Things to remember

I have been storing up some funny things Rylan has said or done and wanted to write them down before I forgot.

Rylan has been stalling a lot before bedtime lately and has also fallen into the routine of moving his bowels at bedtime. This usually means long periods of time sitting on the potty with a very tired mom praying for results, soon. Last week we didn't get any action before bedtime, so I went ahead and put Rylan to bed. About an hour later I just happened to walk past his room and heard him softly calling to me that he had to go potty. When I checked on him, I found him sitting in an enormous wet spot on his bed, surrounded by these weird white particles that looked like cottage cheese. I finally realized he had opened his sippy cup, dumped his water all over his bed, then picked the "popcorn" off the ceiling. Evidently the popcorn turns soft and squishy when wet. What a mess and what an ornery boy.

We have also been trying to teach Rylan how to dispose of his nose boogers properly. That means no wiping them on the car door or window or on the walls. The appropriate method is to ask for a tissue or wipe on the toilet paper in the bathroom. He is starting to get the idea, most of the time. I guess this is an issue where you are thankful for baby steps towards the goal. Now I am trying to teach him to actually throw the toilet paper away after he puts the booger on it. Otherwise you find nasty little surprises waiting for you on the end of the toilet paper roll. I was reminding Rylan yesterday to throw the t.p. away when he was done. His solution? Tear off the center of the square just surrounding his booger and throw that away. So if you ever come to visit my house and see these weird holes in the toilet paper, you will know why they are there!

Last week, Rylan stuffed scrambled eggs up his nose and had to sneeze them out.

Okay, I think I just have one more gross story. Last night Rylan asked Charlton to go without his diaper at bedtime. We haven't tried this very much but Daddy was game and willing to take him to the bathroom again twice before he went to bed. When I went to get Rylan this morning I found a suspicious looking brown ball on the floor. Rylan was dry, yay!, but had another kind of accident and cheerfully told me how he had a little poop and threw it on the floor. He also wasn't wearing any underwear, only his pajama bottoms. Hmm.. Not sure what Dad was thinking on that one.

Today I was helping Rylan change his clothes after church. I didn' t think we were having any problems with each other, but he told me, "Mom, could you please go out of my room. You are making me crazy." What? I don't even say that to him even though it is true a lot of the time these days with his 3 year old attitude.

We also had another interesting conversation today.
Rylan: Mom, we need to move to another house, ours is getting ugly.
Me: Really, what is so ugly about our house? (And I thought our house was looking good with all our new light fixtures!)
Rylan: We have too many ants and spiders.
Me: Oh, well we are working on getting rid of the ants and I haven't seen too many spiders lately. Where should we move?
Rylan: Next door to Ms. Yvonne.
Me: We already live next door to Ms. Yvonne. If we move, we won't be next to her anymore.
Rylan: Okay, never mind.

We rented 101 Dalmations from the library recently. We didn't realize Ms. Cruella DeVille likes to use the word idiot a whole lot. It's not the worst word in the world, but definitely one we would like to minimize in Rylans' vocabulary, along with "poop" and "sucker" his other favorite not-so-nice words. A few weeks ago, we were asking Rylan what he would like to be when he grows up, a doctor?, builder?, fireman? "I want to be an idiot!" he replied confidently. That was one of those times where you know it is best to down-play the behavior, but it was so hard not to laugh.