Formerly "Redefining The Birds and The Bees". They have been redefined! This is our journey through infertility including a vasectomy reversal, 4 IVFs and finally pregnancy via an FET with our last little embryo. The journey continues as we venture our way through parenthood.
Tyler's 2 year old professional photos, taken on July 16, 2012 by Jenny Lindsey Photography.
All of our previous photos shoots were challenging, it was so much work getting Tyler to look at the camera and smile. He was always into what he wanted to do and nothing else mattered. Oh the stuff we did to get him to laugh... I have a vivid memory of us jumping up and down acting like gorillas on the side of a road with cars going by.
This session was different, day and night different. Tyler was a complete ham and was basking in all the attention. He not only smiled and looked at the camera, he actually posed and worked the camera, and for the entire 2 hrs in the heat! ~ Happy parents!!!
Judging by this photo, you would think that my child was a walk in the park at his well visits. Ummm... NO!!! Prior to this he had a complete meltdown just because the nurse wanted to listen to his heart. iPhone to the rescue once again!
What's new with Tyler?
He's always making sure we do the same things. If daddy takes off his shirt after work, he says "Ty Ty, shirt off too?". If we put socks on him, he wants us to put socks on as well.
He prays before bed with the cutest prayer ever. Dear Geez-e-us, bank you for me, bank you for mama, bank you for dada, bank you for mimi, papa, gma, gpa, mom-mom-mom and mama Betty, in Geez-e-us name, AMEN!!!. Occasionally he also says he's thankful for cars and milk.
Learning Skills:
Sign:
He doesn't have the fine motor skills to be able to sign the alphabet yet, but he shocked me that he knows the entire alphabet when I sign it, even out of order.
He knows all his colors in sign.
Alphabet:
He's known the upper case letters for awhile, but now he knows all of the lower case letters as well.
He can recite the entire alphabet.
Counting:
He can count to 20. He can't say 13 yet, so he says 14 twice.
Reading:
He read his first word, stop, and not on a stop sign. He recognizes the word everywhere.
Most used sentences:
How are you?
See you later alligator.
Hi Homey!
Sleep:
Finally, at 2 yrs, he's sleeping through the night!!!! It never felt so good to get a full night's sleep. I just basically had to have anyone but me go hold him when he woke up in the middle of the night. If he couldn't have me, he didn't want anyone, so he would just point to the crib and say night night. After 2 weeks, he gave up and started sleeping through the night. < singing hallelujah! >
4th of July:
We celebrated the 4th of July with friends at an amphitheater. Savannah and Tyler had a blast dancing to the band. The band was pretty loud so many times I couldn't hear Tyler when he was trying to tell me something. After awhile he resorted to signing to me! Other than a random sign here and there, he really doesn't sign much anymore, so it was so cool to see him in action. He has quite the memory.
At dark, he experienced his first firework display. He was mesmerized by it and for weeks would say "boom boom, boom boom, see fireworks?".
Tyler-isms:
Whenever he gets hurt, or when he just wants a kiss, he points to a knee or whatever and says "kiss it!" We kiss it and then he says in the cutest toddler voice, "all better".
He says "thank you" every time he hands us something. A little backwards, but super cute.
We took Tyler to his first outdoor concert. There was a family sitting on a blanket diagonally from us who had a 6 year old playing with monster trucks. Tyler could not stop pointing and starring at those trucks, he wanted them so bad. I told him to go show the boy his toy motorcycle and see if they could play with each other's toys. He slowly walked over and showcased his motorcycle, spun the wheels and played it's revving sounds. He was really selling it! For awhile it seemed as if the boy was going to ignore Tyler, it was so heartbreaking, but Tyler kept displaying his motorcycle until the boy was intrigued. They ended up swapping toys and Tyler played with the monster trucks all night. He was quite the salesman.
One day he looked at my chest while I was getting dressed and said "Hello milk! How are you?". I laughed so hard! Speaking of milk, I finally threw out my 9 frozen bags of breastmilk I had worked so hard to collect back when Tyler was a wee little one. I was sad to throw them out, all that effort collecting when I barely had enough to feed Tyler, and I didn't even use it!
One day the nanny was changing his diaper and he pointed to his "part" and said "big tee-tee!". I about died! That same week, he told Mimi that "daddy has a big tee-tee!". I guess he's become more aware of his anatomy this week.
This month in photos:
We sadly had to say goodbye to our super nanny after a wonderful year.
Tyler giving his Tildy a hug goodbye
Bye bye Rachel
A sweet kiss goodbye
This is how I found my child! Looks like he's ready to workout to Richard Simmons!
Hanging out with his Gpa
This month in video:
Video: In the real world, the lion would eat the cow.
In Tyler's world, the lion helps himself to a drink of milk.
We were given The Book of Birthday Questions. Each birthday you video them while asking them a list of questions for that year. While I seemed to have caught him off guard by throwing so many questions at him, I can see how this will be so cool to look back on when he's older.
Please excuse the nose picking and ignore the fact that we are bribing him with Puffs.
Video: The Birthday Questions part 1
Video: The Birthday Questions part 2
(I just noticed he signs motorcycle, pillow and go)
Tyler painted his very first masterpiece. He thought that was really cool and kept saying "more colors". We gave it to Dada for Father's Day.
He's really mimicking us. He repeats what we say, stands how we stand, squats when we squat and postures his arms/hands how we have ours.
He did his first front roll on his own.
He can now hang from a bar.
His Mimi has truly spoiled him rotten by giving him a new car every time she sees him. It really is so cute, he gets so excited he jumps and squeals when she walks through the door. But now the first thing he says to her is "new car?".
He started to show an interest in bugs. He likes to smash or stomp on ones that crawl.
So far no signs of the terrible twos, knock on wood!
Language:
New signs:
Grapes
Peach
Potato
Cereal
Banana
Colors
Red
Day
Brush
Comb
Yes
No
Zebra
Giraffe
While he has an extensive list of words he can sign, I was absolutely astounded by his sign comprehension. One day out of the blue while eating lunch, I just started signing word after word to him, at least 100 words and mostly ones I've never seen him sign before. To my complete shock, he knew every single one of them. The only one I stumped him on was the one I signed incorrectly.
Funny pronunciations:
Foe-lear-lear (4-wheeler)
Car-bozzies (kraut and kielbasa)
Pee-leo (pillow)
Things Tyler says:
He started calling me Mommy. He melts my heart!
He loves it when I'm looking for something, he says "Ty Ty shoes, where are you?", "Wipes, where are you?". Then he follows it up with "there it is!" when we find them.
I've been trying to get him to say please when he asks for my iphone. I say, "can you ask nicely?" and he responds with "nicely phone?".
He's obsessed with the UPS truck. Every time it arrives, he races to the window while yelling "ups, ups!!!" as in the direction up. After I bring the box in, he always says "beeeg box, beeeg box!". One morning I walked out and found him up and playing. I said "well look who's up!". He got super excited, ran to the door while yelling "ups! ups! ups! beeeeeg box, beeeeeg box!". He thought UPS was here! I now have to be careful using the word "up".
He really bosses us around all the time. "Mama sit", "Mama stand", "Mama walk".
When I yawn, he says "Mama tired".
He started saying "one more time" when I inform him we're all done.
He's pulling the distraction technique on me! I'll say something like "Tyler, eat your carrots" and he'll respond with "Play cars? Puzzle? Milk? Cheese? Outside?" to avoid doing what I asked of him.
He says the most random things the second he wakes up, "bean soup!", "fork, poon", "cars!".
Every time we grunt while picking him up, he says "sooooo big!".
Most used sentences:
Yeah, I did it!
Are you ready?
Mark, set, go!
Bye bye [insert name]
Night Night [insert name]
Where are you? There you are! or There it is!
I got it!
Alphabet:
He's starting to recite the alphabet. So far he's got A-E down and then the rest is just random.
Counting:
He can count 1-10 and then skips to 14. He doesn't quite get the concept of counting yet. When counting things, he counts items multiple times and always counts way more items than are actually there.
Singing:
He started singing. He started off with ya ya ya ya ya yaaaaaaa and now it is la la la laaaaaaaaa. He does laaaaaaaaaa's in different octaves to Kerry's pitch pipe. So cute!
Chatterbox:
OMG this kid is a chatterbox. He talks and talks and talks. We had our first not so fun experience where we needed him to be quiet and he just didn't understand that. We took him to the planetarium at the science museum as he loves the moon and stars. They had tranquil music playing and it was so relaxing, for a short time. Then it started, "MOON!!!!", "STARS!!!!" Tyler exclaimed very loudly. I think we spent the entire time saying "shhhhh". He would say back "SHHHHHHHH, LIGHTS!!!!!, SHHHHHHH STARS!!!!". We ended up having to take turns watching while the other stood outside the doors with him. He was so adorable but just at the wrong time.
Sleep:
We've started letting him sleep on the couch in his bedroom on occasions where picking him up to put him in his crib would wake him up. I thought for sure it would be a disaster. Surprisingly he did really well. When he wakes up, he just sits there and calls for mama. Maybe the transition to a toddler bed won't be so bad. No intentions of moving to that until he can climb out of his crib, but nice to know that it may not be as daunting as I once thought.
Teeth / Bedtime:
After trying everything, I found a solution, maybe not the best one, but a very effective one. While we had made some progress, brushing his teeth was still a battle we dreaded every night. Our conversations towards bed time started sounding like "hey, if you'll brush his teeth, I'll mop the kitchen floor".
So we resorted to the iPhone. He sits on the counter and plays his educational apps while we brush. Every time he doesn't open his mouth, we take the phone away. It wasn't long at all before it became a breeze to brush his teeth. Now each night, we hand him the phone and he walks straight to the bathroom and we're done in 2 mins.
Afterwards, I carry him to his bedroom, with phone still in his hands, lay him on the changing pad, change his diaper and put on his pjs. He then hands me the phone on his own and we read him 3 books. He then asks for milk and then says night night and reaches for his crib. Piece of cake!
Thank you iPhone!
Pumping:
I cannot believe I had to type that word again. Tyler got an ear infection and cried for 3 days straight. It was a heart breaking 3 days where he sobbed crocodile tears while begging for milk. It must have hurt too bad to nurse because he would immediately pull off and cry.
In the middle of the night on day 2, he was begging for milk. He would not, could not nurse. I became painfully engorged and had to dig my pump out of storage and dust it off. I told Tyler to wait in his room and that I would be back with some milk. A few mins into pumping, he opened the door to the bathroom and oh the horror on his face! There I sat on the toilet, a pump on each breast and a machine making obnoxious rhythmic sounds. He burst into tears, ran out and slammed the door. It was as if he caught his milk having an affair with the pump.
It was so strange to be pumping again. It felt so unnatural and I was really sore afterwards. I now believe all those issues of severe, painful blocked ducts I experienced so many times in the first year was from pumping. I haven't had a single blocked duct since I stopped.
I tried to offer Tyler the milk through a cup and straw and he wouldn't have anything to do with it. I don't think he could make the connection that it was the same thing. That was an exhausting, heart wrenching 3 days and I'm so glad it's over with.
Tyler-isms:
Every time he falls, even if it's a very minor tip over onto the carpet, he says "bandaid, bandaid!". I'll put a bandaid on his knee and he will admire it all day. This kiddo loves bandaids!
We went to Kohl's to do a little shopping and as soon as we walked through the doors he starts saying "cars, where are you?". He now associates shopping with getting to drool over the car aisle.
You can't peel this child from the window when the lawn guy is mowing the lawn. He says "oh lawn mower" the same exact way I would say "oh chocolate".
He picked his nose and then said "I got you booger!".
Tyler's grandmother was changing his diaper and it looked like he was about to pee and so she said to him "don't you pee on me" and he said "I pee on you!".
My mom asked me what word we were going to teach him for his private part and I said Kerry already taught him tee-tee. My mom then asked Tyler where his tee-tee was to see if he knew. He ripped off his diaper, lifted his shirt, pinched it and said "there it is!". So yep, he knows where it is mom! We laughed so hard!
Tyler was nursing and asked for the other side. I asked for a kiss first and he refused, so I told him no other side until I get a kiss. He then kissed me and said "now other side?".
This month in photos:
Tyler and Gma
Generation iPhone
This month in video:
Video: Tyler counts to 10
Video: Counting Blooper!
(I handed the camcorder to Kerry, asked him to record Tyler counting and specifically requested that I not be in the video as I looked horrible. He counted perfectly. I watched it and was mortified that I was in the entire video. I made him redo it without me in it (yes, he still got me in it!) and this was the result...)
As you can see in the 1st photo above, he finally poses for the camera and lets me take his picture! He loves going through all the photos/videos of him on my iphone and I believe he finally made the connection that when I take his picture, it will show up in the iphone photo album. What really helped make it click was I took his picture and then immediately showed him the result. He then wanted to pose and run to see it. What a relief to not have him avoid the camera!
As you can see in the 2nd photo above, his finger and nose have become BFFs. I swear he has that finger up his nose every time I turn around. He doesn't really pick it, he just likes sticking his finger up there and leaving it there. When he's done with one side, he moves to the other.
He's starting to climb things like ladders and climbing walls with me behind him guiding him. The entire time I'm pleading for it not to teach him how to climb out of his crib.
He can now jump. For the last few months he's been jumping but would only get 1 foot off the ground. One day I just said, can you get both feet off the ground? He tried and got it on the first try and hasn't stopped since. He's so proud of his ability to jump and loves to get "wahoo's" from them. He can now jump on a trampoline as well.
He loves spinning around and around, say "dizzzzzzy" and fall over.
We took him to the pool and found that he's just as dangerous as last summer. He will walk right off the edge and into the pool with no concern. Once in the water he's really trying to swim. He kicks his legs but hasn't figured out how to paddle his arms. A few times he was like let go of me, I can swim. Time for swim lessons.
In his gymnastics class, I've always had to physically guide him through all his stretches, but now he's starting to do them on his own. He reaches for the sky, touches his toes, etc. It's so cute to watch him follow along on his own.
He's starting to act out movements to children's songs. His favorite is Wheels On The Bus.
He's starting to transition from parallel play to associative play with his playmates. His favorite is playing chase.
This kiddo is exceptional when it comes to sharing. He's never used the word "mine". I don't ever see him take things from other kids. When another child takes something from him, most of the time he just lets them. When the parent makes their child give the toy back and the child throws a complete wing ding, he just looks at them like dude, what is your problem?
He's finally taking normal size bites of food. Every since he learned how to use utensils he has taken these enormous bites that would fill his entire mouth with the remaining running down his face. I started taking a huge bite and said big bite, then I would take a normal bite and say small bite. We now have an eating tradition. He scoops up a huge bite, says beeeeg bite, shakes off the spoon, says small bite and takes a bite. He repeats this for every bite.
He started counting. The first thing he counted was my boobs. One milk, Two milks! He counts in patterns like 1-2, 1-2, 1-2 or in sets of three like 8, 9, 10.
He knows his colors: red, orange, yellow, green (geen), blue (boo), purple, pink, black and white. I was very excited for this as 2 months ago every color was yellow and I was slightly concerned he was color blind. What's funny is that 4 of my friends who have a child around Tyler's age also called every color yellow.
He's either starting to read or has a really good memory. He reads the bindings of his books/videos, says the title and then pulls them off the shelf.
Language:
New signs:
Penguin
Monkey
Frog
Pig
Squirrel
Blanket
Socks
Diaper
Dirty
Stars
Home
Wait
Misc:
Our sweet little guy has started throwing F bombs! Ok, not exactly, but let's just say that frog does not come out sounding like frog! Anytime he sees a frog, he doesn't just say frog, he yells FROG! I'll never forget this moment, we walked into a store, he walked up to 3 little old ladies who were admiring him, he pointed to a frog and said FROG, FROG, FROG!!! The horror on their faces! All I could do is run out of there laughing hysterically!
He started using the word too. Mama play cars, Dada play cars too.
He gets me and you mixed up. He says "chase me mama" when he wants to chase me. A toddler will make you realize how difficult it must be to learn our language.
He's really mimicking us and repeats almost everything we say. He even mimics the noises we make. We couldn't figure out why he was making this loud moaning noise every time we picked him, then realized it's because we grunt when picking him up as he's getting heavy.
He said his last name for the first time and OMG was it the cutest thing ever!
Video: Tyler says his name
Cars (cars gets it's own section, that's how big the obsession is):
They are not just cars and trucks, he calls them by type; jeep, suv, van, bus, pickup truck, dump truck, ambulance, police car, fire truck, UPS truck, mail truck, digger, excavator, backhoe, tractor, etc. I know all boys love cars, but this little boy takes it to a whole nutha level.
He knows which car belongs to each family member and each nanny. When he sees a car pull up, he runs to the window and exclaims "Mimi's car!" or whoever's car it is. But he takes this to a whole nutha level as well. He recognizes their cars outside of our home. We were in Gatlinburg this month on a mini vacation with family. 3 days into our vacation, my MIL joined us. She met us at a restaurant and Tyler had no idea she was joining us. We were walking through the parking lot and Tyler starts pointing and exclaiming "Mom-Mom-Mom's car!!!". Sure enough, there was her car an aisle over.
He doesn't just play with cars like other little boys, he studies them. He slowly rolls them across a table at eye level and studies their every movement and every detail. Mechanical engineer some day?
He can't go anywhere without his cars. If we go bye bye, he fills up his diaper bag with cars. If we go upstairs to bed, he fills up my arms with cars to take up there. If I tell him it's time to change his diaper, he immediately scoops up as many cars as he can, because you know 30 seconds without them would be torture. But it's so cute, he loads them up in the crooks of his elbows, then loads more between his arms and chest and then loads up as many as his little fists will hold.
Eating:
We've been having a hard time getting him to eat what we want him to eat. I decided it's time to get a little tougher on him and come to the realization that he's not going to let himself starve.
It was dinner time, I put him in his highchair and put a plate of veggies in front of him. It was veggies that he liked, but he insisted on cottage cheese. I told him he could have some after he ate his veggies. He pushed the veggies away and kept asking for cottage cheese. I repeated that he could have some after his veggies. He said all done. I asked if he was sure he was all done and asked if he was ok with going hungry. He said yes, so I let him out of his highchair and told him to go play. He got upset and tried to climb back into his highchair. I helped him up and he ate all his veggies. Seriously??? I can't believe it worked.
Sleep:
I cannot believe how easy it has become to put him to bed. When he's tired, he reaches for his crib and says bed or night night. One night I sat him down while I fixed his bedding and he was so desperate to get back to sleep that he tried to climb in his crib, not out, IN!
We've found a trick that works wonders for those middle of the night wakings. I simply send Kerry (or anyone besides me) up there and within minutes or less he's reaching for his crib and saying bed, bed. It's like if he can't have mama, then just put him back to bed.
He's never really been one to use anything for a security blanket, unless you count my boobs. Well he all of a sudden decided he needed one. It's not exactly a blanket, but a sippy cup. He'll say "doot, doot" and we'll hand him his sippy and then he says "doot, night, night" and we put him to bed. He rolls over and cuddles with his doot.
Teeth:
We're making more progress on the teeth brushing saga and wanted to share something I tried that helped. Tyler likes to suck on the toothbrush and brush his tongue. We had the hardest time getting his actual teeth brushed. One day I got out my toothbrush and brushed my teeth while facing him. I kept saying scrubba, scrubba, do you hear that? Then I said, can you do that? When he would make the noise by brushing his teeth, I would get all excited and say, I hear it, Daddy do you hear it? Daddy would say, I hear it too, can you do it some more?
How to get your child to eat spinach:
We used to tear up spinach and put it in Tyler's scrambled eggs that he eats every morning. He's not so keen on it anymore. Actually he's refusing more and more vegetables as he gets older. I'm finding myself having to get more and more creative if I want to get any veggies in him. Green doot (drink) has saved the day!
Throw the following into a blender and you have yourself an amazingly tasty juice smoothie that tastes just like apple juice. You would never know there was spinach in it.
3 handfuls of Organic Spinach
1 leaf of Organic Kale (stem removed)
1 cup Organic Apple Juice
1 cup Water
1 Organic Granny Smith Apple
1 Banana
1 cup Ice
This makes enough to serve 3-4.
I normally don't give Tyler juice, but this is so power packed with nutrients that the pros outweigh the cons.
Tyler-isms:
One day Tyler walked into my office and said fa-knee (funny) and gave out a big belly laugh over and over again. Soon we were both belly laughing and neither of us knew why.
I have a huge red stainless steel water bottle that I drink from all day every day. It's looks like a fire extinguisher. Tyler walked up to me, pointed to it and said fire doot (drink) and then started making siren sounds.
One day Tyler ripped a big one and I said, what was that??? and he replied, a beeeeg fart!.
This month in photos:
I gave him a shopping cart and he grabbed 4 cottage cheeses!
This kid is obsessed with cottage cheese!
A photo from the nanny... I love the high five at the end!
Still going...
Tyler's 1st airshow
Tyler and Matilda after playing in the pool
Chillin' with Homey
This kid is sooo funny!
He actually smiled for the camera!
He loves flowers, he stopped and smelled every single pot.
Who is this child that is falling asleep everywhere???
