smarty pants

Do we have a little genius on our hands? Well Debbie sure thinks so. She takes care of him during the work day and told me today that he's far ahead of the normal curve of development. He follows complex directions and plays games like passing a ball back and forth with another person (something that some other 2-year-olds haven't mastered). Since Tyler is our first child we have no frame of reference for comparison, but of course we've always thought he was amazing!

round n' round

What a fun new thing Tyler picked up while I was away!!? -- He's SO into music and dancing and now when he hears a good tune, he twirls himself in circles while standing. Sometimes he's so dizzy he falls to his knees and then sways back and forth to the beat.

pointer

Tyler is using his pointer finger to direct us in the direction of his choice. He's so enamoured with it that he sometimes replaces a wave with pointing.

mama is back

My first time away from my baby!! And nearly a week at that (I've not been away from Alex that long either). Thankfully the conference (in San Juan, Puerto Rico) kept my mind occupied. That and the beautiful beach! Joy and I also loved touring the El Morro fortress. Very cool!

too cute

Isn't he just the cutest?

uncle ben's

Tyler went into the kitchen pantry and pulled a box of Uncle Ben's rice from the eye-level shelf. Instead of asking him to put it back right away, I asked him to shake it. He did and got a giggle at the noise (and maybe that mommy didn't say "no" for once). Shake-ah-shake-ah-shake-ah was the song we sang to go with our fun activity.

eleventh tooth

Another one popped in some time ago! This time it was his upper right molar.

snow man

What was not supposed to accumulate to much snow yesterday, ended up being over four inches! Tyler loved watching the flakes fall. And even more than that, he loved crunching it under his feet this morning!

back it up

Tyler is so funny! He giggles so much and has found his new trick to be a riot. He has learned to slide himself backward while crawling or lying down. He has used this to slide under the legs of our antique table (his head only has about a half inch clearance). And today he kept sliding his legs under the couch up until his tush stopped him.

christmas eve rain date

Due to illness we took a rain check on our Christmas Eve celebration. Now with everyone in good health we enjoyed dinner at my Dad's house. Tyler really enjoyed playing with Jeanne's musical figures and snow globe. He also got a big kick out of playing with Uncle Dylan as usual. And the rest of the family got a big kick out of watching Tyler practically run circles around everyone.

14 months

Our little guy is growing and growing. He is wearing size 4 shoes and size 4 diapers (he's been wearing the latter since July albeit very large on him back then). He seems to be growing taller but not much wider. Just today he got on his tip toes so that he could reach something from the table. It amazes me how fast he can go and how comfortable he is walking after such a short time.

antics

Tyler spent the day at Meg's. He was nice enough to let Audrey Kate play with some of her own toys (what a gentleman). He also taught her that bare feet are tempting, tasty treats (not such a gentleman, poor AKR). But she was able to crawl behind Tyler as he ran from room to room. Older men are so fascinating.

Daniel hadn't seen Tyler walk, so Meg set the bottle down in the middle of the room and told him to go get it. He walked to it with his arms in the air (like he does) and then instead of picking the bottle up, he bent down swinging his arms behind him and up high, like a swimmer ready for a dive, and then proceeded to try to drink from the bottle while it was still sitting on the floor. Kids are funny!

back and forth

Tyler loves playing games (his all time favorite is still peek-a-boo/jump-out-and-scream). Now we can toss a ball back and forth. When he throws it, the ball usually ends up under the couch but it's in my direction. Sometimes we switch out the ball with a toy truck and roll it back and forth.

walk, walk, walk

Tyler has been walking up a storm. He took a break while in Florida, reverting back to crawling half of the time. But as soon as we were home again he basically stopped crawling altogether. And he's so fast! He was even keeping up with us at the mall. Does running come next? I'm not sure I'm ready for that!!

ninth and tenth teeth

While in Florida Tyler popped two more teeth into place. I was watching his lower right first molar tooth and unbeknownst to me his upper left first molar popped in and seemed to have been in for a while before I discovered it! And the lower right one quickly followed. The others are on their way too.