Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Rylan

This little boy is my special little friend and I secretly love love love it that he is attached to me. I can’t walk into the room without him yelling for me to pick him up. But between you and me I love it!

Rylan looks so much like Jordan (with out the blue eyes and light brown hair), he acts like Jordan too. But at this age 16 months Rylan is much more solid. He is the precisely the correct weight he should be for his age. Whereas Jorday was always in 25th percentile for his weight and was considered underweight.

Rylan is very demanding, knows what he wants and he wants it NOW kind of boy. The trick to a happy Rylie (his nick name at home) is to pre-empt his hunger or simply give him a ball / balloon.

Rylie started walking on my Birthday (May 16th at 15 months old) and is now learning to run, in a skipping kind of way. He is very proud of himself and proudly walks into Child Care holding Jordy’s hand. I’ve recently had many special moments with him walking around the park across the street. We LOVE it that he is walking, life is a little easier that he is on the move, so that now I can carry Lilly whilst holding his hand.Rylan doesn’t really like to read books and is always on the move, he really won’t sit still other than to eat, but even then he likes to walk around the house eating and talking in his baby babble.

I can see that Rylan will be the one to test us with patience, he already does it now! But I think that it stems from the fact that he is getting frustrated that I don’t instinctively know what he is trying to communicate to us.

Due to his demanding nature, I feel that sometimes Tim is a little too harsh on him, and so I’m possibly a little too soft on him. I’m striving to ‘treat’ all the kids exactly the same, but it is difficult as not all the kids are exactly the same. But rules about behaviour and what is acceptable and unacceptable (you can tell I’ve watched Super Nanny) remain the same.

Jordan

Our little man is approaching his 4th Birthday and is very excited about the prospect of having a “Puffing Billy” (old steam train that is close to use) Birthday. I’ve had to do some fast talking about the fact that it was too cold to go to Puffing Billy. We will be buying him a proper bicycle for his Birthday.

He is a beautiful big brother and plays so nicely with his brother and sister. Jordan prefers the company of Lillian (I have a sneaking suspicion it is because Lilly has the same colour eyes as he does) more but I think that is mainly due to the hero worship that he gets from Rylan (who can be a bit full on). Jordan is still a sensitive little boy and still cries for all sorts of reasons, but I think that it jus who he is.

I worry about him and the lack of attention he gets from us, but Tim and I both try to spend as much one on one time with his as possible, but it is not always easy.

It is a blessing indeed that Jordan was born first, during those first 4 months of Rylan and Lillians life Jordan was our rock. He was the one that brought all the perspective into focus, especially during the really tough non-stop crying days and those days when Lilly’s neck was stiff. He would come over and give me a small hug, a simple “I love you Mummy”, or he would just start dancing if the radio was on.

Unfortunately during those really tough time TV became Jordans escape and mine. I know that I could just put on a DVD and he would be occupied for a few hours and give me the peace I needed to, feed, change, settle the twins. We are now trying to break the TV dependency and it is a little struggle.

We never really got the “terrible two, troublesome threes” from Jordan. There have been tantrums and bad days of behaviour but not on a daily basis. This doesn’t say that I have not taken away his toys, nor put him in his room or smacked his bottom when he is naughty. It is just that those days of bad behaviour are a stand out because they are so rare. We are lucky indeed to have him as our first child.