Ramping Up

Here's a couple of pictures of Tyler's first hike. It was Veteran's Day holiday. Tyson planned to work that day, until he heard I'd made plans to spend the day with the Bushmans. Suddenly he decided it was okay to celebrate this holiday after all.

Ruby is one of Tyler's favorite people. He was so happy to spend the day with her!

We made it to our destination, this house. It wasn't as old as we expected, but it was cool nonetheless.

I remember Tyler enjoying Christmas last year, but I sure don't remember him being so excited about it. This year, this kid is PUMPED. For one thing, he listened carefully when we explained the order of the fall/winter holidays - Halloween, wedding anniversary, Thanksgiving, Mama's birthday, then finally Christmas. We know he paid attention, because when asked what he was thankful for at school the day before Thanksgiving, he answered, "Mom's birthday." He really likes cake.

This year, he's been into the Christmas movies on Netflix. Remember when we were kids, you'd happen to catch Charlie Brown's Christmas Special, or maybe Rudolph Claymation on TV,  and count yourself lucky? Now he gets to choose from several movies, and can watch on demand. Foreign concept to me. He likes one about some reindeer, and he loves the Curious George Christmas Special.

Just before Christmas we got our new couch. It occurred to us at some point that it really was ridiculous to have only one two-seater couch and a broken rocking chair as seating for our living room. So we got a sectional, and we worried that it would seem too big and overwhelming to such a small space. On the contrary, it somehow makes the living room seem bigger, and definitely more inviting. Tyler played bumper cars with it, running into one side, then the other, back and forth and all over the place. He ran all over it, jumped on it...so much energy! Eventually we got him to calm down, but today he was all over it again. Vader's more tentative, he waited until we were gone to try it out. When we got home, we could tell from the sheet we'd layed over the couch, he definitely spent some time on the chaise lounge. Who can blame him?

Truffula Trees and Halloween

This fall, I loved having Tyler in his new school, so close to my work. Three days a week I would run from work to his school,  pushing an empty stroller, pick him up, and run back to work to get our car. Some days Tyler would run next to me, racing me, until he decided it was time to climb in the stroller. Occasionally he'd ask to walk. He'd walk about 8/10ths of a mile before climbing in. And as he rode in the stroller, he'd speak endlessly about the "the trees, the trees, the truffula trees! All my life I'd been searching for tress such as these!" He'd point out the different palm trees, and get particularly excited about ones with "barbaloot fruits" hanging down. Some days he'd discuss his plans to chop down ALL the truffula trees, other days, he'd inform me that it was a "bad idea" and that he only wanted to chop down one. Or five. Five has been a favorite number for a long time.

I've loved spending the time outdoors together. Tyler's funny, in the car ride home, he divulges very little information about the day, prefering to zone out or to play his LeapPad. But in the stroller, he'll chatter away and through the chatter I can figure out what went on during the day.

For Halloween, Tyler requested to be a pirate. He was just starting to get into "Jake and the NeverLand Pirates". He was so excited to go to the costume store. And yet the first pirate costume he tried, he got very upset and couldn't wait to get it off of him. The sales lady and I were so surprised, and tried to get him to see how cute it looked. I helped him escape the confines of the costume, puzzled, and thinking "are we just not going to dress up this year?" Then it occurred to me that maybe he didn't like the one-piece aspect of the costume. I perused the costumes again and sure enough, the more expensive, officially licensed Jake costume had the shirt separated from the pants. Reluctantly, I asked to try it. Sure enough, he loved it. Halloween was solved! He was so excited to have a toy dagger. On the car ride home, I pretended that the dagger cut me, and Tyler scolded, with an accent he'd picked up, "whaaaale, you gotta be careful!" He immediately broke the dagger and began crying. I am a horrible mother, because I cannot stop laughing even when he is in tears.To think, he was scolding me, and then he himself broke the toy! I promised him Tyson would either fix it or build him a new one. Tyson built him a new dagger out of cardboard and tin foil, at Jonell's suggestion. Surprisingly, it didn't get much use after Halloween.

Trick or Treating was great fun, with Tyler running from house to house, though he wasn't as reliable at saying Trick or Treat this year. We broke him of the habit of blowing out people's jack-o-lanterns, since he wasn't a firefighter anymore. But Tyler must have grown from when we bought his costume, because suddenly it was too small!

We intended to go to Dia De Los Muertos/All Souls Procession with some friends the following Sunday, but we got word that their daughter was sick. Tyler came to his own conclusion about her illness - "Tyler, Ruby can't come play today. She has a tummyache." "Yeah. She has a tummyache because she ate too much candy." Hilarious. We don't think we'd ever mentioned getting a stomachache from candy before, and we certainly hadn't explained that she would have had access to any candy. This was the first time we'd ever heard him draw a conclusion about something he couldn't see first-hand. Many more conclusions and assumptions to come, but this first one was exciting to me.