Finally!

He finally, finally let us brush his teeth!



Getting ANYTHING into Tyer's mouth has been a challenge - since the day he was born. We spent the first two weeks of January focused on trying to get Tyler to eat baby food. He was an expert at blocking us, either by weaving his head back and forth, placing his tongue on the roof of his mouth and refusing to budge, or finally, leaning over his chair and looking at the floor, to make the most of gravity. But we finally succeeded in getting him to eat - he still cries for the first two bites, then decides to go ahead and make the best of it. We also have him drink some water after each meal, pouring it from a cup into his mouth. It's hard to tell whether he's actually drinking it or just playing with it. We've even started him on level 3 foods now, and although he still gags sometimes, he's finally starting to keep it down. We also got him to eat some spaghetti off my plate last night. YAY!

Other skills Tyler's been working on:
walking along the coffee table or from chair to chair
reading books - he LOVES books!
shaking his head from side to side (as though he's saying "No")
crying and saying "No" when scolded
"Da Da", "Va Da" (Vader), "Dog", "MomMom", "Hi", "Wa Da" (Bostonian for water), and lots of other words that Tyson and I haven't learned yet
Clapping his hands
Clapping our hands
Gesturing towards the ceiling fan to ask us to spin it
And just today, he repeated some of the words from one of his books! (Specifically, he chimed in as we read "Three singing pigs say La La La", saying La La La. Then we coaxed him into saying Moo and Meow)
Tyler's favorite books lately are So Say the Little Monkeys and We're Going On A Bear Hunt.
Thanks Jonell for all those wonderful books!
-C
PS Yeah, we finally gave in and gave him an amateur haircut. And by "we" I mean "Tyson". Tyler wouldn't sit still, so Tyson resorted to trimming his hair while he was nursing. Yikes. But I will say Tyler seems alot happier now that he doesn't have all that hair in his face anymore...

First Christmas

I used to dread spending Christmas in Tucson, but this year was a joy, thinking of traditions to establish as a family. Christmas Eve church service being one, so of course I had to find an outfit for Tyler to wear to church. Since I so dislike shopping, I waited until Christmas Eve to buy an outfit, but Anne Marie helped me rig this one. Tyson balked at the sweater vest, but I was able to reassure him that our cool nephew Cole wore sweater vests to church on Christmas Eve when he was a wee little elf...Besides, clearly that hairdo cancels out the sweater vest, right?

Tyler loved the music of the church service so much that he decided to join in, singing and shaking his new soccer ball which had a bell in it. He later threw the soccer ball a couple of rows ahead of us, but somehow avoided hitting anyone and managed to survive without it for the rest of the service. After the service, we sprinkled magic reindeer food in front of our house, then strolled through the neighborhood to show Tyler the Christmas lights.

Tyson and I had come to the timely realization earlier that week that when you commit to cloth diapers, you're also committing to owning a functional washing machine. (Thank goodness it didn't break during a load of dirty diapers!!!) Tyler spent his last waking minutes of Christmas Eve enjoying our new machine. That door is fabulous, and provides a solid 20 minutes of entertainment every evening, watching the colorful diapers swirling around.

Of course, sometimes you have to get in for a closer look...and it seems like smacking it impatiently when it pauses gets it going again!
 

 

 
I've been well-trained by Payton, Cole, and Shelby to rise early on Christmas morning. This particular morning, Tyler woke me before sunrise to eat, but curiously, instead of begging to open his stocking gifts, this peculiar little boy went back to sleep! So there I was, all alone with no one to open gifts with. Eventually I persuaded everyone to wake up, and asked Vader to demonstrate the finer art of unwrapping.

Tyler was thrilled with his first basketball.

He was also pretty excited about his first football.  

Best of all, of course, were the blocks. Just look at his face! Already envisioning the hours he'll spend building castles and tearing them down.  

 Okay, okay, I admit it, I'm more even more excited about the blocks than he is...

Although he's doing his best to hide it, Tyson was somewhat happy with his gift certificate to the brew shop.  

 Hope you all had just as merry of a Christmas! Can't wait for Christmas 2011!

December 2010

Quick updates, a little late...

Throughout the month of December, Tyler got much better at pulling himself up to standing in his crib.

The music table continues to be his favorite toy. We love it too - the "blues" sound so much more soothing and interesting than the music played by most of his toys.  The first day Tyler was at daycare, he fell in love with this toy, and Grandma Allaire found another one at a yard sale, so he could have one at home. Just when he began to be bored with it, he learned to stand, so we added the legs to it, and voila - it's a new, exciting toy all over again! (His second favorite toy is a dog that sings.) The beautiful blanket underneath has Tyler's name and date of birth embroidered on it, along with pictures and words to teach the alphabet - a gift from Melanie that all three of us love.

Tyler also learned to pull himself up on the kegerator. Now that babies are so familiar with buttons, we have to keep an eye on that temperature controller, in case he reprograms it!

I ran my first half-marathon on December 12th. Tyler didn't get to run with me, but was waiting for me at the finish line, and loved playing with our new medal.

 

Tyson finished up his first semester of college a few days later (with straight A's - what a NERD!) To celebrate, we had our first brew day since August. I'm reminded again why I love Tucson so much - brewing outside in December is a pleasure. We brewed a witbier, a black IPA, and a rye pale ale. Tyson also whipped up another batch of apfulwein. And here's our little brewmaster, checking out the equipment:

It took us a while, but we eventually realized the distinction between "Da Da" and "Va Da", and that what we thought was "Da!" was actually "Da!hg". Tyler also says "Hi" and likes to give high fives.

I'd put up the Christmas pics, but it sounds like Tyler's nap is over. Next post...

Catching Up

I just realized that was Tyson's first post since Tyler was born. How time flies...

Tyler learned to crawl a few weeks ago, and three days after he started crawling, he started trying to pull himself up to standing. Now he pulls himself up on that chair in his bedroom, on the couch, on the outside of the bathtub...He also loves climbing all over Vader, who graciously tolerates it.

Tyler's favorite syllables right now are "Da Da Da" and "Rah Rah Rah". We both heard him say "Dagobah" one day, so we know he's thinking about becoming a Jedi knight.

For Halloween, we were lucky enough to get to attend a couple of parties in addition to trick-or-treating.

We spent time at my friend Paula's house. She did an amazing job decorating!

We also went to the annual RavenHearse party. No one does Halloween like these guys! The bathroom was amazing, they'd taken the time to adhere at least a hundred rubber spiders all over the ceiling. The whole house is full of Halloween-appropriate decorations.Even their swimming pool was decked out for Halloween.

Even monsters need their sleep...

On Halloween night, we went trick-or-treating with the McNamaras. Here's Sarah, Leo, Tyler and me.

The next week, Tyler and I celebrated Dia De Los Muertos by going to the parade downtown with Lisa, Gene, and Sarah. I don't have any pictures, but we had a great time. Tyler stared at the paraders with the same expression he has when he takes a bath - not a smile, but definitely intrigued and glad to be there.  

One of my favorite things to do with Tyler lately is to bring him to his bedroom, sit him on the floor with his toys, and I sit a little ways away and start reading his books out loud. Within a couple of minutes, he abandons his toys, and comes crawling into my lap to snuggle up and read together. He'll ditch me again to go play, but I keep reading anyway, and he ends up in my lap again a few minutes later.

Tyler also loves music. Tyson has an extra guitar that Tyler's allowed to play with. We lay it flat on the floor and he alternates strumming it and drumming on it. Most of his toys have musical elements to them, too. And of course, when I need to cook or clean in the kitchen, the old pot-and-wooden-spoon combo does the trick.

Tyler has two teeth now, but no interest in solid food. Trying to feed him is like playing air hockey, and he's an excellent goalie, blocking our attempts to get food in his mouth with his fist, a spoon, bobbing and weaving, or simply by raising his tongue to the roof of his mouth and refusing to move it. Yes, we've tried a wide variety of foods, and a wide variety of methods...His daycare teacher was confident that she'd be more successful than us. She was wrong. Every few days, she tries again. I can always tell when she's tried, by the splotches of food on the walls and floor. (Too bad Vader's not allowed at daycare. He earns his keep at our house these days!) I think this picture accurately depicts Tyler's mood during dinner time...

We thought for a minute that Vader's food was more appealing, but it turns out, Tyler just enjoys taking it out of his bowl and feeding it to him.

I think we've turned a corner, though. Grandma Anne Marie got him to eat carrots and apples several times over this weekend, and Tyson and I were able to feed him apples today.

On Saturday, I realized Tyler had yet to ride in a swing, so his grandma and I took him to the park. He liked it some of the time. I couldn't tell whether he liked the slide. Doesn't he look like Spiderman?

This is the same park where Tyson and I held our rehearsal dinner. I'm sure we'll come here more often in the months ahead. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

-C

Tyler stands!...not on his own, but he stands!

Alright, so I have yet to attempt to add a video to a blog post, and I am unsure how to do it, and whether or not you'll be able to view it. I tested the video with the latest version of Windows Media Player an it works fine. It is AVI format, but I hope everyone can figure it out.

Anyhow, sincce this is my first video attempt it is a short 00:24 video, please comment and let me know if this was successful. If so I will add more!

Tyler Renton pulls himself up to stand, unaided. 7.5 months.

I hope this was a success. He is so cute! 

Last Day of Work

"Pretty please, with sugar on top, can't I keep coming to Camp Wellness?"

This has been a month of major changes for our family. In the middle of August, my employer gently warned me that I could no longer get away with having Tyler at work without a babysitter. Coincidentally, the very next week Tyson cut down his hours to working only Saturdays at his job, and became a full time student at the UofA. So it seemed we had found a solution. We've been carpooling to my office, then Tyson bikes to school. Whenever he isn't in class, Tyson bikes back to my work to study while keeping an eye on Tyler. At first, this seemed like a great plan, good for Tyler, good for me, good for the students at the Health & Wellness Center. Unfortunately, it's proved to not be good for Tyson - Tyler's at an age where he no longer sits quietly in his bouncy chair, peacefully gazing at his toys. He'd rather be on the floor, working on his crawling technique, and loudly expressing his frustration at the pace of his progress, or sitting in Tyson's lap, turning the pages of whichever textbook Tyson's trying to read, or editing the essay Tyson's trying to type...

And so, today was Tyler's last day at work, and tomorrow will be Tyler's first day of daycare. I'm excited for him to get more interaction and attention from people who are getting paid just to play with/care for him and other children his age. They'll teach him baby sign language, Spanish, and of course, socialization with other kids. But naturally, I'm sad that he won't be with me at work anymore, and I'm sad for the other folks I know that will miss him (including Tyson, who, although frustrated that he can't focus on his homework, has also gotten used to spending more time with Tyler every day.)

We took some pictures of Tyler during his last day of work. He spent the morning with Auntie Em while Tyson was in class and I was at a work event. Auntie Em knows how to soothe Tyler even when he's hungry and teething!

Later in the day, Tyler and I helped Dave and Joaquin teach "SPA" (the Camp Wellness euphemism for P.E. Class). The lesson of the day was Strength Training, so Tyler demonstrated modified pushups for the class. Just look at that form!

Although he's great at teaching upper body strength training exercises, he's not yet qualified to teach squats or lunges, so Tyler spent that part of the class in the arms of the Camp Nurse (thus getting her out of having to demonstrate these exercises.)

Finally, Tyler finished the day with "Campie Pamela" in the lobby. Pam has spent many a moment speaking  "duck" to Tyler, and soothing him to sleep. How many naps did Tyler take, sleeping flat on his back on the desk between her keyboard and monitor, with the sound of her typing away? Or propped in his bouncy chair next to her while she greeted students, took phone calls, wrote deficiency notices, and kept me on task? I know he'll miss her most of all.

On the bright side, bringing home Tyler's work toys allowed us to reconfigure some of them to create "new" toys for him. The exercise mat we bought when he was just a few days old was converted a few hours ago into a tunnel/obstacle course:

Just look at that balance and precision! Soon he'll be crawling all the way through! (And a new world of challenges awaits...)

On his own...

Last Wednesday, on the floor in my office, Tyler rolled from his back to his front for the first time! Thursday, he repeated this new trick for Tyson several times. And by Sunday, he could do it with ease, startling us with his speed. Congratulations, Tyler!

But rolling over was our official deadline for having Tyler sleep in his crib at night. That sounds alright - the crib is beautiful, and that mattress HAS to be more comfortable than the pack-n-play. But the crib is set up in the nursery, and Tyson has declared he is not going to take it apart to move it into our bedroom and re-assemble it. I briefly thought to myself "He can just keep sleeping in the pack-n-play. So what if the instructions said that once a kid can roll to his stomach, he shouldn't sleep overnight in it. They're just worried about liability." But, regardless of the unlikelihood of the pack-n-play posing a danger, the truth is, we don't want Tyler to sleep in our room forever, and the longer we wait, the harder it will be for him to adapt to sleeping in his own room. I'd read somewhere that "if he can see you from his bed, he'll come to rely on  your presence to soothe himself back to sleep." I'd thought to myself "He can't see me. It's too dark." But early Sunday morning in the dawn light, I noticed Tyler looking at me and blowing raspberries. A few minutes later, he had fallen back asleep. Hmmm.

And so we made the transition Sunday night. On our bed, Tyson carefully wrapped Tyler in his "14-22 lb" swaddle blanket (thank goodness they make swaddle blankets so big!!! This is the only thing that works to get him to sleep through the night!).Then we made the long journey through our tiny living room, turned right to head towards the guest bathroom, then left down the long, narrow hallway to Tyler's room. Suddenly, our house seemed to big, that hallway too long. Tyson tenderly laid Tyler down in his crib. "But he won't have any white noise! He's closer to the street. It's louder down here." Feeling like the Wicked Witch of the West for banishing my son from our room, I steadily responded, "He can have my air purifier from the living room." So Tyson plugged in the air purifier, and carefully angled it to blow clean air in the direction of the crib, so that it could supplement the ceiling fan in providing air circulation. We turned out the light, and made the long, arduous trek back to our side of the house.

We made our own preparations to retire for the night, and turned on the monitor. Glaringly bright lights leered at us, reminding us of our crime against our son. Tyson responded by taking the monitor into the kitchen, and a few minutes later, reappearing, having applied painter's tape over the lights. We tossed and turned, but eventually fell into a light sleep, always listening for any sound to come out of the monitor. At some point during the night, I felt Tyson climb back into bed, telling me "He's okay. He started to wake up, but he's falling back asleep." (The irony of being woken up to be reassured that someone else is asleep is not lost on me.) At 6:20 Monday morning, I once again walked the distance to Tyler's room, to discover him alive and well and still asleep. Cruelly, I woke him up to feed him so we could go to work.

Last night we repeated the ritual. I'm not sure that either of us slept much better. But Tyler did. Here it is, 6:27, and he's still asleep. And so I need to go wake him to feed him so we can go to work.

And the past two nights, Vader's slept, right by my side, on the floor.