And He's Off!

Tyler has been standing by himself for quite awhile, and for the last two weeks he's been taking a few steps at a time. But on Saturday he took nine steps! And since then he's doing that pretty consistently. Last night Carl finished changing his diaper and asked me to get him while he cleaned it off. So I called to him from the living room and walked in there to get him. He was already walking across his room to find me! It was pretty ridiculously adorable. He's still crawling most of the time, but I think any minute he will just take off and be a walker.

I know that I will probably eat these words in about two days. Maybe even two hours. But it is hard to imagine that he could really get into anything more than he does already as a crawler. I mean he's already faster and stronger than me. He already scales up the side of the gate, climbs into dishewashers and climbs up his bookshelf, up the side of chairs and couches, and anything else he can get his footing on. Sometimes when he's walking around the the house holding onto furniture or walls, he moves so fast his feet hardly touch the ground. Yesterday he used his toy bike as a step stool to try to climb up onto the papasan. He didn't make it all the way before I ran across the room and pulled him down, but he probably could have. I know all of you other moms are laughing at me right now, as I say he couldn't possibly get faster, but it is hard to believe that he could!

I'm sure in about a week I will be on here again, writing about just how wrong I was. But for now, I'm holding onto the fact, that he couldn't possibly get faster. At least not yet.

In other news...

Tyler loves the bathroom. Loves it. He likes to watch Carl shave, he likes to to watch me dry my hair, and he loves watching us brush our teeth!. Actually, he likes holding our toothbrushes and "brushing" our teeth for us. Awhile ago I wrote about how Tyler loves to get into Carl's bathroom drawer. We started just always keeping the door shut, so he can't go in there at all. But when I'm getting ready in the morning, drying my hair, or putting make-up on, he always wants to be right there, and he's always getting into trouble.

So now he has his own bathroom drawer that he can play with as much as he wants to, when one of us is there. Now I can put make-up on without holding my knee against the drawer to keep it shut!

Of course, now that the drawer isn't forbidden, he has found other things to get into. Like the next drawer up. So actually, I am ususally still holding a drawer shut with my knee. It's just a different drawer. And now that there are actual toys in his drawer, he has moved further into the bathroom and discovered even more exciting things. Like toilets and toilet paper. I've been holding my breath on that one for a long time. I really can't believe he didn't discover them sooner. I think? it's one of the last things he had to find.

And this is his new toy box. We'd been using a laundry basket for the toys in the living room. This way more fun.

The Prince and the Pacifiers

While Tyler may not be quite as sensitive as the Princess and the Pea, he definitely has a little quirk when it comes to sleeping. He has always used a pacifier to sleep. We always used to leave an extra one on his bookshelf in case we couldn't find it in the middle of the night. Then when he figured out how to look for it and find it himself, we started leaving a couple extras in his crib in case he lost one.

Just recently I started to notice that he HAD TO HAVE more than one or he wouldn't go to sleep. But two isn't good enough either. Neither is four. He has to have exactly three pacifiers to fall asleep. One for his mouth, and one for each hand. Two is not enough, it simply won't do. Four is too many. He just doesn't have enough hands. It's pretty funny to watch, actually. If he has four, he sits there switching them between his mouth and hands. If he manages to get two in one hand, he will start to lay down, but usually drops one and has to sit up and do it all over again. He ends up getting pretty frustrated. If he only has two, he looks around for another and gets frustrated when he can't find it. If he has three, he switches them around between his hands and mouth until he decides they are all in the right place and then he can lay down and go to sleep. Sometimes he wakes up and we can hear the little clicking of his pacifiers while he makes sure they are all accounted for and then he lays back down.

The only problem with this little quirk is that when he's avoiding falling asleep, he likes to throw them overboard. We've lost quite a few that way. I'm actually pretty convinced that he has a secret stash somewhere. Someday I'm going to open a drawer or look under a piece of furniture and find a huge pile of them. I don't know what he does with them! And every once in awhile when I think they're all put away, he will find one in some unknown location that I have yet to find. He's pretty tricky.

Eventually, when he's too old for a pacifier, and we decide he's done with it, it is going to be one rough transition at our house!

Family Fun Day!

Tyler loves fish. He thinks they're pretty awesome. Last Friday our playgroup went to the aquarium at the Mall of America and he loved it! It wasn't a big surprise - he's always been mesmerized by fish. Carl was pretty bummed that he couldn't go with, because he knew how much he would love it.

The year long memberships are a really good deal right now, so we ended up getting one. It's a fun thing to do that's not too far away, and a great way to spend an afternoon when we need to get out of the house! And since Carl had the day off on Monday, we went back again. Tyler loved it just as much the second time.

A lot of times weekends are pretty busy for us, so it's not very often that we get a whole day to spend together doing something fun like that. We had such a fun day!

I can't even remember the last time Tyler fell asleep somewhere in public. If there are people around he just doesn't sleep. So clearly we tired him out. He fell asleep walking through the busy halls of the mall and stayed asleep getting in his carseat and all the way home!

Ty's First Haircut!

Carl has been trying to convince me to get Tyler's hair cut for awhile. But I love his cute little curls on top and didn't want to see them go, so I put my foot down. :-) But recently he was starting to get little wings on the side of his head by his ears and he was constantly pulling hair out of his head. And when he wore shirts with collars or higher necks, it was starting to look a little mullet-like.

So last weekend we made an appointment at Kid's Hair and took the little guy in. He was not really a fan. We sat him down on a stack of booster seats in the big chair, which he thought was pretty cool. Until they added the big, scary blue apron. Then he got a look of betrayal on his face and promptly fell apart.

I wish I would have let him flail around for a second so I could take a picture of him practically hanging upside down off the chair, trying to get away. But I thought that I should probably keep him safe and help the stylist out a little so I put the camera down. It was pretty funny though.

He squirmed and yelled for a couple of minutes until they got the bubbles out. Then all was good. He looked so big sitting in that chair!

The Big Kid Hair Cut!

Nine Months Old!

So like I said before, Tyler is already nine months old. Having worked in Early Childhood for a long time, I know how fast babies grow and change, but when it's your own, it's different. I can't believe how fast he's growing and changing! People have been asking me a lot lately if he's just a little peanut for his age and I didn't think so. I just tell them he's really tall and skinny. But at this appointment I realized that I guess he is kind of a little peanut. He's 28 inches tall ( 50th percentile) and 17 lbs. 2 oz. (6th percentile)! That is just proof of how much he moves all the time!

Tyler loves to eat big kid food. In fact, for the last few days he has flat out refused to eat anything off of a spoon. He squeezes his lips together as tightly as possible and will not eat anything I try to feed him, even if he really likes it. But he loves his finger food! His absolute favorite food is clementines. He LOVES them and eats them every day. If I show him one he gets sooo excited and then usually gets all worked up  waiting for me to peel it. The other day I started peeling one for myself and I swear he smelled it from the living room. He came crawling out as fast as he could and sat at my feet smacking his lips. So funny!

He is so close to walking. When his doctor came in at his check up he was walking around the chairs in the office because I gave up trying to get him to sit still on my lap while we waited. She said she thinks he will be walking in the next few weeks. Yikes! I believe her though. He likes to let go and just stand there with this proud little grin on his face. Then he takes one or two steps and dives to wherever he is going.

One of his favorite things to do is crawl as fast as he can while we chase him around the house. He goes about 5 feet and turns to look and make sure we're still chasing him. Then he giggles and keeps going. It never gets old. It's fun for all of us every time.

And one of our very favorite things lately is his little kisses. Sometimes if I ask for a kiss he will lean in and slobber all over my cheek. But the best is when we tell him we want a nose (eskimo) kiss and he just moves his face closer and waits for it. For the last few days he's been taking breaks from his toys every once in awhile to come over and put his little nose right in front of one of our faces, waiting for his nose kiss. Then he smiles and goes back to playing. How cute is that?!

I think we may be done with the monthly photos. Apparently he only sits still when he's sleeping. :-)

Goodbye 2011, You Were Fantastic

Tyler had his NINE month check-up recently. Nine months! Something about that seems so crazy. We waited anxiously to meet him for nine months and it seemed like such a long time. But now we've known him for that long and it has gone by in a blink. He was uncharacteristically cuddly yesterday and while I just held him and snuggled with him it brought me back to those first days when he came home from the hospital. They were so precious and amazing, and only lasted for a second. But every second since (although much less calm and snuggly) has been just as precious. I just love this boy! I remember once some one saying that nothing brings you to your knees like being a parent. I didn't think much about it at the time, but since Tyler was born I've remembered it often. Obviously I don't know all the reasons that God created us how he did. But I do believe that having children gives us a better idea of how much God loves us. And because of the love God has given me for Tyler, I find myself praying constantly for him. For his salvation, his health, for his future, for his future wife, for anything and everything. When I think about him growing up and being out on his own some day, and when I realize I have absoulutely no control over how he chooses to live his life, I am brought to my knees, praying intensely for him. Because that's all I can really do. Pray for him, and do my very best to teach him to live his life in a Godly way. And so I've decided, that being a parent has forced me to hold the things dearest to me in an open hand. I definitely am prone to closing my fist tightly around the things that I love and probably not trusting God with them as much as I should. But if there's one thing that has stood out to me more than anything else in the past nine months, it's that I can't control anything. And rather than holding tightly to the things that I love, I have to give them up to God. Because he is in control and his plan is good. So I guess that's my big lesson from 2011.

I'm not sure where that came from. I guess I'm in a reflective mood. This post was going to be about Tyler and everything he's been up to in the past month. But now I guess it's about me. I'll write about him later. :-)

I'm not big on New Years Resolutions. I'm not good at them and so this may be a little on the negative side, but I mostly see them as goals I'll probably fail at within a month. Or even a week. Sometimes a day. But this year for some reason I am full to the brim of resolutions. And I am determined to make them last. I mean really, if I actually made a list of all the little mini resolutions I've thought of, it would probably be pretty overwhelming. But I can pretty much sum them up in one word. Discipline. I need to be more disciplined! In just about every area of my life. So well I'm already almost a week into the new year, I'm still working on organizing my thoughts and "resolutions" into achievable goals. But here are a few of them:

Going to bed by 10  (so far, not so good)

Getting up between 6:30 and 7:00 (also not happening yet) so that I have time before Tyler wakes up
to...

Be more consistent with daily time with God

Working out (And no, I am not one of those annoying New Years Resolution people who crowd the gym and make the regulars mad. We started our membership a month ago.)

Eating healthy and drinking less pop

Putting laundry away as soon as it's folded! I actually kind of like doing laundry. I know that's weird but I do. With the exception of towels, which I make Carl do, I love folding laundry! But I loath putting it away. So inevitably it sits neatly folded in laundry baskets for way too long.

There are actually quite a few more, but like I said, the list is way too long. But I am determined to be mored organized and disciplined in my life this year. Feel free to check in with me. Just ask how many baskets of clean folded laundry are sitting downstairs. Currently there are two. But they are next on my list when I finish writing this.  :-)

Ok, so good luck to me. I am off to put away some laundry and make a calendar for myself to track my pop drinking, work out and quite time progress. I think I'll make it a sticker chart. And maybe some sort of ice cream or Caribou reward at the end of each month...

A Few Christmas Pictures