New words & an adventure

Ryan just amazes me more each day. With his new words that he says and his determination to explore. His new words this week are “toast” and this morning he just repeated my cousin’s daughter’s name when I pointed to her picture that was on our refrigerator. We are working on getting him to tell us what he wants before we give it to him & asking him to choose what he wants, for example we ask him if he wants a cookie or a cracker, juice or milk. So far, he has done pretty well, especially with food items..haha. Ryan loves to eat anything Dean or I are eating, so we take advantage of that opportunity. This is what has prompted him to say toast. It's almost strange that after a couple times of asking him to say toast he does, but after months of asking him to say milk, all he is willing to do is pronounce the syllable ka.

A few days ago, Ryan was successful in climbing out of his crib. It was very scary for my mother, to say the least, who watches him during the day. She had gone downstairs after putting him down for his nap and realized after a few minutes that he had settled in and didn’t appear to be “playing around”. He tends to act tired but when we put him down for his nap, he will get a second wind and start talking, playing with his lovie and musical giraffe. Once downstairs, she heard something fall on the floor which sounded like his musical giraffe or his paci, since he tends to throw those out of the crib in order to have one of us come back in the room. A few seconds later, she heard a loud thud and immediately ran up the stairs calling his name..all the while trying not to have a heart attack—literally! When she got to his room, he was standing in shock but almost crying at the door. She checked him head to toe several times and he appeared to be uninjured but it did take over an hour for her to get her heart rate back down to a normal level. We are taking several precautions so hopefully this will not happen again –things such as staying upstairs until we are definitely sure he is asleep, removing the bumper pads which he used for leverage (we had taken them out a couple months ago but gave in & put them back in when he would wake up at 5am and not go back to sleep because his paci had fallen out) & going in to get him almost as soon as he wakes up instead of letting him sit in his crib & play or talk. We will also be getting the room prepared now(child-proofing) so he can transition to his toddler bed if he attempts this again.