Terrible Two's and Such

 Remember back in April when we took Ryder to his swim lessons at the Y and how he hated it?

Well, fast forward to the past few weeks (and probably longer) and Ryder has been "swimming" like a champ in the bathtub. I'm talking jumping in, splashing, ducking his head under, holding his breath, kicking, and blowing bubbles underwater. I only wish that he felt this comfortable to do in a real pool, but we'll take this in the "baffy tub" for now. I'm so proud of how far Ryder has come, even in the bath tub, as far as getting his face wet and ducking his head underwater goes. Sometimes he goes under for a few seconds and I actually feel my heart leap out of my chest, but as soon as he pops his head up and bursts into laughter, I know just how much fun Ryder is having, and that he is just asserting his new found skill of "swimming".

The rest of our weekend was restful and pretty uneventful. I think we were all in full on lazy mode by the time we got home from church yesterday, and stuck around the house for the rest of the day. Ryder has continued to show signs of marking his territory on all of his old baby things, including his vibrating bouncy seat. I just hope he doesn't try this with Brynley seated in it!

In addition to being lazy for most of the day, we spent a lot of our time coloring and painting. Please don't mind my large and in charge pregnancy arm that happened to get in the picture with Ryder. I have noticed that Ryder absolutely loves anything to do with painting, so I'm thinking this Christmas I will have to take him to the local pottery place so he can paint a few projects for his grandparents as gifts. We haven't been recently and I think he is at the age that he would really enjoy it and can do so much more now! Before I just let him put his hand or footprint on the ceramic, and I did all of the painting, but I would really like to see him go to town painting all on his own. It has also started me thinking of all of the fun art projects I want to soon do with him once I am staying at home with him.

The rest of the night consisted of putting away the rest of the things we had gotten Brynley, including her cute girly photo albums I found at Kohl's with a coupon. I couldn't believe it when I saw that they had the Noah's Ark album in pink, same as we bought Ryder and it holds pictures from his first birthday party. I decided I want to save hers for pictures to hold of her first birthday party too. I know that we will have so many pictures to put in these albums, and I can't wait!

I will say that last night was one of the most difficult nights we have had as a family in a very long time. I think the devil was rearing his ugly head, and came out in the form of a very grouchy toddler and long night of battling. What started as a fun family night, watching Rio (great movie by the way!) in bed ended in a battle of odds and tears shed from both Ryder and I. It had been a long day of tantrums and timeouts, and I know there were a lot of factors contributing to the final straw (including skipping nap, eating junk food, and limited follow throughs when discipline was concerned the past few days), but whatever the case, at one point Scot and I looked at each other and questioned our parenting. No matter what we said or did, Ryder was very confrontational and telling us "NO!" He refused dinner, and later begged for snacks. He intentionally threw his stuffed animal at me and later hit Scot. By this point we had reached our patience with him and were ready to put him to bed. We usually give in (and lately more so than before because I am so pregnant and tired, and Scot is tired because he's usually taking the slack because I'm at the point where I'm limited). Ryder was being very mean and not listening, laughing when he got spanked, and timeout didn't work and we were literally at our wits ends, wondering what on Earth went wrong with the last hour that turned our normally peaceful little bug into a mean spirited punk.

It ended when Ryder begged for oatmeal, and then after Scot had prepared it for him, complete with adding ice cubes to quickly cool it off, Ryder spit it out. All over the place. Not funny! By this point Scot was seeing RED and told Ryder he'd had it. He marched him up to bed, and then Ryder banged on his door to get out, screaming. The next 15 or 20 minutes consisted of a yelling match, complete with crying and lots of hard spankings. I was at a loss because I knew my baby wasn't himself, but knew he needed the discipline to be corrected. Finally once Ryder knew he was defeated, and gave up his struggles, I went upstairs to check on him and to say prayers and tuck him in bed. He was so upset, but barely awake enough to even open his eyes, and then he hugged me and I told him he was having an off night and that he hurt Mommy and Daddy's feelings when he acted like that. I think he understood as much as he could at that point, and when he woke up this morning, it was if all of the praying I did after I put him to bed had done the trick! (and all of the crying and sleep Ryder got out of it too!)

I just pray that God shows me the wisdom and strength to get through these toddler years, because let me tell you, it was by far one of the hardest times of being a parent. It was right up there with the first or second week we had Ryder home from the hospital as a newborn and couldn't get him soothed after a sleepless night for everyone. I know that this is just a season, and it shall pass, but nights like last night were not an easy task to say the least!