Summer Rain

 

Tyson started his new job a couple of weeks ago - he's an information systems intern for University of Arizona Health Network. I'm so excited for him, his first job interview in 16 years, he beat out a batch of other candidates and landed the job. Getting paid to learn. Awesome. I got my car back, after three visits to the body shop. She's almost back to normal, and I'm so glad to have her back. I started physical therapy a couple of weeks ago and am starting to feel better. And the monsoon's been going strong in our neighborhood. 

Tyler was moved out of the 1 year olds' room and into the 2/3 year old's room this week - he was a little too rough for the smaller kids, so even though he wasn't yet potty trained, he got to join the next age group. Definitely an increase in crafts and art projects! The director posts pictures frequently, it's been fun to see what all Tyler's up to.

It's been exciting to hear Tyler's vocabulary take off in the 5 days he's been there. After one day in the 2/3 room, he started calling me "Mommy" instead of "Ma-ma." He's using both names now, but still calls Tyson "Dada." He's attempting to give Vader more complex commands. Of course, it's hard not to laugh at a 2 year old shouting "Vader! Disappear!" or "Vader! Come in the room!" He definitely is enjoying his imagination these days, telling us long, convoluted stories, of which we may only understand every fifth word or so, but concepts sometimes include being "in trouble" and "time out", and references to tractors and fire trucks are often made. (Which reminds me, it's also hard not to laugh when an angry 2 year old shouts at his father, "Time out, Dada!")

One of the changes that comes with the 2/3 year old room is that diapers aren't used, aside from nap time. So we've plunged into potty training faster than we'd planned. We tried training pants and quickly abandoned them for good old chonies. We've been using a potty chair at home, but daycare doesn't have one, they just have a child-size toilet. After a couple of frustrating days, the director suggested the teacher use an insert, which she said seemed to make him more relaxed. Yesterday at the park, we tried using our potty chair in the parking lot, and Tyler would have none of it. But later in the day, at a kid's birthday party, we discovered one of those inserts in their bathroom and put it on their toilet, and sure enough, he did just fine. We'll be picking up one of those this week...We used the M&M method, but this weekend, Tyler's no longer been interested in the M&Ms, and I honestly think he felt we were insulting his intelligence by making him sit on the potty when he knew he didn't need to go. He's been doing a pretty good job of giving us advance warning, calling out "Ah-deuce!", then corralling Vader and both parents into the bathroom with him - it's a family affair.

Tyler lately has been singing quite a bit, and he'll suddenly sing songs that we're sure he hasn't heard in a long time, like songs from his infant toys ("I love you, I love you, morning, noon and night. I love you, I love you, you make the world so bright.") He's got the ABC's down, and has been counting to 10 for a good long while now, I forgot to record when, thinking I'd remember forever, but now I have no clue when he first started doing it. It's a different kind of joy to read books with him now, because he's memorized so many of them, and fills in many of the sentences for us. And when he's alone in his room, we can hear him reciting entire books. His favorites right now are "Go Dog Go", "Green Eggs and Ham", "Fox in Socks" and for bedtime, he loves "The Going to Bed Book" and "Goodnight Moon", especially loving to shout "The cow jumping over the moon!" and whispering "A quiet old lady - hush!" Bedtime's been good lately - he still sleeps in his crib and usually is content to plop down after reading the two bedtime books and seems to fall asleep by the time we get to the living room. 

Driving to daycare has been exciting lately because of all the road construction near our house. Tyler loves to call out "Blue crane! Yellow tractor! Water truck!" as we drive by. I never would have thought that I'd enjoy driving through construction until now. Tyler's picked up one trait of his Grandpa Glass's -when we're tickling each other, he quietly says, "Geiffle!" It warms my heart every time.