Short updates

So much time has passed, that I'm going to just do short blurbs of updates since the last blog. Pictures will follow.

We spent 4th of July weekend at Lake Martin with Riley's Grandaddy and Nana. Riley loved being in the water, pointing to ducks, "driving" the boat with Grandaddy, and cuddling with Nana. There was a Mallard with three ducklings. While there, he started saying "duck" and "ducks." At first it sounded like "dut," but he started getting it and would say "duu-KKK" to practice when we were back at home. It was cute. It's definitely one of his favorite words now, and he loves to bring us books that have ducks and to play with his rubber ducks in the bath tub. He also called Nana "Nana" several times while we were there.

Three weekends later, we headed north again to go to Columbus to spend time with Riley's Bebe, Uncle Rocky and Aunt Charlene. Riley was so excited to see Bebe when I was getting him out of the car in Columbus. Rocky and Charlene got there late late while we were still sleeping. We had a great time with them on Saturday. Riley is typically distant with males, but he warmed up to his Uncle Rocky quickly and even let him hold him and give him kisses. Rocky and Charlene brought him a t-ball set. He love his new bat and balls and likes to knock the ball off of the stand. We all went to Bruster's Saturday afternoon for some awesome ice cream. Riley got his own "kid's cone" with strawberry ice cream, though he enjoyed sharing some of Bebe's too. Rocky and Charlene had to leave early Sunday morning. We were sad to see them go, but we enjoyed the time we had with them. Before they left, Riley leaned right over to Aunt Charlene for him to give her a kiss. He loves his family.

On our way back to Florida, we went through Auburn so that we could go to Church of the Highlands. Pastor Chris wasn't speaking that Sunday, but they had a pastor from Charleston. It was a great service. While there, I ran into a good friend of mine that I knew at the pharmacy school and who was also in my breastfeeding support group. She has a toddler 5 months older than Riley and is due in December with her second. I didn't even know she was pregnant. After church, we went to Shakey's and met up with several women and babies from our old group and their husbands. It was so great seeing all of them, because we've missed them a ton too. It's funny to me how much Riley loves looking at pictures of his friends Natalie and Claire and gets so excited and can even say "Natalie" ("Nah-a-lee"), but he gets so shy when we are with them and acts almost like they are not there. Silly boy. I think he may be on the shy side like his mom was. We hope that it's not too long before we get back to see all of our friends again.

Random things: Riley is learning new things. He loves to help bathe himself and pretends to lather his hands. He also loves to brush his teeth and pretend to put toothpaste on his toothbrush. For some time now, he's been climbing onto chairs and the couch and the coffee table. We often have to remind him not to stand on the chairs or get on the coffee table. He's starting to get that though. He's very interested in Vaseline. We use it on the dry patches on his legs every evening. If he ever has access to the Vaseline and we don't notice, he will pop of the lid and start digging in with his fingers. As you can image, we work hard to keep him out of it - it's such a mess. His feet are growing really fast. He's already wearing size 6 1/2 shoes!! That's much larger than the average for his age. He likes to make car and airplane noises when he plays with his toy cars and airplane spoon. Last week, I had the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack in the stereo. When "You are My Sunshine" came on, he brought me his "You are My Sunshine" book right away. His favorite thing to play with is our DVDs. It doesn't take him long to make quite a mess of his toys, books and the DVDs.

Things Riley has said (that I can think of) since last post: "jaybird," "chair" which sounds more like "care," "car," "cup," "all done," "girl" which sounds like "gaal," "tiger" (loves to say this) sounds like "I-ger," "spider" - "I-der," "gooood," "this" "there" and "that" are constants, "Gay-la" for "Kaylee" but he did actually say "Kaylee" perfectly a couple of days ago, "9-1-1" (from a book). I'm sure he says more that I don't remember or that I can't tell quite what he's saying. I know he's trying to repeat a lot of things and will imitate our inflection.

Can't believe my baby turned 17 months last Friday. He's growing up so fast. He's such a sweet baby and loves to cuddle and be read to, to "tickle tickle," and play with his parents. We've decided to keep him!