The Span Between Two Points

Everyone warned me that once I had a baby time would go in warp speed.  They were right.  Adding a second baby to the mix just makes things go faster.  The days may be slow, but the weeks, months and years seem to fly by. 

Ryan has transformed from a pile of baby into a sweet, silly, opinionated little boy.  When he woke up this morning he must have realized he was two and decided he needed to start on his "Terrible Two" persona immediately.  He was as crabby and sassy as ever.  He actually practiced making cry faces in the mirror while I was getting ready.  When I asked him if he was ok, he happily replied "Yep!" then went right back to it.  As sassy and opinionated and TWO as he is, he is still my baby.  He still will happily snuggle into my shoulder at every opportunity and run for me to comfort him whenever he is unhappy.

I can't help but think back today about the day he was born and try to remember the little details that have faded over the past two years.  The funny conversations we had with my nurse.  The teenage parent who asked my mom if Ryan was an albino baby.  How excited Mike was to finally meet "Ry-nan Patch-Kick."  I hope in the years to come I will still remember these little snippets of his past because sometimes I look back and can't remember how he got from the baby that he was to the boy that he is. 

Tomorrow...

Tomorrow my sweet baby turns 2. I can't imagine our lives without him and at the same time I  trying to remember advanced calculus formulas to figure out how 2 years have gone by so quickly. 

Ryan is a sweet, opinionated, little stinker. He has a fiery temper but is quickly subdued (just like mama). 

He absolutely adores Mike and tries to imitate everything he does. He loves to put Mike's shoes on and wear them around the house. 

He is very outgoing and persistently yells "hi" at any one we pass while out and about. 

His vocabulary is growing and he has started stringing together 2 and 3 word sentences.  He is becoming more and more independent and tries to undress himself. He can pretty effectively use utensils while eating and has started drinking water out of a normal cup. 

He LOVES Sam and Kitty and can frequently be found trying to squish kitty into submission (ie hugging?)

He loves trucks, balls, blocks and whatever Mike has. 

Every night he insists on giving everyone hugs and kisses and will throw a fit if I try to rush the process. 

Ryan Patrick I love you to the moon and back!

Monday Picture

Monday Picture (on Tuesday)

Monday Picture

Snowmageddon 2014

Every year St. Louis gets one or two decent snow storms.  People tend to freak out, schools tend to close before the first snowflakes even fly and everyone acts like the world is coming to an end.  The latest storm was no different.  Even though it stopped snowing by Sunday evening schools, daycares and businesses were closed across the city on Monday (including my work and the boy's daycare).  Some schools are even still closed today (Wednesday).  The roads are still terrible and our mail has not been delivered for two days.  The good news was, this storm actually amounted to something. We ended up with around a foot of snow over a 12 hour period. It took me 90 minutes to shovel our driveway and I was really that my car has four wheel drive.  The day after the strom the high temperature was 0 and the wind chills were in the -30s. The only person more excited about it was probably Mike.  He withstood the falling temperatures to happily frolic in the snow and he even "helped" me shovel.

 This is the view out our front window on Monday afternoon.  The cruiser is very much buried and will probably stay that way until the temperatures rise and the snow around it melts.

We build a big snow hill with all the snow on the driveway and played King of the Mountain.

Ryan even tolerated the snow for a little while.  He was perfectly happy if you were holding him or letting him throw snow at you, but the minute you left his side he would start wailing.

"Sledding" in the driveway:

Monday Picture

Grandpa Jerry

I was off work for 12 days.  The plan was we would drive up to Madison on Sunday (12/22), meet my parents and spend a few days visiting Grandpa Jerry and then we would all drive down to St. Louis on Christmas Even (Tuesday) and spend Christmas and the new week hanging out together.  Everything changed when my dad got a call from his aunt on Saturday (12/21) telling us that Grandpa had been rushed to the hospital via ambulance and we needed to get there quickly.  So Brad changed his schedule, Sarah got a flight and Marshann and Marissa got flights and we all rushed to Wisconsin to be with Grandpa.  

 

One of his last wishes was to have all 4 of his granddaughters together (something that had never happened before). 

 

We changed our travel plans and stayed until Christmas so that everyone could be together.  This required a little extra effort from Santa, but thankfully he found us.  That day the Warlick family drove back to St. Louis because Brad had to work on 12/26.

 

 

On December 26 Grandpa passed away surrounded by people who loved him.  I repacked our suitcases and made the return trip (this time without Brad) on 12/27.  We spent the next few days cleaning out a lifetime of stuff from Grandpa's house.  There were happy moments, there were silly moments and there were sad moments, but we were all together and that would have made Grandpa happy.

 

After the funeral on Monday (12/30) I packed the boys into the car and headed back to St. Louis.  While my heart wanted to stay with my family my head knew that I needed to give my boys a chance to play and be little boys for a while after spending most of the previous 10 days in a hospital, a car and a hectic house.

 When we finally made it home late Monday night all of my boys were happily reunited.

It definitely was not the best Christmas we have ever had, but I got to spend a lot of time with people who I otherwise wouldn't have seen and that is definitely something.