Well that title is a great way to describe the weather in Fredericton this year so far? Oye!!! As some of you may or may not know, I had the extreme displeasure of getting in my first car accident early December and boy was it scary. Now as I explain what happened I know many of you will be shaking your heads at my foolishness, but what good are we if we have no mistakes to learn from? Jason and I always wait until the last possible moment to put our winter tires on, this year for several reasons. First, Jason is traveling non-stop in the fall and it is just to HARD for me to get there. Second, the minute we put them on the gas needle drops dramatically. Third, don't we always think that we have more time? Well, one Saturday morning we got up, looked outside and I realised that we had no more time. We were in the midst of our first snowfall. Jason was leaving again the next day and I wanted the tires on now. So I took Ryan's carseat and stroller out of the car, loaded the tires in the car grabbed my book and some snacks and headed out to wait all day if I had to to get the tires put on. I made it about 6 or 7 kms down the Hanwell road when I started to fishtail. Try as I might I could not gain control. Before I knew I was doing a 180 and slid right off of the road (on the other side facing in the opposite direction). Not only was I in the ditch but the car was propped up on the passenger side and there I was hanging. It took me awhile to get my bearings and figure out first how to get out my seatbelt and second how to get out of the car. By the time I did, there were cars backed up in either direction as far as I could see and people all around the car. Lesson learned - winter tires will be henseforth installed on the first day that law allows, October 15th! The weather has been icy and messy ever since and Ryan and I are thrilled that our chaufer is done travelling for the season and can focus his attentions on us! (UPDATE: Jason has inherited a snow blower. No more $$$$ to the plow lady.)Now, on to happier things. How is little miss Ryan? Well, you can take the 'little' right out of there! She is one tall girl. She is wearing a size 3 snowsuit and is wearing 2t pants and some 3t shirts! She is already on her 2nd pair of winter boots and snowsuit this winter - and its only just begun! Since my last post she has grown in leaps and bounds. She started walking at about 13 1/2 months with her little elbows tucked in close to her body, fists and chin up in the air and her chest pumped out with pride. She was an expert in no time and has now moved on to running, running, running! We recently went to her 18month check-up and while she is no longer tipping the scales she is TAALLL, 33.5 inches to be exact. She can climb onto the couch by herself, does not want any help with the stairs, has not had a bottle in over a week, nor has she sat in her highchair - strictly booster seat at the table. Our baby is a whole lot less baby and a whole lot more little girl. I think I may keep her in her crib for a long, long time.
Ryan continues to develop her own unique little personality (some would even say she's a bit eccentric....). She values her personal space. Even more so when someone younger than her is in it! She LOVES her Nanny Trudy and Jason and I continue to thank our lucky stars to have found a surrogate family like the Hetheringtons for Ryan to be a part of. She is still working on her vocabulary and is trying oh so hard to speak to us. I picked her up from Trudy's one day before Christmas and was informed that she said, 'Mama Christmas!' As we approach the end of January the damn has broken and she just can't stop talking. 'Hew-wo', 'Bye', 'fower', 'wa-er', 'shoe' are just some of her many words. Oh, and there is her 1st verbal command, 'OFF" mostly this refers to the removal of unwanted clothing. She has the softest little voice.
She also has maybe has just a teeny-tiny touch of OCD (poor little pet, she comes by it honestly). A perfect example of this trait goes like this. Ryan likes to have things how they were the first time she saw them. We realized this after Christmas morning. Santa brought Ryan a tent, a doll stroller, and sitting in the stroller was Love-a-lot bear form the Care Bears. So everything stayed as it was presented until one day Mommy and Daddy decided it was time to put things away. So Mommy brought the stroller to Ryan's room with the Care Bear still seated. The next day for some reason I decide to put the Care Bear in Ryan's toy box. Later that day there was a mess on the floor and a different teddy (Sprinkles) ended up in the stroller. That night, we were going through our nightly routine of rocking and reading when Ryan glanced at her stroller and became visibly upset. 'Enhhh, enhhh!' And slid off of my lap and took the teddy out of her stroller, retrieved the care bear from her toybox, put him back in the stroller and placed Sprinkles back in the corner! Resume storytime.
I think I mentioned in the past that Ryan loves books. Well this continues with a new love of numbers and letters. An early visit from Santa (family Christmas party at work) produced an Aquadoodle which is a drawing mat that only works with a water pen. Jason has taken to sitting down at her little table with her and writing, 'Mom, Dad, and Ryan'. About 1 month ago I was watching them play and Jason asked her, 'Where is the 'M', where is the 'O' etc and she proceeded to point them all out! The next night I wrote down all of the words with her and asked them to her out of order - much to my amazment she got them all right! Then I asked her, 'which word spells Mom?' and can you imagine that she picked the right one? Letter recognition and not even 1 1/2 old! Can you say PROUD parents? Now, nearly 1 month later, she is quite the little expert and depending on her mood will fetch up to 1 dozen magnetic letters from the fridge (by name).
I'm sure that there is so much more to share but for fear that I will never get this posted I must end here. Until the next time :o)
