Week 64

 Castle

This week we decided to stop off at the Olana house in Hudson, NY.  This is right by the Rip Van Winkle Bridge on the eastern side of the Hudson River.  We have passed it several times and the kids always wanted to see the castle on the hill.  So we decided on Monday, July 4th to stop off and see it on the way home.  When we got there the kids insisted that we go into the castle.  The bad part is the the tours go every half hour and we had to wait 20 minutes for the next one to begin.  When we got in, Ryan immediately wanted to know where the toys were.  We have no idea where he got it in his head that the castle had toys but he looked in every room wanting to know if this was the room with the toys.  The tour lasted 45 minutes and they did great for the first 40 minutes.  However, they were getting really antsy the last five minutes.  Luckily we only chose the 45 minute tour and not the 70 minute one.















We drove by the castle again yesterday and Ryan looked up and said that he did not want to go to that castle, he wanted to go to the toy castle, not the art castle.  There was only art in there and no toys!  I guess we will have to wait before we take him to any more Art Museums.

View of the Rip Van Winkle Bridge from Olana

We went upstate to Dawn's parents this weekend for a family friend's 70th Birthday Party.  Staying at their house with us was Dawn's cousin Guy and his wife Elaine.  They were just recently married and this was the first time that we had seen them since their wedding.  Both Ryan and Julia were so excited to see them and they are both so good with our kids.  Guy wanted to make his special potato home fries but knew that Ryan could not eat all of the ingredients.  So he cooked Ryan his own huge bowl of potatoes thinking that he would take some home.  Ryan ate the whole bowl!  Guy was so happy that Ryan liked his potatoes that they posed for a picture together.  

 Ryan loves the water but still does not like to get his face wet or go under the water.  Even though he is able to touch the bottom he still insists on wearing swimmies or a ring so that he does not go under.  He had such a great time in the three different pools that he went into this week. Yes, I wrote three different pools.  He started off the week in Papa and Nonna's pool, went into our neighbors pool on Tuesday, visited friends who had a pool in their condo complex on Thursday, and ended the week back in Papa and Nonna's pool.  

While upstate this weekend, we visited a family friend, Sherry, who owns two horses.  These were very gentile horses that were very excited to see different people.  Julia had no fear about going up to them, feeding them, and even sitting on the back of one of them.  Ryan was very nervous around the horses.  He fed one of them a carrot but I had to hold the carrot with him and he let go almost immediately.  After Julia went on one of them, we tried to get Ryan on the back of the same one.  I was able to lift him up but once I tired to put him on the horse's back he started to yell that he was too afraid and wanted me to put him down.  I did not want to scare the horse so I let him down and he backed away.  He was very concerned when he was going to get back into the car about where the two dogs were that Sherry owned.  He still does not like dogs and is extremely afraid of them. 

Both Julia and Ryan are still so competitive with each other.  They have to win getting to the bathroom to wash their hands, playing a game, getting their shoes both on and off, and who is going to open the door first when company arrives.  We hope that this is something that they grow out of quickly because right now Ryan is stronger and faster.  But in a few years, Julia is going to catch up and Ryan hates to lose.  He has a fit when he does not win and he sulks in the corner for 20 minutes.  However, Julia is starting to realize this and will taunt him when she gets somewhere first.  This is something that we will have to watch and hopefully they will grow out of this quickly before it becomes a bigger problem than it already is.  



Ryan is still making huge, elaborate train sets on the floor almost every week. It is great to see that he is really getting into the pretend play with the different train characters.  He is even using different trains from different sets to pretend that they are a particular character when he does not have that particular one in the Thomas set.  He truly enjoys his Thomas and Friends sets and has a lot of fun putting them together.

PC

Week 54 - Happy Easter

I want to start off with a funny story... Ryan is obsessed with playing games on Phil's Ipad.  So obsessed that we've had to hide it from him some days and tell him that Phil left it at work.  Well the other day Ryan wanted to play with it and the following conversation occurred:

Ryan: Mommy, I want to play with something.

Me: What do you want to play with? 

Ryan: It starts with a "D".

Me (puzzled because I really thought he was trying to butter me up to play with the Ipad): A "D"? Do you want to play with your doggie? Do you want to dance?

Ryan: No, it's something else.

Me: Well what is it?  I don't know what else starts with a "D".

Ryan: You know mom, "DaIpad".

I had such a laugh! I gave up trying to explain to him that it is "an Ipad" or "THE Ipad" not all one word scrunched together as "DaIpad".  Of course I just had to let him play after that! 


So this video taken Easter morning is mostly about Julia, but I just had to share it.  If you've seen the movie "Hop" you may recognize where Julia is getting her words from!  Kids... so innocent, funny, (and gullible!)

Some pictures of the kids celebrating Easter...

Opening Easter gifts from our neighbor, Carol.

Ryan happy to see that the Easter Bunny left him a new spring coat and his favorite Angry Bird!

The kids with papa

Easter egg hunt

All 60 plastic eggs retrieved.  A job well done!

Ryan spent about 20 minutes practicing his numbers!  We were surprised, yet pleased, with his focus and willingness.

  

This last picture reminds me of a video I watched this week.  Check out this clip about how a little cholesterol helped a little girl with autism.  Thanks to Jess and Kerry for bringing it to our attention.  Can a little cholesterol help?

On the food front, Ryan has been so good about trying out new foods.  He ate raw onion on his sandwich (YUCK!).  That was all my dad's doing!  His breath stunk so bad the rest of the day!  This week he also tried different vegetables out of my salad, and he ate some corn.  We're starting to incorporate a new supplement called Glutomine Plus Powder.  It's primary focus is gastrointestinal support and we're hoping it will help him better digest food and possibly help with skin rashes.  I do have to say, even before we begin this new supplement, Ryan's skin seems to be on the mend.  For the most part his cheeks aren't red unless he's running around playing, his legs are still really rough but the scabs are almost gone, and he hasn't been scratching his skin as much.

 Lately Ryan has to be racing with Julia for EVERYTHING!  He is obsessed with winning and everything has to be a race.  Who is first upstairs, washing their hands, to the door, to turn the TV off, to the front door when the door bell rings, who gets their shoes on or off first, gets their pj's on, this is getting a bit much.  "Losing" one of these situations turns Ryan from a happy kid into a social mess.  It often takes a lot of TLC and coaxing just to get him back to a "happy place" so that we can continue on with the day.  I'm sure many of the parents out there are thinking, well kids are like that and these are age appropriate situations.  Yes, true, but the intensity and the frequency of these situations is not what we deem normal sibling rivalry.  In just one evening we can encounter dozens of these fighting matches and I find myself walking on eggshells, hoping not to say something to trigger an argument. 

I hope that they turn this competitiveness into something productive like first in school work or first in an athletic competition.  However, they really do not seem to want to be the first to clean up so we are not too hopeful!  Here's a video of something that started off fun and ended in the kids arguing.  Luckily Ryan was at the top of the slide or the situation most likely would have turned into a physical match with Phil and I prying them apart.  And I say "Phil and I" because Ryan has become too strong for me to restrain him when he's angry.  This kind of behavior has escalated over the past month and for the first time in a long time we're seeing Ryan's mood swings creep back up.

Today we had a birthday party for a set of seven year old twins, one boy and one girl.  It was at a place called game pad in Pawling, NY.  It was an arcade place in a strip mall and it was packed!  The moment we walked in I thought we were going to have a problem with the amount of noise and people in the place.  However, he did fantastic.  He tried almost every game and really like a game where you rode a motorcycle in a video race.  He pretended that he was a green motorcycle when we left and were in the parking lot.   He had no issue when it came time for cake.  We brought a few of his cupcakes with us and he was content to have just one with everyone else.  He was even fine with Julia eating her cake in the car on the ride home.  When it comes to birthday parties, he has come such a long way.

Ryan had fun playing outdoors this weekend.

Fun with cousins!

Time with Amelia!

Ryan really does like to wear these pajamas!!!

DC