Newport, Aggressive Behavior, First Melt-Down in a Store & Crouton Choking

13 Months & 3 Weeks

Last Friday, we spent the day packing up for a Latimer family reunion in Newport, Rhode Island.  Aunt Lori had reserved a bunch of timeshares for us all to stay at.  I don’t know why it takes so long to pack up, but it does.  Shannon & I were laughing how we don’t even care what we wear any more, it’s all about dressing up your kids to the nines.  I said how it’s great that you always have to bring extra outfits whenever you go anywhere – it case they have blow-outs.  Shannon was so funny, she said, “I might just fake a blow­out.  I’ll go and change her diaper and then just change her clothes, so she can be in another cute outfit!  Then I’ll say, “Wow!  That was a bad one!  What a blow out!” (=  She didn’t do it, but it was funny that those are the things that we think of now!  So I guess the packing takes me awhile because I’m trying to get the cutest outfits for Ty! (=  Crazy, I know.  Another big thing that we did on Friday was bring the puppies up to Vutek at 5:00PM so Adam could take them home.  He was watching them for the weekend while we were away.  We are so thankful that he watches them for us – we never have to worry at all about them.  They love him SO much.  After we got back from Vutek, Shannon & Sean came over for supper and we had tacos.  Ty did well again with the real food.  Hallelujah.

Noni & Poppy stopped in on their way down to Newport on Friday

Tyson watching his video from Santa (sent by my friend, Susan) - he loved it

On Sabbath morning, we had a big breakfast and then headed to Newport.  Ty did great and ate pancakes and eggs for the first time.  He loved them!  We had tried to get him to eat eggs before but it hadn’t worked.  I’m not sure if he ate them this time because they had some syrup on them!  Might have had something to do with it!  Ty slept for 2 hours out of the 3 hour trip – so that was good.  We got there to our timeshare and checked in.  Shannon & Finley followed us on the way down and we were staying with them in a timeshare.  We were supposed to have a 1 bedroom unit and Shannon was going to sleep on the couch (Sean couldn’t go, he had a few things going on) – but when we got there we were pleasantly surprised that we had a 2 bedroom unit, so Shannon had her own bedroom!  There were so many of us that we couldn’t all be in the same building – so we were in 3 different ones – but it was free lodging so we weren’t going to complain at all! (=  After we had unpacked our cars, fed the children (Ty & Fin) we headed over to one of the other timeshare buildings – which was our “hang-out” spot for the weekend.  We spent most of the time there – in a 2 bedroom unit (Duncan & Corey & Devin & Leigh’s unit).  They had a nice sized family room that the 31 of us could “almost” comfortably all be in at the same time!  For supper, we went to a Panini restaurant.  It was fantastic food!  Ty ate the sandwiches and our soup well, which was good.  I was ready for Ty to get his own kid’s meal deal, but the $4.50 price tag made Heath think twice about it.  It is terrible if he has a bad eating day and then refuses to eat anything.  That would stink!  After the restaurant, we stopped in the Marriot Hotel which has a huge gingerbread house on display.  That was really cool and Ty liked looking at it – but he became obsessed with watching the glass elevators go up and down.  So Heath & Poppy took Ty on the elevators (and then Aubree, Mia, & Uncle Bill went too).  It was so cute – I was waving like crazy at Tyson when he was in the elevator, but he didn’t see me until the last second and then broke out in the biggest smile you have ever seen!  Everyone saw him smiling at me and thought it was so cute.  It was.  We headed back late to our timeshare and got to bed around 11:00 PM.  Ty stayed awake the whole time, which was not good.  He cried out every couple of hours in his pack n’ play, but would go right back to sleep – but was really carrying on at 5:30 AM, so into our bed he went.  I didn’t want to risk waking up Finley in the next room.

Heath stuck Ty in a drawer at the timeshare when we got there...he wasn't amused

But he loved to ride on the luggage cart!

Ty wanting to grab at Bode!

Special family time

One of the groups at the Panini Grill

Ty eating a panini dipped in soup

Ty was looking at the gingerbread house with awe...

It was impressive!

He liked the Christmas tree too!

Watching the elevators

On Sunday, we woke up and tried to make it to brunch on time – but we were 15 minutes late.  We had decided to have Shannon carpool with us and we had to move over Finley’s car seat and stroller – and it took awhile.  Ty had a great time at the buffet and ate eggs, muffins, hashbrowns, and couple of bites of cantaloupe!  I was psyched.  Great job!  After brunch, we all took a drive by all the Newport mansions.  They are absolutely incredible.  Just amazing.  In the afternoon, we did a book Yankee swap down in the hotel’s sitting area that had a fireplace and comfy couches.  We kind of took over that area!  We had a great time.  Our book that we brought was swapped the most times and I ended up with a Nicholas Sparks book, so I was excited.  We all had a blast watching the Pats demolish the Broncos and we had a wonderful lasagna dinner together at half-time.  Ty loved the lasagna and the bread, of course.  Heath & Ty went in the pool after we ate.  Ty didn’t love it, but he didn’t down-right hate it either.  He kind of just cuddled into Heath – it was really cute.  In the evening, Ty had an aggression attack and decided to clear the coffee table in the timeshare and a camera flew about 8 feet across the room.  Thank goodness it was my camera!  I don’t know what got into him – he hadn’t had sugar or anything… but he was crazy.  Ty went to sleep in his car seat at about 9:30 PM (after Heath drove Shannon back to our timeshare early) and stayed asleep, which was good.  Heath was leaving for work at 4:30 in the AM – so we tried to pack everything that we could before we went to bed – so we decided to pack the pack n’ play and just have Ty sleep with us from the get-go.  Let’s be honest.  He was going to end up in bed with us anyway.  I didn’t give him any Tylenol or Ibuprofen before bed and that was a mistake.  He cried multiple times in bed, in obvious pain.  I was worried that I have been giving him medication before bed for too long (this has been a long teething episode with both his front teeth), but he clearly still needs it. 

Messing around with Finley in the pack n' play in the AM - no wonder we were late to brunch!

3 siblings together

Somehow Duncan always gets in the pictures!

The book Yankee swap

Ty was thrashing around during the book swap

Watching people in the pool

Then it was Ty's turn in the pool - but he didn't exactly love it!

All the babies eating... Heath said, "If I could breastfeed Ty, I would."  Isn't that the truth!!!!

On Monday Heath left for work early and we stayed and had to check out by 11 AM.  Shannon said, “Ty is really smart, Alison.”  Of course you love to hear this, and what she said was that Tyson had gone over to Shannon’s diaper bag and then stopped and looked at Shannon.  Whenever he does this to me, he is asking me permission to do something or get into something.  Well, he actually knew that the bag was Shannon’s and looked to Shannon and not me! (=  My parents, Shannon, the kids, Aunt Lori & Uncle Charlie, and I went to a restaurant for lunch.  Tyson was a bit excitable again and took a huge pepper mill and threw it on the floor and also knocked over Noni’s water glass.  Oh my.  He is getting to be a problem.  Tyson had Poppy & Noni time while I had a mandatory skills day at the hospital – which we hit up on the way home.  They went to the mall shopping and then came and picked me up in the ER.  Ty met me with big, big smiles as if he hadn’t seen me in forever!  It was so sweet.  Ty was psyched when we got home and did his usual of going through all his toys and playing with them all!  I made Caribbean Curry for supper (it has Fri-Chik and pineapple in it) and he wasn’t sure of it at first.  Heath was sitting in his chair, eating it and I told Tyson that what he had was “Daddy’s food.”  Man, that changed everything.  He ate all the curry like it was going out of style!  I’m going to have to use that one again.  He went right to bed that night and sleep the whole night without a peep.  Love it.

On Tuesday, we spent the whole day, doing what?  Unpacking and picking up.  Another thing that takes SO long.  Tyson’s aggressive behavior continued in a major way on Tuesday.  First of all, Shannon & Finley came over and Finley was in the bouncer and he was bouncing her a bit too hard.  Shannon took Fin out of the bouncer to feed her and that’s when Ty came over and flipped the whole bouncer over!  That bouncer is heavy!  Then Ty had decided that wanted to get to the dog food (he hadn’t done that in a while) and I blocked off the dog food with a basket of his toys and held the end of it.  He tried to move it and tried and tried and got more and more angry that he couldn’t move the basket.  So then he grabbed his oversized legos and started chucking them as hard as he could into the basket, with each lego he threw – he was getting more and more angry.  It was the craziest fit you have ever seen.  He did the exact same thing a few hours later, when I was upstairs in the bathroom brushing my teeth – when he tried to get into the makeup drawer again and I put my knee against the drawer so he couldn’t get in it.  So he had another fit, and opened the headband drawer and proceeded to throw all the headbands all over the bathroom, yelling with each one he threw.  I’m seriously going to have a hard time with him.  And I think it’s starting now.  On Tuesday evening, Heath, Adam, Ty & I went to Concord Christmas shopping.  Ty did great going through all the stores, but the rascal wouldn’t fall asleep.  Usually he will fall asleep in his car seat, but he didn’t fall asleep until the ride home at 11:00 PM.  On a positive note, Ty did great at Taco Bell and had a cheese roll-up and most of a bean burrito!  So maybe there is hope for him on the Mexican front. 

Bouncing Finley again

After flipping the bouncer over - and he ripped the handle off too!

On Wednesday, Tyson had to wake up early because I was headed to work and since he had gotten to bed really late the night before meant that he had melt-down after melt-down before Heath & I left for work.  It was not a pretty sight.  Thank goodness it was just first thing in the AM, because he was great for my Mom the rest of the day.   I worked and did go to the dumpster after work.  I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get in because I knew that it had probably been emptied, since it was getting so full.  It had been emptied, but I was able to get in and out of them because someone had dropped off 3 trash bags full of shredded paper – so I was able to stand on them to get in and out.  I only got 10 inserts, but it was still worth it!

Thursday was a busy day.  We had to head back to the pediatrician’s office for Ty’s pneumonia recheck.  We got there for our 10:45 AM appointment (that’s more like it) and immediately got the “we cured him” from the doctor when she listened to his lungs.  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that he hadn’t coughed since receiving his diagnosis of pneumonia and that I thought there was no way in heck he ever had it.  I kept my mouth shut and played the grateful mother, “Oh, that’s great!  I’m so glad he’s better!”  Ty got his second flu shot and he was a trouper.  He watched the whole time, he flinched just a little when the needle went in, and didn’t cry at all when they pushed the medicine in.  He was great!  The doctor was impressed and said, “You don’t usually see that!”  After our appointment, we went to a few stores Xmas shopping, but had a bad time at Burlington Coat Factory.  It was the first time that I have been embarrassed by Ty in a store.  It is just the beginning, I know, but it really has started.  He started with whining, and then half-whining/half-crying, and then full-on screaming/crying.  I gave him things to hold in the cart and he would just throw them on the floor.  I got him out of the cart and had him walk around a bit, but he would just walk off or take the cart and push it into any display that was near us.  And still nothing stopped the screaming.  I couldn’t just leave – I had 3 things that I was buying and I still wanted to look around a bit more, but there was NO way.  We had to leave the store immediately.  But I waited in line – with I’m sure dirty looks from everyone (I wouldn’t look anyone in the eye) and we paid and got out of there.  I told Tyson how disappointed in him I was – not that he cared in the slightest.  I have to do some more Xmas shopping and I’m absolutely dreading doing it with Ty again.  Ty napped in the car as we drove home have a quick lunch.  Then Reeses had to go back to the vet to have her eye checked again.  It had been doing better, but then she started squinting again and would have more discharge.  Shannon, Finley, and Grammy Lin came over to visit and watched Ty while I took Reese.  She ended up having a HUGE scratch across her entire right eye this time.  There wasn’t one before, only the infection, but now Snickers probably gave her the scratch.  So 2 more eye drops later and $89 more… we got out of there.  Hopefully this will clear it all up!  She is so cute and runs right to you when you give her the eye drops… it’s like she knows it makes her eye feel better or something.  On Thursday night, my parents, Shannon, Finley, and us met our friend, Jessie Fortin & her husband Brian, at Canoe, a restaurant in Center Harbor.  We had seen them over the summer and had wanted to get together again when they came home for Christmas.  They are our friends who live in Ethiopia.  We had a nice visit, but it was almost disastrous when Tyson choked on a crouton.  Ty was sitting by Heath (he usually sits by me) and he had grabbed a crouton off of Heath’s plate and had been playing with it.  Heath didn’t see him put it in his mouth and then looked up when Ty grabbed at Heath’s arms and he was flailing but not making any noises.  Heath realized that he was choking and grabbed it right out of Ty’s mouth (it wasn’t down far enough, thank goodness).  A bit of a scary moment, to say the least.  We were able to get home at a decent time because we met at 6:00 PM (unfortunately, Sean couldn’t make it from Lebanon by that time) and after a bath Ty got to bed at 9:00 PM!  Pretty early for a Thursday night! (=

The crew at Canoe

Have a great week & Merry Christmas!