Recently Heard

SCENE: Ryan and I walking back to the van from school





"Momma? Can we go to Toys R Us?"


"No baby, we can't"


silence for about 15 seconds


"Well, you know....at Subway there is no no's. I saw it last night on TV. Let's go to Subway"


"We're not at Subway and you're in a land where No's reign supreme"


"It's raining?"

(sigh)

SCENE: at home watching Monsters Inc where Mike takes his snakey haired girlfriend out to dinner





"I want to go on a date."


chuckle "You do? With who?"


"You and daddy. But no eating."

Busy Week

This picture has nothing to do with what I am about to blog, but it is a really cute picture.

This week Ryan started school - AGAIN. He was a good sport. He said he was going to try to make the best of it. I think it helped it was in a different school district so he could begin again with everyone else and not have to go to a different school after they had already begun.

I began a new job with a web design company as Account Executive and Project Manager. I really like my job and they are keeping me busy. So, we're all keeping very busy these days.

We have more video of the second "first day" - just haven't the time or energy to try to download it yet.

One more picture for the road.....

Reliving the Past

I'm still learning how to do this blogging thing - I keep getting the pictures on here in the wrong order - at least for what I'd like to do. At any rate, here are pictures of Ryan when he was first born......

This is the first time Neal got a chance to feed Ryan as I was finally able to pump enough milk for him to be able to feed him. This is one of my favorite pictures.

I remember swaddling Ryan so tight I couldn't see how he could breathe. Yet, he slept so well. I think I spent the first three months just staring at him - at least when I wasn't pumping.

We were honored to have a visit from Neal's Grammy. She could only stay for a few hours but we were so happy to open home and have Grammy meet Ryan.

This was in the hospital. Neal did A LOT of sleeping. I wished I could.

The sleepy grin.

I am holding Ryan's feet while in the hospital. Everyone has always made such a big deal about Ryan's feet - even before he was born. I like to think of it as he has been blessed with a great foundation.

One of the first pictures in the hospital.

THE first picture of us as a family! I was still recuperating from a Csection and apparently was having problems with my blood pressure so I couldn't hold him and nurse Ryan as soon as I wanted.

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So Ryan just turned 4 last month and I have been going through old pictures and thought I would post a few going back to Ryan's birth.

And one more thing.....

On a different note.....



We went to a fundraiser for a little boy Ryan's age who has a heart condition that will require him to have surgery. The surgery requires him to go to Maryland(?) and it is surgery to repair his heart. This is major surgery with major costs.



I explained to Ryan that we would be going to this fundraiser and he began to ask a lot of questions. I tried to answer honestly and age appropriately with sayings things like,



" There is a little boy your age that needs surgery and we are going to go help give money towards his surgery."



"What kind of surgery(in his cute pronunciation of it) is it momma?"



"Well, it is to help his heart." [looks perplexed and begins to think]



"Daddy, I want you to explain to me exactly what they have to do to his heart."

(I was both impressed at his question and offended that apparently his daddy needed to be the one to answer him - oh well, better him than me I suppose)



[long explanation by daddy]



"Well, I want to help."



"Well we are going to help by going to the fundraiser and giving money."



"No, I want to give the little boy something. Maybe something he can play with while he is in the hospital. Can we visit him in the hospital?"



"Well he isn't in the hospital but we will see him tonight so if you'd like to pick something to give him we could do that."



"Ok but I want to help him play with it in the hospital. Let me go get my set and we can play together."



- You get the idea - we spent a lot of the ride explaining we weren't going to the hospital and he would not be allowed to play with him at the hospital but he did choose a Lego set to give the little boy and he gave it him himself. The little boy was so excited to receive it! His mom told us that while the hospital has a lot of toys they don't have Legos and he would love it.

What a week

Ryan began preschool this week. He was nervous and a bit anxious about a new pre school but overall he seemed ready. He had a friend, Melanie, in his class and he seemed to making friends just fine.

The reason we sent Ryan to this pre school was because of a few people we knew who sent their children to this school. They liked it and what we heard most was that they "challenged" children in their educational pursuits. Neal and I liked that since Ryan gets bored so easily and usually enjoys a challenge.

The school itself has never been impressive to either me or Neal. The teacher was expecting the children to already know things that are only age appropriate for kindergartners and was really keen on letting us know that the children she taught last year at that school were much better at everything. In her eyes, because Ryan couldn't conform immediately to what she wanted, he wasn't fitting in.

Well, that and a host of other problems including her rudeness to me on several occasions led us to get out of there in only 3 days.

Ryan made a lot of friends and was upset that we just pulled him out but at $500 a month we had to make a decision real soon before another payment was made to people who really didn't care. No one at all asked or cared why we were pulling him from the school.

Now he feels like there is no reason to be invested in a school any more and he doesn't like the idea of going to another school. I know what we did was right but it is hard to see Ryan, who is so sensitive and gets attached to people so easily, get upset. I can only pray that the new school we checked out will help him to get through it.

The new school is a polar opposite to the last school. They are a private Christian school and practice a lot of love and creativity and allow the children to be as creative as they can be. The idea that a child would have to draw something to look just like the model is not their philosphy at all. It is in the creating and in the developing of skills that the teaching occurs and not in the end result. They also teach the principles of the Bible to the students and help them to see that other people are less fortunate and find ways for the children to help. I don't get that he will master any big subjects like math or science or even the alphabet even though they will "teach" it to them. Neal and I do a lot of that home and and he can always get that from other places but what I like is the social skills (not like he doesn't already have a lot of those) and the Bible principles as well as the fostering of creativity in every subject will be terrific for him. I just hope he feels the same way.

I have pictures from his "first day" at the previous school and I kind of feel sad posting them. I have video too. I don't think I will post it tonight - but soon I will post it and then will be posting his "First Day - Do Over" pictures soon after that.

Here's to another week of Summer with Ryan!