey") and Pacis ("Massees"). I'd like to get rid of the pacifiers sooner rather than later, so that they can be completely out of mind before the new baby arrives. At the same time, I'm petrified for any sleep regressions that may accompany paci-withdrawals. I'm in the process of trying to muster of the courage to bite the bullet and do something about it.

Whereas Ryder was once an extremely stoic child (and still can be at times), he has become much more expressive in the past several months. He makes a lot of funny faces. He will give you a ridiculously cheesy, exaggerated grin if you ask him to "smile." And his newest addition is what we call the "surprised face." If he hears a strange noise or something surprises or excites him, his eyes get huge and his mouth morphs into a giant cartoon-like "O". Attempts to capture the surprise face on camera have been mostly unsuccessful, but I'll post the best I have.

Ryder is still obsessed with trains ("choo-choos") and airplanes ("hairplanes"). OBSESSED. Many people ask whether Blake brainwashed Ryder into loving planes, but if he did, he did it completely behind my back. I've never seen Blake attempt to indoctrinate him, but I suppose anything is possible. I'm honestly starting to wonder whether the obsession with planes could be hereditary. Whenever Ryder hears an unidentified noise, he looks up from whatever he is doing and announces "airplane!" If the vacuum cleaner is running... Airplane! If the air-conditioning unit switches on... Airplane! If a loud motorcycle drives by.... Airplane! Ryder also loves to point out trucks, but his interest in trucks is definitely secondary to airplanes and trains.

Perhaps the only current obsessions of Ryder's that outweigh trains and airplanes is... dum, dum, dum dum... lights and fans. I anticipate that when I read this blog post back to myself in five years, I'm going to dramatically smack my forehead and say "Oh my god... I remember that! That was SOOOO annoying!" That's right, I'm going to admit it upfront: My kid annoys the heck out of me sometimes. Blake and I are both at wits end with Ryder's light and fan obsession. He constantly points at the lights, announces and/or demands "light!" and "on!" and "off!" and FREAKS THE F OUT if you don't proceed to lift him to the light/fan switch so that he can turn it on/off over and over again. Everywhere we go, including inside our own home, he is pointing at the lights and wanting to turn them on and off. It seems simple and like it could even provide some easy, cheap entertainment for the little fellow. But trust me, it get's old fast.

His favorite color is blue, at least to the extent that he calls everything blue. If you ask him to identify a colored object (i.e. "Which one is the yellow car?"), then he will pick out the correct object 95% of the time. However, if you just ask him what color something is, he will always say blue. Likewise, his favorite number is "9." Until the last couple of weeks, he would count by pointing (and using an exaggerated number-counting type intonation) and saying "nine, nine, nine, nine, etc." But then, a week or so ago, he started to count by saying "one, two, three, nine." In any event, his counting is at the very beginning stages, and he doesn't totally understand the concept yet. We'll be working on it. He does not yet know any of his ABCs, but he is very interested (as of the last couple of weeks) in his magnetic bulletin board with magnetized letters and numbers. He likes to bring you the letters one-by-one so that you can identify them, and he will then repeat the letter out loud and go hang it on the board. Ryder also loves working on "art projects," which he calls "Pat-Pats" (thanks to his teachers at school).

Ryder's favorite food is still fruit. I can't narrow it down to just one type because he doesn't much discriminate. On his picky days, it's hard to get him to eat much other than fruit. He still shuns carbs (other than crackers). I can't, for the life of me, get the kid to eat bread. I'll be so happy when the day comes that he'll realize that bread is delicious so that I can start sending sandwiches to school with him. Try packing a school lunch four days a week when your kid won't eat a sandwich. Annoying. He's also not much into sweets. This too shall pass (I assume). If the kid doesn't open up to carbs and desserts in the coming months, I'll have no choice but to begin questioning whether he is truly mine.

-He likes to go down slides, but still hates the swings.
-He prefers to be carried most of the time.
-He typically wants mommy over daddy and "Ro" over all others on the planet.
-Even though he prefers Ro to Momo, he talks about Momo ALL.THE.TIME.
-The only tv character he identifies as of yet is Elmo. And he adores Elmo.
-He has a love-hate relationship with Gaudi. Loves to tease Gaudi with food. Hates it when Gaudi snatches said food away. Loves to be kissed on the mouth by Gaudi. Hates when Gaudi gets in his space (at least when he's in a "mood").
-He is starting to test boundaries and was introduced to "time-out" for the first time a few days ago (after hitting mommy even after she told him twice that "we don't hit").
-He has started to self-feed with a spoon, is pretty darn good at it (though a mess is still inevitable) and he now demands a spoon regardless of what he is eating.
-He actually doesn't like to be messy. He asks for a "towell" if he drips food on his face while eating or if he gets anything gooey or sticky on his hands. He also mimics my meal-time clean-up attempts by using the spoon to scrape excess food off his chin, cheeks and bib.