The Big Birthday Boy

Our little boy celebrated his second birthday last week. It just blows my mind how time flies. Sadly, I've had to admit to myself that Riley isn't really a baby anymore.
We had a great party, and he was definitely into it more than with his first birthday. Riley's completely obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine right now, so we made him a Thomas cake and his Grandpa and Grammy bought him a little Thomas train set. He almost couldn't handle all the excitement.

"Here, Grandpa. Lick my candle for me."



Blow out the candles!

The masterpiece de pastel. I wish I could take credit for this. It was mostly the creative genius of my mom and brother. I'm the one who wrecked things that they had to fix.

Riley's birthday book--Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things that Go. I highly recommend it....it's amazing. Riley has been asking us to read it to him ten times a day.
Riley and his daddy putting together his Thomas set. Riley went ballistic when he saw it. Sam was just as excited. He kept saying, "Man, I hope Riley goes to bed soon so I can play with his train all by myself."

Ah, Motherhood

When Riley was born, I remember the nurses telling me that he had accomplished a feat previously unreached by any other newborn at the good 'ol Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. He could scream so loud that they could hear him all the way down the hall from the nursery, through two sets of those heavy-duty metal doors that hospitals are always full of.
In my perverse new mother-hood naivety, I thought that was something to be proud of... "Oh, good. Our robust little boy has a great set of lungs."
Since, then Riley's ability to scream at the top of his lungs has reached its peak. These days, when he's in tantrum mode, he arches his back, throws his head back, and screams so loud that his tongue and little hangy-ball thingy start shaking.

Like so.

It's simply delightful. Especially when we're in a public place and all those seasoned mothers start rolling their eyes and looking at me like.."Pulleezz. Can't you control your child?"

I always thought people were exagerrating when they used the term terrible twos. After all, how could it be so hard to deal with a little person 1/10th your size and cognitive ability? Little did I know.

Riley has also enacted his own set of toddler property laws, which are as follows: 1. If I like it, it's mine. 2. If I can take it from you, it's mine. 3. If it's mine, it must not appear to be yours in any way. 4. If I saw it first, it's mine. If we try to make him share anything (or take something away from him after he viciously ripped it out of the hands of a hapless, less-savage toddler) he looks at us with this hurt little face like the world is coming to the end and then the screams start coming.

Needless to say, I am incredibly grateful for those wonderful moments when he wraps his sticky little hands around my neck, smiles at me, and says, 'Hi Mama!' It's enough to make me forget all those tantrums almost entirely....just not quite enough that I can completely convince myself that it's high time to have another baby.

P.S. If any of you expert moms out there have any tips for me, book suggestions, etc that may help me deal with the terrible twos phenomenon please shoot them my way.

Happy 4th!

Hope you all had a great Fourth of July. Riley decided to start the celebrations a little early by necessitating his first required trip to the hospital. He grabbed a hot motorcycle exhaust pipe with his poor little baby hands. We couldn't tell at first how bad it was going to be, but after about 30 minutes of constant screaming we decided to take him in. Luckily, we got him hooked up with some baby Lortab which helped us get through the next couple of days. The first little while was rough though. For about 8 hours after the injury, Riley couldn't stray too far from his ice pack. He would drop it to play and about 30 seconds later come running to pick it up again. It was pretty hard to see him so miserable and not be able to do a thing about it.
Everything has pretty well healed up now, but every once in awhile when Riley is looking for some free sympathy points, he'll randomly point to his hand and mutter a pathetic "ow." He left this bandage on his hand for approximately three seconds. You've now seen Riley wearing a bandage for longer than I did.

Here we are at the Neola 4th of July kids rodeo. Despite his injured hand, Riley decided he wanted to run around in the dirt beneath the bleachers and kick up some nice clouds of dust for everyone to enjoy. Unfortunately, he got distracted, forgot to notice the bleachers were sloping downward, then smacked his little nose and fell flat on his back. His bloody nose lasted about 10 minutes. I took him to the bathroom to clean him up, and seeing the blood and bandaged hand, the ladies in there looked like they wanted to report me to DCFS.

Riley and the chicken he "caught" before we released him so we wouldn't have to take the thing home.

All in all, despite the injuries, we managed to have a pretty nice holiday.