15 months!

Vivien is firmly established as a walker now.  She's still a little bit unsteady, but she walks most everyplace now.  She still occasionally slips and falls with a big whoosh, but that mostly makes her laugh.  She also loves to climb and has been moving things around to help her climb up onto things she shouldn't.

Ever since she started taking a bottle Vivien has been a great sleeper.  Only if something is really bothering her do I ever have to get up.  In the night she usually lets out a couple of cries, but goes right back to sleep.  She never comes in to sleep with us, which Ryder has always done occasionally.  To be honest, I kind of wish she would!  These days (and nights) fly by so fast and there is a very limited window for baby snuggling.

She has been into playing games for quite a while.  She started with Ryder's favorite baby game- hide someone's face behind a lovey and ask "Where's so and so?" but now she does other little games too.  She loves to pretend that she's going to share her food with us and then pull it out of our mouths at the last second.  She also loves to turn her head away and then look back really quickly- why that is hysterical I am not sure, but she loves it.

Mostly Vivien loves to be around us.  She will get something and then come over to sit with me and she follows me to any room that I go to.  She prefers to play with whatever Ryder is playing with, but Ryder does not feel the same.  Usually I can convince him to let her play with some of what he's doing, but not always.  It is definitely partly Vivien's fault though, as she tends to tear apart everything he has been building!

Instantly she starts trying to get that show off

And there it goes

One shoe won't stop her from walking and eating at the same time

Cheeks!

A regular daredevil like her brother

Using her own spoon now

35 months!

Only one month more til his birthday!  Ryder has been talking about his birthday since the New Year started!  One day he went and got my computer to do work so that he could make money to get a birthday cake!!!  He is very excited to have cake and get presents (which are all new trucks according to him).  We're also trying to convince him to get a birthday haircut, but we'll see.  He's been saying that he wants it "long like Mommy" for a while now.

Ryder's speaking skills have continued to get better and better.  Now he throws words like "otherwise" into conversations!  It's hard to believe he's the same kid that I was so worried about a year ago.  Frequently he'll use a word or phrase and I think to myself, "Where did he learn that?" or "How did he remember that?"  I can understand 95% of what he says; I'm sure that strangers understand significantly less of course.  On the rare occasions when I can't figure out what he is saying, he gets very upset.  As long as I can figure it out before he starts yelling, we're good, because once he starts yelling then it's very hard to understand.

In addition to conversational speaking skills, Ryder's monologue-ing skills have increased.  I always knew that he could finish the sentences in his favorite books, but one night out of the blue he recited a 12 line long section of "Katy and the Big Snow" perfectly! Come to find out he can recite most of the book, missing some words here and there.  Some of the more challenging words are hard to understand, but not if you know the book.  It turns out that he knows the words of most of his favorite books- in fact sometimes he recites "The Going to Bed Book" to Vivi at bedtime.

This month Ryder's favorite toys, books and shows have all been about fire trucks.  He has long been drawing houses on fire and fire trucks with hoses coming to the rescue, but now it is all fire trucks all the time.

Ryder loves to help around the house, so I'm trying to enjoy that while it lasts.  He loves to vacuum with the big and small vacuum, dust and he even unloaded the silverware from the dishwasher one morning.  He can put on almost all of his own clothes, although he seriously prefers his shoes to be on the wrong feet!

After being a super easy kid to get to bed for his entire life, Ryder started pushing his boundaries at bedtime too.  This past month I have been working on curbing the insanity at bedtime and it has mostly worked.  Now there is an alarm to tell him when it's time to brush his teeth and go to bed.  Most nights he trots right up, although we usually have to brush the teeth in his room and sometimes do a last-second PJ change.  He still sleeps in pretty well; most weekend days he sleeps til about 7am.  Occasionally he'll ask to go to bed or take his nap, and one time he went upstairs and got in bed for his nap all on his own.

Just chillin' on the floor

Happy go lucky!

Hair for days!

Tired of the photo shoot

Something caught his eye on Curious George

Look at those knees, he wears his "construction boy" pants so very often!