Happy Halloween!!!!

We took Tyler to pick out our pumpkins last weekend. It was a nice fall day, so we dressed him up in his Halloween costume (and yes, that IS an octopus costume that he is wearing) and took a few pics. Here are just a few of our favorites.

We will be dressing him up again tonight, provided that he is on his best behavior! We will take him to a few of the neighbors’ houses, and then he will “help” us to hand out candy until his bedtime. He seems to really like his costume, and my guess is that he is able to play with the tentacles, so he isn’t even aware that he’s dressed up!

Also, Tyler’s really been working on pulling up and scooting in the last few days. We finally realized that if we would just stop hounding him, he’d probably WANT to do it more. And we were right about that! He’s a man on a mission now! His daycare teachers even told Travis this morning that while he isn’t really crawling, he’s moving around the place somehow! They’ll put him on the floor and before they know it, he’s scooted his way all over the place! The same thing happens at home now too. Just yesterday, I had him on the kitchen floor, playing with a wooden spoon and a bowl. I turned around to clean some bottles and when I turned back to him, he had made his way over to the kitchen cabinets! He’s getting quick!!!!

Babies, pumpkins, & more

What a weekend we had here! A house of visitors, coupled with an exciting day at a pumpkin patch on Saturday, made for a very exciting weekend for us all. Our friends from South Carolina, Maggie and Stephen, came to stay with us for the weekend and brought their little girl, Madison. Mad is only 8 days older than Tyler, so we were really looking forward to watching them interact. Mad is crawling all around and pulling up on everything, and Tyler isn’t doing any of this, so we thought that it would be interesting to see what he would pick up from her during her stay. Tyler definitely took notes, and we encouraged him to try all the new things he saw Madison doing. He got up on all fours and would rock back and forth, but then get frustrated and flop down on his belly and flail like a fish out of water. But we’re still practicing with him. He practiced pulling up on his own yesterday and is very close. Tyler tried to teach Madison some tricks too – namely talking. He really is quite the blabbermouth. Everything is “dadadadada, blahblahblah” with an occasional “mamama” thrown in there when he’s desperate for something (usually milk). Mad’s more of a shrieker. Hopefully, they rubbed off on each other this weekend.

Anyway, we had a great time watching the babies play with each other, but there were more babies to add to this equation. On Saturday, 2 more babies arrived at the house – Evan and David. Evan is the little boy here in Richmond that is 6 days older than Tyler, and David lives in Hampton and is just a few weeks older. Once all the babies and parents were gathered together, we hopped in our cars and headed to Belvedere Plantation, right outside of Fredericksburg. They were having a Fall Harvest and it was a beautiful day to visit there with the little ones. And speaking of little ones, we aren’t done yet. Once we got there, we were greeted by RP and his mom. RP will be one year old this Friday and lives in Culpeper. And soon thereafter, the last two joined our ranks – Claire and Lily from Arlington. Claire is a month older than Tyler, and Lily just a few weeks older than that. Have you been counting? That’s 7 babies, all under the age of 1. Yep, seven. And seven mommies (and one daddy who came along – our photographer!).

So we strapped everyone into strollers and began our journey through the Plantation. Oh wait, what was that? How did all of these mommies and babies from all over the state of Virginia meet up? I must have failed to mention. Um, yeah, I met these women on the internet. All of them. Including the one that stayed at our house. Yep, I said the internet. Long, long, long story short, when I was pregnant, I went to WebMD and found a message board full of other pregnant women and began to go there for support and answers to questions. Fast forward several months, and we are now on a new message board, but are all still together. There are about 65 of us, all over the US, and several people have met in real life. I actually met Lori and Evan this way here in Richmond. So it may be weird to some people, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think it was weird in the beginning, but it worked out for us. It’s absolutely amazing to have so many women going through the same things that you are. And it’s great to have little ones for Tyler to meet and play with.

Back to our journey. It was such a pretty day, warm with a light breeze every now and then. We took the little ones to watch the pig races, walked them by the displays of all the animals (Tyler particularly enjoyed watching the geese), and finally plopped down near a picnic table and threw down a few blankets on the ground and watched the babies go at it. Go at what, you might ask? Go at each other. Madness ensued. It was great. The crawlers were all over the place, and Tyler sat back and just took it all in. We all said beforehand that we would stay until the mass meltdown occurred, and we all kind of agreed that 2:00 would be that time. Well, like clockwork, the meltdowns started around 1:30, and we were on our way to the cars by 2:00. Both Madison and Tyler traveled very well, sleeping both on the way there and on the way home. It was cute to see them in the backseat together, and when they were awake, they would stare each other down. “What are you doing in the backseat? Wow, this is pretty cool!”

Madison and Tyler spent all day Sunday playing and catching up on their sleep from the action-packed day before. I think Tyler was a little sad to see Mad go home. I know that I was sad to see them go! It was a busy weekend, but it was so much fun! We all want to try and get together again in the near future for yet another play date, but with the holidays and colder weather on the horizon, it may be a while before we can get it on the calendar. At any rate, we had a great time! Now, if Tyler would start to pick up on some of those “tricks” that Madison taught him……

The Tyler Tour hits Lynchburg

Yep, I called it the Tyler Tour. My dad has lovingly dubbed our trips home to Lynchburg as this since Tyler was 5 weeks old. We come with so much "stuff" that it's practically like going on tour! Travis joked once that we should get yellow shirts and have "EVENT STAFF" printed on them. In any event, the Tour stopped in Lynchburg this past weekend for a visit with Grandpa, Uncle Eddie, and the rest of the gang. We left home Friday evening after we got Tyler ready for bed, and got to Lynchburg around 9:30. We had a relaxing evening, chatting with Dad and his friend Berkley, and watching Tyler play well past his bedtime. He quite enjoyed showing off and playing with everyone.

Saturday brought a visit to Uncle Eddie's house and lots of visitors at Grandpa's. Oh yeah, and oozing, runny eyes and a gunky nose. Why wouldn't he get a cold? He just got over something else. *sigh* But he was still his happy go-lucky self for the most part, so we didn't worry too much. I kind of figured that it was a side effect of the flu shot that he had gotten on Thursday. But I digress. At Uncle Eddie's, we got to see a very big dog, named Riley. Tyler wasn't too sure about a dog of this size, but the dog really seemed to like him! Tyler was more interested in "reading" Eddie's paper.

Back at Grandpa's, we were visited by Sarah English, a dear old childhood friend, and her husband Steve. This was their first time meeting Tyler and the boy didn't disappoint. He proudly showed off all his tricks, including his newest attempts at crawling. It's more of a backward shuffle, but it looks like he'll be on the move soon! Guess we'll need to start babyproofing! As kind of a side note, it's been pretty difficult for me not to get a little discouraged that Tyler hasn't been a babe on the move yet. I talk to many other mommies with babies around Tyler's age, and most of them are scooting around all over the place. But I try to remind myself that all babies are different. Different milestones, different babes. All in good time. I know in a few short weeks, I'm going to look back on this post and laugh and wish that he was still immobile!!!! But we also had the Radicks and Hamrics over for dinner, as well as Berkley and her daughter, Grace. They brought Tyler an adorable toy, his very own pirate ship! It's a new favorite around the house now. We all had a great night and it was a beautiful evening for a cookout.

Sunday was lunch with Nana and Grandaddy and once again, Tyler worked hard to put a smile on everyone's face, even though you could tell that he was very tired and starting to feel the effects of the newest cold that had set in. He finally caved and took a nice nap on Nana's chest. The ride home wasn't bad at all, as he slept the majority of the way. He most certainly needed it. At home, we noticed that his eyes were really "gooey" (sorry, no better word for it), but he wasn't running a fever, so we didn't do anything about it. We ended up taking him BACK to the pediatrician on Monday though, as it seemed that the "goo" was starting to bother him, and we wanted to rule out pink eye. No pink eye, just a cold or possible bacterial infection. They are running some tests on the "goo" to find out. In the meantime, we have him on Augmentin. If it turns out to be viral, we will take him off the antibiotic. But the doc reassured me that there's nothing wrong with him getting these illnesses so often and that we are doing everything right. He just seems to be a little more susceptible. Oh fun. But he seems to be doing better (again, knock on wood). But we have a couple of busy weeks ahead. Visitors this weekend, visitors next weekend, and Halloween coming up! Can't wait to show you guys the costume!!!!!

Back to his cute self

So now that Tyler is pretty much back to his old self, we're able to get out more and are up for visitors once again. We're also able to work on "new" skills, such as sitting up unassisted (done!), self-feeding (working on it), and sippy cups (kind of get it). Sitting up is no feat for Tyler anymore. We used to keep the Boppy behind him at all times - just in case. Well, no need anymore! We do try to keep a pillow behind wherever his head may land if he flings himself backwards, but those occasions are rare that it's actually needed. It is so nice to be able to sit him down somewhere and know that he can entertain himself for a few without us needing to run in every 2 seconds to pick him up because he fell. He loves to just sit and play with his toys. And he loves it even more when you get in the floor to play WITH him. Grandpa Ed visited this week, and spent a lot of time in the floor with him, and he ate it up!

For self-feeding, we have given Tyler a few things - mainly zwieback toast and some Gerber puffs. He's gotten a pretty good handle on the toast, and will actually consume a good amount of it, instead of it ending up on the floor as a gooey, soggy mess. The puffs are taking a little more getting used to. He doesn't quite have the "pincher" action going on yet, so he pretty much manhandles the puffs and tries to put fistfuls in his mouth, only to have the puffs either stick to his palms or fly onto his lap or the floor. We were at TGI Fridays this past weekend (right before we raided the Carter's outlet in Williamsburg) and packed a sippy cup and some puffs too. He sat in the high chair and sipped a bit on his cup (well, sort of) and played with his puffs. He did get a few in his mouth, but right now it's just all practice. On the subject of food, I thought I would also just add that he has started getting a 3rd meal each day. We are now sending a tub of veggies to daycare with him. As it stands now, he gets oatmeal with fruit in the morning with Trav, a veggie at daycare, and rice cereal with another veggie with me at night. I have been sending him to daycare with the veggies that he won't seem to eat from me - green beans, carrots, garden veggies. Apparently, he'll eat ANYTHING for the ladies at daycare. They comment on how he just "laps up his food"! Funny how he already knows how to play me.....

Tyler also has been perfecting his kissing and hugging skills - lucky for me, I'm the primary recipient of these hugs and kisses. When I pick him up in the afternoon, he get very excited and wraps his little arms around my neck and opens his mouth very wide to give "kisses". The are the wettest, sloppiest, most WONDERFUL kisses in the entire world. If I'm lucky, I'll get hugs and kisses at home too, but they're more frequent at daycare. It is the highlight of my day. It's OK if he doesn't say "mama" yet. I'll take the lovin' from my little boy anytime.


Finally, Tyler got a new toy this week. His Grandma and Granddad Snead bought him a John Deere ride on toy. He's still a little small for it, but not for long! Travis put him on it and pushed him around the house. Tyler held on tight and was pretty interested in what was going on. He seemed to really like it! As you can see in the picture, my husband being the hunter that he is, put Tyler's poor, defenseless Beanie Baby piggie on the back of the ATV as his "kill". It will be fun to watch him grow into this toy though and see what else he can carry around on the back of that thing! Thanks, Grandma & Granddad!

One last note: I take Tyler back to the pediatrician on Thursday (the 4th) to make sure that he really IS back to his old self. It's possible that we will have to go back to the hospital for a follow-up chest x-ray - we're not sure yet. So keep your fingers crossed that all is well!!!!