Baby boy

My baby boy sure does love his passies! ;0)

And his candy :D

He's such a silly, fun little boy!!!

My sweet girl

This is Taylor's Spring school picture...

Doesn't she look so grown up?  (Oh, where did my baby girl go???)

I sure do LOVE this precious lil face!!!

A Dinner Miracle

I feel like an update is needed to (somewhat) redeem poor Rylan from the unflattering post I did about his eating habits a few months ago.  He actually deserved a redemption post not too terribly long after my original post back in January, but, alas, I was on a blog sabbatical (wink, wink) so he’s just now getting his due. 

As I said in my previous post, he was growing increasingly limited as to what he would eat.  It seemed almost every day there was a new item that he had chowed down on just the day before that was suddenly disgusting to him the very next day.  We made him take a “no thank you bite” of whatever we were serving for dinner and, if he didn’t like it, we would make him something else like chicken nuggets or a peanut butter sandwich.  The most irritating problem was that he would cry and scream his little head off just because he had to take one little bite.  He would even at times try to push his plate completely off the table or at least push it as far away from him as he could get it.  He would then continue the crying and screaming until we put something in front of him that he recognized and approved of, which at that time was pretty much only baby food, a banana, yogurt, chicken nuggets or a peanut butter sandwich. 

We were at our wits end and dinner time at our house was becoming miserable for all parties involved. 

Bring in our Lay-Down-The-Law-Daddy.  (Have I mentioned how grateful I am for this man???...because this mama can be such a softy!)

Kraig had had enough. 

It was one thing for Rylan to decide he was going to be picky, but it was quite another for him to have a complete and utter meltdown over tasting, chewing and swallowing one bite of food.  So, we began reprimanding him for his defiant behavior.  Taking a “no thank you bite” was non-negotiable and if he did not stop throwing fits about having to take one, there were non-negotiable repercussions.  Mainly, we removed him from the table and sat him in time out until he composed himself.  (Some of you may be thinking, Time out for a one year old…seriously?  Yes, seriously.  We’ve been putting him in time out since right around his 1^st birthday and it does wonders for him.  He gets so wrapped up in his anger and his fits that he just needs that time to collect himself.  Kraig, of course, was the first person to ever put the child in time out and I was completely skeptical the first time he did it, but, boy, was I amazed at how it worked!)  Once he composed himself, he was allowed to rejoin us at the table.  If he started to scream and cry again, he would go right back in time out away from the rest of us. 

Also, during this time, we began refusing to immediately put a different plate of food in front of him after his “no thank you bite.”  While the three of us ate and (tried) to enjoy our dinner, he would sit and watch all of us with his untouched food in front of him.  Once we were finished, if he hadn’t eaten, I would then make him something else and he ate at the table alone while Kraig and Taylor played in the living room and I cleaned up the kitchen.

And then something changed.

He began (I suppose, anyway) tiring of the constant time outs and isolation and actually started taking more than just a “no thank you bite!”  Often at his own will!  And, low and behold, he found that he actually could tolerate and even enjoy some of the tastes and textures he was experiencing.

It was a dinner miracle!!!

This has been going on for at least two months now and steadily getting better.  I can’t even remember the last time I made him a separate meal.  He does still complain and cry a little from time to time about having to try new things or eat several bites of something he’s not crazy about, but things are nowhere near the way they were and, whew, I am so thankful!

Here he is showing off what a good little variety eater he is becoming (this pic was taken one night at dinner when we realized we’d had several dinners in a row with no crying!)

And here is big sis showing us what an awesomely great little variety eater she has always been :D  (She was too funny with this whole “let’s teach Rylan to have better food variety” thing.  She would make Rylan look at her then slowly and deliberately put a big bite of food in her mouth and chew it ever so carefully while saying “Watch Sissy.  Mmmmmm, this is good.  Sissy likes it!”  It was just the cutest thing ever.)

It’s my best friend’s birthday!

I love this man so incredibly much. 

He is the most amazing husband and the absolute best father and I am so, so blessed that he’s MINE (well…OURS, since I do share him with those other two adorable faces in the photo)!  And, with that, I’m wishing him the happiest 32^nd birthday ever!  I love you, Kraig.  Thank you for being THE BEST!!! 

And, for all of you, my faithful readers (though I’m not a faithful blogger), I Googled “romantic birthday messages” and here’s what I came up with:

Thinking of you with love on your birthday and wishing you everything that brings you happiness today and always.

To the world, you may be one person. But to me, you are the world.

It's as easy to stay in love with you as it was to fall in love.

Happy Birthday my love!

It is not being in love that makes me happy but it is being in love with YOU that makes me happy.

With each year I love you more and more.

I'm enthralled by your beauty, mesmerized by your charisma and spellbound by your love. No wonder I am always thinking about you.

It's always a treat to wish Happy Birthday to someone so sweet.

My heart for you will never break. My smile for you will never fade. My love for you will never end. I love you.

Happy Birthday my dearest and sweetest, not a day goes by when I do not think of you and how empty my life would be if you were not here.

With each year I'll love you more. Remember that your best years are still ahead of you and I'll be there for every up down and in between.

Because you're the gift in my life, I give you my gift of love.

I know your lives are all the richer for reading those.  You’re welcome.  (And I’m totally using that last one on Kraig and see if he still expects a present, lol ;D)

I’ve been on a blog sabbatical.

Ok, so it’s more like I’ve just been neglecting my blog, but it sounds better when it comes across as more of an intentional choice ~ HA! ;0)  It’s really not that I want to or even intend to completely ignore my blog, but, rather, I have SO MUCH going on in my brain that it’s hard for me to sit and really write about just one thing. 

I’ve had A LOT on my mind lately so it’s hard to narrow down a specific topic and go with it.  I’ve been journaling a lot the last month or so and, WOW, can I ramble!  That’s what a journal is for though, I guess.  It’s just a great place for me to pour out my thoughts without fear of judgment for grammatical correctness or inconsistencies.

The main purpose for this blog though is to talk about my children and show you their beautiful faces

so, hopefully, over the next few weeks, you will see that…

I promise I’m really going to try!    

Seriously??

Oh, do I have my hands FULL! ;-D

What am I going to do?

I used to hear parents complain about their children being picky or finicky eaters.  I just didn't understand this.  You've heard the expression "Picky eaters aren't born, they're made"?  I believed this to a extent.

Until now.

Oh my, Rylan is giving us a run for our money in the food department!  Don't get me wrong, he's a huge kid...over 90th percentile in both height and weight according to his 15 month checkup stats...so I'm not concerned that he's not eating enough, but, rather, when it comes to food variety, he has none.  And the older he gets, the less variety he accepts.

When he started eating baby food, he liked all varities that I gave him and I thought, Great!  Then when we started giving him table food from time to time, he would eat it and seemed to enjoy whatever we offered him.  Well, when it came time to actually transition from baby food to table food, we somehow hit a wall. 

An increasingly growing wall.

I really thought transitioning from baby food to table food would be easy with Rylan because it was with Taylor.  Actually, she pretty much transitioned herself.  Around ten months old she started refusing her baby food, but would pretty much eat anything and everything else that we gave her.  Rylan, on the other hand...

Not so much.

At first he refused a lot of things, but also accepted a lot of things so I just thought, Okay, he's not going to be one of those "eats anything" kind of people like I am, but, rather, he will have slightly more preferences like his daddy does.  And I was ok with that because he was at least trying the foods we offered him.

But now we can hardly get him to do that without him having a huge crying fit :(

I just don't know what I'm going to do with this adorabley frustrating little boy.

While we do make him take a "no thank you" bite, we aren't enforcing that he eat what we're serving as we feel he's a bit too young to understand this.  Plus, when he's hungry, he is CRANKY!  But...

His party is soon over!!!

We will give him a few more months (he's 17 months now so probably when he's closer to 2 years and is better able to understand reason) then the hammer comes down.  There will be no special chicken nuggets cooked or peanut butter sandwiches made.  There will be no yogurt cups offered or bananas peeled.

He will either eat what is served to him at meal time or he will wait until the next appointed snack time or meal time to eat.

That sounds so harsh, I know.

But, seriously people, what else should we do???