Pea Pie

Since I dedicated my last post to my trip to Seattle, it is time to have a post about our Pea Pie! I've been thinking lately about the things we call Rylan and wondering which will stick and if there are any we need to quit calling her. Like "Baby Girl." I'm pretty sure we will quit using it once she has a new cousin in November and she's not the baby anymore. But what if she ends up being called "Baby" like the girl in Dirty Dancing? That would not be good. We've also been known to throw out "Ry Baby," "Pea Pie," Ry Pie" and just plain ol' "Ry." I think I've only been pondering it because I've heard other people using them to address her. What if we're setting her up for future embarrassment? Just something that's been on my mind lately.

I could have titled this post 'The Screamer' as Rylan does a lot of that lately. She screams when she's happy and when she's mad at someone or thing. I think she's going to be a bit like me in that she gets really frustrated when she doesn't get something the way she wants. She used to jabber to herself about things not going right, but now she is starting to let me know when she's ticked. The other day she was trying to climb up her high chair and the lid wasn't attached so down on her bum she went! She screamed at it, then proceeded to walk over to me at the sink jabbering the whole time about it. Pretty funny.

Her jabbering lately has been out of control! Some of it you can understand, but most just sounds like jibberish. There are several things she says, though, that we do understand. She uses "no" to answer everything, even if she really does want what you have. We know that "Dad" is for her daddy and "Dada" means Papa Wilson (she calls it as we approach their house now, "Dada, dada, dada" even though often he's at work when we are there)! "Mom" is for her mommy and "Mama" is for Mema Wilson. She calls cousin Aiden "Day" but hasn't tried Ella. Maybe that's because the two of them hardly ever get along. Last week they were squabbling about something and Rylan started screaming. Aiden was blocking my view of them, so I calmed Rylan down and we went about our business. When Echo came she found a nice bite mark on Rylan's hand. That's what all the noise was about. Oops! She still says "What's that?" and "Who's that" though not as often as she used to. Her newest phrase is "some more," which she said to everything the other day. It got really old by bedtime! Let's see....oh, she calls Tucker "Tuhtuh" and once in a while she will call her daddy "Shaun." I swear I didn't teach her that one, but I encourage her to do it when she starts because I think it's funny! Shaun and Tucker swear that the other night as they were sitting at the table conversing Rylan said "I love you." She hasn't said it again, however, and I wasn't there to hear it, so I'm not sure it's true. She was eating a hamburger bun at the time and she ADORES them; maybe she was declaring her love!

Shaun took Rylan to her 15-month check-up while I was in Seattle. The little stinker is not quite 22 pounds, putting her at the 30th percentile. I can't remember her height but she was at the 70th percentile. The doc wants us to focus on more dairy products and making sure she gets a daily vitamin dose. Other than that, everything looks good. I hear that Ry got scolded by Dr. Ammari for jabbering on and on and not letting the doc talk to Shaun. When Ammari asked Rylan to wait she obeyed, so Shaun got to hear how she's not dumb and we need to make her mind!

Ahhh, making her mind. Some days she makes me want to pull my hair out. We tell people that she's very busy but someone close to us described it a little better: she's high-maintenance. The girl wants you to know that she is available to play and wants your full attention. She is pretty strong-willed about most things. This week, though, she has done a great job at picking up her toys and not throwing a fit when asked to do something. Echo gave us a Dr. Dobson DVD on discipline that we started watching. I have memories of my mom listening to him while doing dishes when we were little. I think we turned out okay, so I'm going to listen to what the man has to say! She is still ever the entertainer and loves to be out and about with other people. Getting to greet people in stores is still one of her favorite things to do and she continues to woo all she meets.

We are trying to fill our days with lots of fun activities and I am loving my time at home with Ry Baby. The next couple weeks will be very busy so the ones at home have been a nice treat. Rylan gets to spend most of next week at her Mema and Papa's house. I leave for a work conference in Denver on Tuesday morning and Shaun is on days starting Wednesday. We decided that instead of Shaun taking Rylan to my mom at 5 a.m. and picking her up at 8 p.m., it would just be easier for Shaun to stop and say hi to her when he is done working and leave her there for the night. I'm sure she'll have fun being spoiled full-time. And now, since Shaun and I are going to a late movie tonight, I'm headed up to join Rylan for an afternoon nap. I love summer. Hope yours is going well, too!

Rylan adores blueberries-but she's not great at processing them!


Aiden about to splash in our kiddie pool


Rylan kickin' it in the pool-she would have stayed out all afternoon if I had let her!


Shaun cleaning his garage-we got a lot of cleaning projects done last week. Woohoo!


We took Rylan to play at the City Park on a beautiful Sunday afternoon last week


"I'm going up these steps and you can't stop me!"


Playing peek-a-boo with Daddy


Hanging out with her cheesy Mommy


Eating a cupcake from the odd neighbors. They know when we have a baby-sitter or other company and that we spend a lot of time with Tucker. It's weird to hear about what you're doing from someone you don't talk to often--but the cupcakes were tasty (and we're not sick so they weren't poisoned)!


Rylan loves the song "The Right Stuff" by New Kids on the Block. She didn't do as much "oh-ohing" as she normally does in this clip-maybe she knew I was recording!