Tyler Moments

Sometimes I just need to write the priceless things Tyler does down before I forget about them. And I feel like I have a whole lot of them right now. He is still the fearless and and adventurous boy he's always been, but now there's a whole new "I can do it myself" attitude thrown into the mix. Which makes for some scary moments for me. He is not afraid to try anything by himself.

Example A:

 

I was making dinner and he went to his room to look at books. I guess his nose was running. He seemed a little quiet so I went to check on him and found him wiping one side of his nose, while using the little nose sucker thing in the other side. He no longer has a rocking chair or rocking horse, or anything else that can be moved and used to climb on in his room.

 

Example B:

 

No picture for this one. But I was once again making dinner, and I needed something from the freezer downstairs. He was playing upstairs and I was gone for about one minute. In that one minute he got a k-cup, moved a chair across the room to the coffee maker, climbed up, turned it on, replaced the old k-cup we forgot to empty with a new one, and was trying to make a cup of coffee. He was so proud when I came upstairs. He got a huge smile and said, "Mommy, coffee!" He was so proud to have made me a cup of coffee, it melted my heart a little bit.  I am so thankful that it was out of water or I'm pretty sure he would have been pouring hot coffee everywhere. I guess we need to keep it unplugged now, because I don't really know how else to baby proof that! And also, I just can't ever leave him for a second. Actually, that's not that hard because he follows me around the house asking to help me with everything I do anyway. It was kind of surprising that he let me go downstairs without him in the first place.

 

Not everything he does is dangerous. He's a fabulous little helper. Actually he's a little too great of a helper. I literally cannot do anything, ever, without my little tag along. It's pretty sweet, although it takes a lot longer to do things. For instance, one of his favorite things to help with is laundry. He seems to understand (although a bit reluctantly) that he can't carry a full basket down the stairs by himself. But once we get into the laundry room he gets to work pulling clean clothes off the drying rack and putting them back in the washing machine. The other day he insisted on carrying two laundry baskets up the stairs without any help. Obviously he is not stable, strong, or tall enough to do that so it was a major battle of wills. He is very strong willed, but I think I'm a bit more so. Just a bit.

 

A couple nights ago when he was going to bed I made the mistake of telling him I was going to work on laundry. Rookie mistake. He cried in his room for 40 minutes asking to help do laundry! I went in there several times to try to convince him that I would save some laundry for him to help with in the morning and to try to distract him, but he was one track minded! He finally went to sleep after I found a onesie and socks and asked him to help me put them in his laundry basket.

 

My favorite part of his helpfulness is the way he asks to help. He's heard me say things like, "Do you want to help me" or "Thanks for helping me" so many times that instead of saying "I want to help you" he says "Help me!" So I spend much of my day listening to his sweet little voice saying, "Help me, help me" over and over again as he asks to help me with every single thing I do. It's pretty funny.

 

He wants to be independent so badly, that if we dare to help him with something, like putting a shoe on or handing him his milk that he can't reach, we are in big trouble. When I changed his diaper today he had his pants off except for one foot was stuck and I helped him pull it off. So he had to put them all the way back on and start over. I moved his cup closer to him at lunch so he could reach it. His response? To move it further away than it was the first time and do it himself. If I try to give him a hand on the stairs he will go all the way back up and start over. I won't lie, I'm pretty sure he got that from me. So I guess I'm getting paid back for my own strong willed and perfectionistic self.

 

In other news, Tyler is sleeping so much better! He's falling asleep by himself for most naps and finally back to sleeping to a decent time in the mornings. However, we do still find him in some funny spots sometimes.

 

This is Tyler and everything from his dresser.

I moved these books, but he woke up in the middle of the night crying. When I went to check on him he was moving them all back into his bed and seemed very distressed that they were gone. So he fell asleep in almost this exact same way a second time.

 

This is where he is currently sleeping.

 

Oh, I love this boy. He keeps me very busy, but I wouldn't want him any other way. I'm not sure what I would do with a calm child. This guy is a whole lot of fun. :-)

 

Oh, and I discovered a new perfect place to play with Tyler. We went to Sky Zone a couple weeks ago for play group and I am pretty sure it was actually made for Tyler.

 

A gym made out of trampolines? Yes, please! Thanks for introducing us Darla.

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with anything on this post. But it's from a wedding a couple weeks ago and it's pretty rare to have a picture of just the two of us anymore!





A Crazy Day In My Life

So yesterday morning started a little earlier than normal. My 8 - 8 sleeper has been pushing 5:45 and 6:00 wake up times this past week. I am not cut out for 6 am! Anyway, yesterday he was up and ready to go at 5:45. I was not. He did read books in his room for a little while, but I was up. You would think that by nap time he would be exhausted. But this boy is the very definition of energy. I promise. Look it up.

So at nap time I read him lots of books, hoping he would be really good and calm. I layed him down and left. I had to go in one time to lay him back down, but after that he was very quiet and I thought he actually fell asleep on his own.

If you've been wondering if naps have been going any better, this is what I usually find when I go in:

(This was actually taken a few nights ago, an hour and a half after he went to bed!)

But yesterday I found this:



Yep. That's a whole, full box of wipes emptied on his lap. He pushed his rocking horse over to his dresser and pulled it down. Then pulled every single wipe out and crumpled it up. If I know my son, he probably washed his hands and face with each one until he fell asleep. I found him soaking wet from the ankles, half way up his shirt, and sleeping sitting up on a completely drenched sheet.

Is it sad that I consider this a great victory? Yes, he emptied a whole box of wipes in his bed, and yes, I forgot to lock the closet and he pulled out every blanket and stuffed animal he owns. But he went to sleep all by himself!!!!  Unfortunately the trend did not continue today. In fact, I had to go to in and help him fall asleep again. But this time, instead of just telling me to leave his room (pointing and saying, "Mommy, door.") he told me to go to work! Sorry Baby, I am at work. :-)

While he was sleeping so soundly, I made a cake for my MOPS meeting that night. I was just finishing the frosting when he woke up. I turned around to put the vanilla away and looked back just in time to see him dumping a whole container of cocoa powder into the powdered sugar. He looked so pleased with himself. He just kept working, putting the covers back on for me and everything.



Thanks Sweetie, I know you were trying to help.  :-)

We finished the afternoon with a nice, calm art project. He was so excited about glue! He talked about it all day. He couldn't wait for this moment.

Has anyone else noticed that he doesn't look like a baby anymore? Did I blink?

It's Finally January 8!

I have been waiting for this day for a long time. I have been soooo excited to see our precious baby and find out if we're having another boy or a girl.

 

 

These pictures were fun. Tyler is very good at smiling and saying cheese right away. The problem is he only does it for about .02 seconds before he is off and running again. So it is extremely difficult to get him to sit still for a picture. But M&M's were involved this time so he was a little cheeseball. He loved making this face. In fact, he was pretty proud of it. Everytime he sees the signs he makes the face.

 

 

We are all very excited to be meeting another sweet little boy in a few months! I can only imagine the things Tyler will teach him. :-) At the moment, Tyler thinks the baby lives in a TV screen at the doctor, but eventually, when he meets him, I know he is going to be so excited to have a little brother!

 

We took these pictures last night, before we knew if it was a boy or a girl, so we did a sister sign too. I'm really glad he's smiling in this one, so at least he does look happy about a brother. But the sister ones were the best. I did them last and he was starting to get restless so I suggested we both yell as loud as we could. It worked like a charm. He had the best smiles and looked sooooo excited about having a sister. I should have saved the brother sign for last I guess! Of course today, after all of the encouraged yelling, he has enjoyed showing people how he yelled as loud as he could. :-)

 

And when he woke up this morning, he ran straight out to his little chair, sat down, made that cute little face and asked for M&M's. I guess we know what works!

 

With Tyler we just had the normal, black and white ultrasound and got really not good pictures printed. This time around we were surprised and excited to find out that they got new machines and we got to have it in 3D as well. It was so amazing to be able to see the baby's teeny, tiny features. He looks so real! :-)



 



We loved watching our baby move around, but I think he was a little less enthusiastic about being watched. I remember thinking it was crazy how much Tyler was moving, when I really couldn't feel any of it. But this little guy wanted out! He was not a big fan of being poked and he kept trying to bat the wand out of the way. He had pretty amazing aim too! It was really fun to be able to actually watch what I was feeling! I love this picture because when he wasn't swinging his arms at my tummy, he would settle back in and cover his ears. I think he was trying to block us out. My guess is that he will probably continue to do that when he comes home to his always very enthusiastic big brother! He will probably be born knowing how to say "Hi!" in a high pitched sing-songy voice because he hears it about 47 million times a day.  :-) I can't wait to see these boys play together and become best little friends.

We are feeling so thankful and so blessed for a healthy baby boy. He is already so very loved.

Sea Life!

 Our Sea Life membership expires next week and we're not going to renew it. It was awesome to have, and we're so glad that we got it, but we're going to stick to the zoo for this year. Anyway, we had to go one last time before it's done, so when Tyler woke up from his nap yesterday we got in the car and headed to the Mall of America.

Tyler had a blast. It made me a little sad we aren't getting it again. We got sooo much use out of it! We've gone four times since Thanksgiving, so Tyler pretty much has the place memorized. As soon as he finishes looking at one thing, he shouts out what is next and starts running!

Touching the starfish

 

Finding the weird and creepy little eels in the sand

Jelly fish!

"Touching" the shark sleeping on the glass

Tyler is making his shark face.  :-)

Tyler's very favorite thing to see at Sea Life is the sea horses. So he got a little spoiled with a stuffed sea horse on his way out. He loves it! He gives it kisses, shares his pacifier at bedtime and gives it lots of snuggles. :-)

Sledding!

Carl took Tyler sledding for the first time on Saturday. Despite Tyler's dislike of the cold and of touching snow, he LOVED sledding. They had a great time. When they came home I asked if he had fun and he said, "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee," over and over again. He was so excited.  :-)

21 Weeks!

I haven't written much about my pregnancy so far. Mostly I have just been terrible at remembering to take pictures. We are sooo excited to meet this sweet little baby. I love feeling the baby move around. I think this one just might be a gymnast some day.

Right now I am patiently (ok, a little impatiently) waiting for our ultrasound next week. I can't wait to see this little one who is bouncing and somersaulting and who knows what else in there.

This is my giant baby at 21 weeks. I say giant, because I am definitely bigger than I was at this point with Tyler. And I prefer to think that the baby is bigger, not me. :-)

Christmas Bernardy Style

On the Sunday before Christmas we got up early to finish packing, ate breakfast and headed off for a week in Kansas. I am always a little nervous about how Tyler will do on long car trips, so I stocked up on some dollar store fun stuff and hoped for the best. We got him pretty excited before we left and he was as happy as could be to get in the car, shouting, "Road trip" all the way out the door. He was amazing all day long. We planned a lunch stop at a mall with an awesome play place in Iowa so Tyler could run around. And he even took a great nap in the car. I cannot count how many songs we sang, or how many times we listened to "I Love My Lips", but we had a happy little guy all the way there.

We all came on different days, but the whole family was able to be there at the same time for a few days. Tyler loved seeing my sister's dog again and he met his first kitten. We played LOTS of games and had a great time.

This was by far his favorite dollar store surprise!  :-)

Santa drinking his milk.

My little sweetie.

Our escape artist made meal times interesting.

 

The whole family.

 

Our family. :-)

 

So excited about his new football!

 

One of Tyler's favorite things to do at Grandma and Grandpa's house!

"Touchdown!" A little blurry, but I love it.

Our mandatory trip to Orange Leaf for ice cream.

Hanging out with Uncle Jeff at his new table! 

And then there are these two.

 

Tyler puts up with a lot.

 

Can you tell he had a fun and busy week? This is not normal.

 

Christmas At Home

I always love celebrating Christmas at home with just our little family. It doesn't always happen on Christmas day. In fact, it usually doesn't. This year "Christmas" was December 22. But it's always a special day that I look forward to, and I always want it to be just perfect.

So this year we got up and I made a cheese danish for breakfast. Delicious! And then we told Tyler the Christmas story and opened gifts. I was so excited for Tyler to open his. His big gift this year was a kitchen set and play food. He also had a couple stocking stuffers and books. It was hilarious watching our little perfectionist unwrapping. I don't think it even occurred to him to look at what he was opening until every single piece of paper and tape was pulled off. Then he would look and get excited. He also loved passing out our gifts and helping us open them. It was so cute.

Now, on to the part about wanting our Christmas to be perfect. Tyler's kitchen came in a very large box. It said "some" assembly required. We thought it looked like there would be a couple big pieces that just snap together. When we were wrapping gifts we talked about whether or not to have it out of the box already or to wrap it so he would have the fun of opening. We went with that. We thought he would like pulling paper off a big box. And we were right. He did.

But some assembly required? I don't think so.

 

Who would have thought that some assembly meant this big mess and 56 screws? Screws that Tyler tried everything in his power to get a hold of! Thankfully his Daddy is quicker than he is. Anyway, it took over two hours for Carl to get it put together. Lesson learned. We always look in the box before we wrap from now on. The poor boy didn't even get to play with it before his nap. But he was soooo excited to see it built when he woke up! He has been having a blast making and eating food in his little kitchen ever since. Which is good, because during Carl's battle with all the pieces he said multiple times that Tyler had better like it!

 

After he got to play with it for awhile, we baked and decorated Christmas cookies to bring to Kansas. It's always an adventure baking with our little man. But also very fun.

 

 

When Tyler has suger, he does nothing but smile and giggle. So being handed frosting and a cookie to decorate, and sprinkles, is just about as good as it gets at our house.

 

I am so blessed to have this sweet little family to spend my Christmas with. Such a fun day!