This past month has been a big month for Ryder's vocabulary. Over the course of two weeks, he must have said a couple dozen new words, or more. One weekend he was watching a truck video that teaches colors and all of a sudden he was saying the colors. As the truck of a specific color rolled off the screen, he would say "Bye-bye white" etc... So he wasn't just repeating the color after the voice on screen, he was using them. Then he was playing with Emma's toy food at my mom's house and started naming a bunch of foods that he had not previously named. Now he comes up with a word or two a day that I've never heard before and he has gotten super good at repeating words. Before we would ask Ryder to say a word and he would maybe try to say one of the sounds, if we were lucky. Now he really tries and usually succeeds at repeating, even longer words like chocolate and dinosaur. We've got to watch out now, I accidentally taught him "Naughty Daddy" when I made a joke about Janda riding my motorcycle!
We've gotten into a pretty good routine around here now that the nice weather is here to stay. After breakfast, which Vivien joins us for sometimes, Ryder plays while I do the dishes and feed Vivien. Then he and I play for a bit, or I clean while he plays some more, or we clean together- which is super cute. After Vivien wakes up from her nap, we all go for a walk to see the construction trucks lining the road- sometimes there are a couple dozen! After the walk he has a snack and then his nap, which is consistently 2 hours long now, sometimes close to 3! I won't let him sleep past 2:30-2:45, just to make sure he'll go to bed. Then we have lunch and eventually go back outside to play some more. After that it's dinner, sometimes shower and bed.
I had to take away Ryder's puzzles for a few days this month because they were driving me insane, but when I brought them back out, he still remembered them perfectly. There are two tree pieces, one for the bus and one for the firetruck puzzle, and they look almost exactly the same. When he was doing the firetruck puzzle, I gave him the wrong one and he pointed to it and said "Bus!" He is still all about drawing, now he adds the wheels to any truck I draw and makes pictures that look truck-ish! He loves his inside chalkboard and was thrilled to learn we have outside chalk too!
The biggest change this month was now Ryder is in his big boy room. One Friday night we gathered his stuffed animals and seahorse night light from the crib and went into the new room. He whimpered for a second until we turned seahorse friend on and arranged his animals around him and then he just fell asleep and slept til morning. He has slept every night and nap in there since, no problem! One nap involved no sleeping, but that was the idiot on the 4 wheeler riding up and down our street, not Ryder. So far so good!
This month he learned how to say "Cheese" and look at the camera!
He likes to make toys as dangerous as possible. After I took this photo, that truck shot out from underneath him and he landed on his backside.
Totally willing to pose this month
Intently inspecting that chopstick!
Always goofing around!
