Tyler: 28 Months

September 24-October 23, 2012 (27 to 28 months old)

Tyler's life this month in bullet points:

• He started MDO, a mother's day out program at our church. He's always had an in-home nanny Mon-Fri, so this was very new to him, and me. He now has an in-home nanny Mon-Wed-Fri and goes to MDO on Tue-Thu. He's not super crazy about it yet and cries pretty hard when we drop him off. He says "hold you, hold you, hold you" when we try to get out the door (he has me and you backwards). It's hard on us but we know that it only lasts 5-10 mins. Picking him up is very rewarding. He yells with so much excitement, Hi Mommy!!! At this age, he much prefers hanging out with an adult. This new arrangement seems like a good mix of high quality time with adults with an introduction to group play.

• Now that he leaves me twice a week, we've started a tradition of waving goodbye and blowing kisses from the window. Every time he leaves with Daddy, he says over and over "wave bye to me in the window". We then wave and blow kisses until the car is out of sight.
• We started time-outs. He thinks they're fun and says "yes!" when I ask him if he wants to go into time-out. He sits on the couch with a smile and says in the cutest toddler voice "don't get down!". So far he's never gotten up.
• He always gives himself corrective statements. He'll stand on the couch and say "Tyler sit down". He'll climb on something and say "Tyler get down". He'll walk up to a public toilet and say "Tyler don't touch it!".
• He talks like a stuck record, repeats himself over and over and over whenever he's upset or doesn't want us adults to talk.
• He started mimicking our tone. One night Kerry had been waiting quite awhile on me to come upstairs to help get Tyler to bed and had been calling for me. Next thing I know Tyler is yelling for me "Jill, come up stairs! Jill, get up here!". I couldn't help but laugh.
• He started singing Wheels on the Bus, Jack and Jill went up the Hill and Ring Around the Rosies.
• He started having conversations between his cars. The King says "Hi Lightening McQueen, how are you? Lightening says "I'm fine". Ramone says "Hi Buddy". 
• He's starting to develop a little more independence. He'll stop us from helping him and say "do it by self".
• He's developed this strange quirk of wearing one sock on and one sock off. If I put both socks on him, he'll ask me to take one off. What's really strange is that Kerry had this same quirk when I first met him but hasn't done it in years. Could how we wear our socks be genetic??

Frequent things he's saying this month:

• Nice to meet you
• No thank you
• May I please have it?
• Excuse me
• What's that?
• What's your name? My name Ty Ty!
• How are you?
• What's up? What's up mom?
• Oh no, what happened mommy?

Cute toddler-ease this month:

• Hang-a-burg (hamburger)
• Pick-a-boo, I see you!
• I wuv you

Things that cracked us up this month:

Parents love to ask their little ones "can you say ____?" just to hear them say it in their cute little voices. I'm always asking Tyler to say stuff. One day my friend Mandy asked Tyler "can you say yummy?". He looked at her like she was an idiot and answered "yes!".

We walked outside and Kerry had all of his wagons, strollers, trikes and push cars sitting in the driveway. Tyler ran to them and yelled "Things that go! Things that go!".

This month in photos:

Wearing Mama's boots

I gave him a screw and an allen wrench and by golly, he actually put the screw in!

This month in video:

Video: Tyler does a forward roll

Video: Tyler playing drums

Video: Tyler put on my little white gloves and immediately exclaimed "I love you!". I was stunned because he has never said this on his own before. Then I noticed that when he first put them on, the 2 middle fingers of the glove drooped down and looked like the sign for I love you.