Tyler: 21 Months

February 24-March 23, 2012 (20 to 21 months old)

What's new with Tyler?

• He blows kisses.  Mmmmm-ahhh!
• He claps and says "yeah Ty Ty!" for himself if we don't.
• Every time a groovy song comes on, he reaches up to Kerry and says/signs dance.  His daddy is such a great, fun dancer... mama knows because daddy was mama's dance partner long before they were married.
• The boy is obsessed with vehicles; cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, construction, trains... anything with wheels!  When I mention Dyson, he's like Dyson who?
• All colors are yellow.  Hey Tyler, the grass is green, what color is the grass?  Yeah-yo!  What color is this blue car?  Yeah-yo!

Language:

New sounds:

• Owl (who who)
• Chicken (cluck cluck)

New words:

• Again
• Oh No!
• Hey
• Yeah!
• Yes
• Dance
• Slide
• Happy
• Amen (a-me)
• Phone
• Dandelion
• Snowflake
• Sun
• Crayon
• Puzzle
• Bus
• Eyes
• Nose
• Mouth
• Ears
• Booby (boo-boob)
• Bear
• Deer
• Hippo
• Hyena
• Chicken
• Bean
• Soup
• Pear
• Spoon
• ABCs
• Grammy (may-me)
• Homey (hay-me)
• Austin (awesome)

New signs:

• Want
• Dance
• Swing
• Slide
• Sun
• Farm
• Bus
• Police Officer
• Bear
• Butterfly
• Alligator
• Carrot
• Candy 

New letters:

• F
• G
• J
• L
• N
• R
• S
• U
• V
• X ... and that completes all upper case letters.

Sentences:

This is such a fun age!  There isn't a day that goes by where we're not blown away by how fast his language is developing.  He can repeat almost any word I ask him to and his words are really improving in clarity.

Every new word brings so much excitement and now he's starting to form 2 and 3 word sentences.  There's no way I can possibly keep up with all the combinations he came up with, but his firsts were "Up Dada", "Oh no, open bubbles", "Bus puzzle open!".

Then was the moment every parent has when they realize, I better watch every word that comes out of my mouth!  He was nursing and was ready to switch sides and said "other side boo-boob".  Funny in private, but would not be so funny in public.  I like how he asks for "maa" for milk as no one knows what he's asking for.  I think asking for booby would be just a tad less discreet.

Teeth:

Brushing his teeth has been extremely challenging for some time.  We are finally making some progress.

The first thing we did was switch from water to toddler toothpaste.  After some research I landed on Weleda Children's Tooth Gel as it had one of the safest ratings from EWG.org and has no sweeteners.  I tasted it and it has a light minty taste which I think takes a few tries before they acquire a taste for it.  After a few times he starting asking for "more paste", so it's Tyler approved.

The second thing we did was purchase a children's book on brushing teeth, "Brush Your Teeth Please".  It's a pop-up book with a different animal on each page.  Each page has a moving toothbrush that the little one can move and brush the animal's teeth.  We have him brush the animal's teeth while we brush his.  This has helped so much and I highly recommend this book.  Every time we tell Tyler it's time to brush his teeth, he gets excited and says "Lion!  Hippo!".

Behavior:

For the most part, little man is such a sweet boy, but when he's overtired and doesn't get his way his way, whoa!  He'll throw his sippy or car, slap his hand on the table and say no!  Pretty typical of this age I guess.  We've implemented a new rule that anything thrown gets taken away until the next day.  We put it on the fireplace mantle where he can still see it and when he asks for it, he gets the reminder of why he can't have it.  Now when he's about to throw something, I ask him, are you sure you want to throw that, I will take it away.  Many times he'll actually refrain from throwing it.  We also started working on apologizing.  He knows how to say and sign sorry, but we're working on teaching him to know when to use sorry.

Sleep:

Last month Tyler had moved from 2 to 1 nap.  Well now about half of the time, Tyler stands in his crib during his entire nap.  Oh please don't tell me naps will soon be history, how will I ever get anything done?

As far as sleeping through the night, it doesn't exist.  He started sleeping through the night at 16 months and that is the only month it happened.  He cries for milk once or twice a night every single night.  No, he doesn't need milk in the middle of the night, especially at this stage, but I have always given into it so he knows no different.  On many nights, I would let him cry it out on the 2nd middle of the night request as getting up twice a night just takes too much of a toll on mama.  Well now that has all changed.  He no longer cries, great right?  No!  He now calls out "Mama, mama, mama" in the most pitiful, sweetest voice ever.  He won.

Chick Magnet:

When Tyler was a baby, Kerry always joked that we should rent him out to single guys to get back some of the money we spent on conceiving him.  Every time they were out together, the women would flock around him ohhing and ahhing.  Kerry was like, man, I've never had so many women approach me in my life!  

Now as a toddler, it's crazy how many little girls have a "crush" on Tyler.  It must be the strawberry blonde curls and blue eyes.  For the most part, he wants nothing to do with it, he pretty much avoids or pushes away the attention.  

His nanny's daughter Matilda loves her Tydoe.  She is super sweet and adorable and takes every opportunity to sit next to him or on his lap, hold his hand, hug and kiss him.

Video:  Tyler hugging and kissing Matilda (I think he finally warmed up to her!)

My friend's daughter Savannah is crazy about Tyler.  Every time she see's him she gets so excited and yells his name, tries to hug him, tickle him and hold his hand.  He's literally scared of her.  I can't wait till the day he's a teen and chasing after her and I get to tell him how scared he was of her, haha!

A random little girl (about 3) came up to me at the park and said "is that your baby?  He's soooo cute!" She followed him every where repeating "he's so cute!".  She then went and picked yellow flowers and handed them to him.  It was so cute, until he turned around and threw them on the ground.  I felt so bad!  My mom always tells a story of when I was in kindergarten, how a boy gave me flowers and I proceeded to throw them on the ground because they were from a boy and boys were icky. I guess like mother, like son. 

Then there's young girls that cater to his every desire like he's a little prince.  Just the other day we were at the park and this girl, about 10, who we have never seen before, follows him all over the place, helping him up the stairs, down the slide and by the end of our time there, she was carrying him around.  As we were leaving, she ran to my car to tell him bye.

I met a good friend at the zoo, she had brought her daughter and her daughter's friend.  These 2 girls catered to Tyler's every whim.  They carried him, pushed him in his car, hand fed him, made sure he never went thirsty, sometimes fought over him.  At first he was a little overwhelmed but by the end, I think he was quite enjoying it, at least judging by the kiss he gave them as we departed.  The little girl tried to give him her cheek to kiss, but he insisted on kissing her on the lips.

Oh I'm not looking forward to the teen years!

Tyler-isms:

Tyler is a funny child and always has us laughing.  Now that he's talking up a storm, the funnies are just getting more and more funny.  Tyler-isms are just random things he says or does that makes us laugh.

One day Tyler and I were taking a walk through our neighborhood.  A lady and her dog were walking towards us.  Tyler took one look at her great dane, signed and exclaimed "horse!!!!". 

One day I dropped Tyler off at Kerry's office and then ran a few errands.  When I returned, both the front and back doors were locked.  I knocked on both doors until my knuckles hurt.  I must have called him a billion times.  No response.  He finally saw me out his window and let me in.  I was frustrated and was sorta going off on him.  Tyler looked at Kerry and kept saying "uh-oh!  uhhhh-ohhhh!".  It was as if he was saying, you are so in the dog house dada!  That was the end of it, all I could do was crack up.

This month in photos:

I think this could very well be the first time he's ever fallen asleep outside of his crib or car seat!  It took no nap for this to happen!