“Daddy Said No Pink”, Tag Problems, Tyson The Builder, Westin Feeding Me, “Hi”, Early Nap Trial & First Steps

Wes:  11 Months & 3 Weeks Old

Ty:  3 Years & 3 Weeks Old

Last Friday we finally made it to the Frost’s new place!  They moved in 2 months ago and we have had such a busy Fall that we hadn’t been there yet.  I made sure the boys got their one good nap in and then headed over to the Frosts.  They are about 50 minutes – 1 hour away now.  We got the first real snow of the season that afternoon.  It really wasn’t accumulating all that much, but it was sure pretty!   Ty loved it!  When we got to the Frosts, I offered to watch all 4 kids while Shannon ran to the  grocery store.  I was a little apprehensive, since Griffin won’t take a binky.  I mean, what do you do, when you aren’t the one nursing him?  She thought he might take a nap, but he started wailing hysterical as soon as she left.  Fin & Ty were playing, so they were OK (well, OK is relative, since they usually play pretty rough)…but Westy was trying to finish his lunch in Finley’s highchair.  I kept giving him more food and was trying to console Griffin.  But the screaming was not stopping, so I decided that he needed to have some “Auntie Binky Therapy” that I try to do with him, when we are together.  I tore Shannon’s diaper bag apart, but the only binky I could find was an old one of Finley’s – a purple one.  I could not believe it when he started sucking it!  I mean, he usually does not take it at all and I pretty much just have to hold it in, but he was really taking it!  I got him to sleep and then laid him down in his crib.  I deemed myself pretty successful with the 4 muchkins!  He took that purple binky on and off quite a bit that night, but Shannon says he has been hit and miss with it since.  I think he needs it from his Auntie!  Heath met us there and we had a delicious supper together.  The kids were really cute, playing together, despite Ty trying to cook Finley in the oven of her kitchen set!  He actually said, “Ty gonna cook you, Finley!” 

There's nothing like a purple binky!

Going outside with Uncle Sean (wearing one of Finley's hats despite telling everyone, "Daddy said no pink."  He has been saying this phrase non-stop lately)

Stepping in front of Finley while we took the picture

Grabbing onto Auntie Shannon's legs

Wrestling with Daddy

Wes loved Finley's chair

On Sabbath we went to Laconia church and Sonia met us there.  She came over for lunch, and then I helped her with the state’s immunization records for the church school after sundown.  Then she went to Market Basket grocery shopping while we went to Walmart.  While we were in the car driving, Ty had said to Heath, “Daddy, your hair looks funny.  Too much haircut.”  That was so cute!  Heath had just gotten a haircut too!  What wasn’t cute was the 2 hours it took for Ty to fall asleep on Saturday night.  He had used his regular excuses, but then was focused on the tags in his pajamas.  He is constantly asking me to cut them out.  I tried to distract him from it and then tried to reposition the tags, but I eventually ended up cutting the tag off his pants.  I was so aggravated.  Please tell me this gets better.

Sunday was a great day for Tyson.  Heath took him to Joel’s house to work on the shed.  Adam was going and would help watch Ty.  Heath said Ty was super excited.  As I was putting him to bed the night before, he said, “Should Ty bring Ty’s tool box?”  I just about died with that one!  Heath took him to McDonald’s for breakfast that morning and Heath said Ty talked non-stop.  “Ty likes McDonald’s.  Ty likes pancakes.  Yummy eggs.”  Heath said he did really well at the job site, but wanted to go up on the roof a lot with Heath.  Heath did bring him up once (once is more than I wanted to hear) and Adam took him to the Edwards’ house in the afternoon.  While the boys were off on their work adventure, Westin and I had an adventure of our own.  We had good bonding time, including Westin feeding me breakfast and lunch off his tray!  So cute!  After we got his morning nap in, we had a quick lunch, and then we were off.  I can’t tell you what shopping is like with 1 child instead of 2!  It is heavenly.  It felt like I was on vacation!  We went to a kid’s thrift store, Kohl’s, the 3 pharmacies, and Goodwill.  Wes did great but was melting down at Goodwill.  I don’t blame him.  I was done too.  Heath and Ty got back at about 9:30 PM and talk about being done.  Tyson was in his jammies and sleeping.  Heath told me that Ty needed a second sleep diaper put on, so I was doing that when I realized that Ty had pooped in his sleep diaper.  I couldn’t believe it.  I mean, he must have been super dooper tired.  As I was changing him, he woke up and freaked out that he had pooped.  He was so upset.  It was so sad.

His crazy nap position

Shopping Day with Mama

On Monday Tyson could not stop talking about his day with Daddy.  “Ty had fun with Daddy yesterday.  Ty was building.  Ty went on roof.  Ty saw Grammy and Grampy” etc….  He was a chatterbox!  It is so great to see him have fun!  Westin missed Ty, I’m pretty sure.  Maybe that was the reason why he started saying, “hi” on Monday!  He keeps saying new sounds and tries to say new words every day!  It is so exciting!  A couple of things that we did on Monday, was start a full cleaning of the house.  But most noteworthy, was that I started a new nap trial for Ty.  I am so sick and tired of the 2 hour fight fest at bedtime that something needed to change.  I do not believe that he is ready to be done with naps yet, because he will usually sleep for 1 ½ to 2 hours every day.  But I usually put Westin down at about 11 AM for his nap and then Ty goes for his nap at about 12:00 – 12:30 PM.  Well, occasionally he doesn’t fall asleep for nearly an hour, so maybe he is going to sleep too late in the day and that is why he is not going to sleep at night.  So I decided to put him right to bed with Westin at 11:00.  Since he didn’t get any naps and a busy day the day before, it worked like a charm.  So far it has been better, but I doubt that this is completely the answer.

This is what they do when I am cleaning

On Tuesday I worked for the first time in 2 weeks.  I was kind of ready for a shift!  Is that wrong?  I always miss the boys when I’m gone, though.  Noni came alone this week and had a great day with the boys.  She remarked how Ty struggled to eat his grilled cheese and soup, but Westin ate his entire half sandwich, and a full bowl of soup and a whole jar of baby fruit.  He is a good eater!  Something didn’t sit well with him, though, and he ended up with a diaper rash.  Poor guy.    

On Wednesday we didn’t do much except finish the full cleaning of the house.  Wednesday night bedtime with Ty went better again, except that he called me up to change his pajama shirt (that he had just picked out himself that night).  The shirt had this little tiny wolf on it and he deemed it “scary.”  He is so funny sometimes.  He makes me flip some of his books over, because they have faces on the front and he must feel like they are staring at him!  He is a special one.  He also threw one of his teddy bears into the hallway one night because he “don’t want that one.  It has a jacket on.  Don’t like that.”

He is biding his time before he pulls the cord

On Thursday we hit up the grocery store for our week’s groceries and it was a much better visit than last week.  Tyson didn’t open anything up on the floor and Westin kept his binky!  It was also cool because we ran into our old landlords.  We had rented an apartment from this elderly couple in Franklin when we first moved to the area, about 7 years ago.  They were such a sweet couple, it was so great to see them, and they both looked so well.  The best part was to show off the boys to them!  They were very well-behaved and gave them great smiles!  We went back home, put the groceries away, and Adam came over after work.  While Adam was there, Westin took his first real steps – probably 3 in a row and walked to Adam!  It was so cool!  Of course I wasn’t expecting it and didn’t get anything on camera.  We drove down to Concord and met Heath, my parents, and my grandparents at the OG.  We had a great dinner and while I was in the bathroom, Westin took a bunch of steps again!  At least Heath got to see it, but we didn’t get anything on camera again!  After the OG, Adam & us went to Toys R Us and Walmart to pick out a small present for Westin’s birthday.  The kitchen set we got for Tyson’s birthday was really for both boys, but we wanted Wes to have a little something to open up from us during his birthday party on Sunday.

Playing with the Power Wheels at Toys R Us

Having a ride with Tigger at Walmart (Wes fell asleep)

Well, that’s about it.  Have a great week!

RANDOM PICS/VIDEOS

Still obsessed with Christmas and insisted on putting a bow on the tree!

Daredevil Wes, Car & Trashcan Love, "Ty Don't Want To," Dr. Tyson, Stuttering, Cider Party, "Wow!Great!", Amanda Christmas Obsession, Milking Daddy & Grocery Store Antics

Wes:  11 Months & 2 Weeks Old

Ty:  3 Years & 2 Weeks Old

(you can tell the quality of pictures this week...if this is the best one)

Last Friday was a fun day at home.  I can’t begin to tell you how much of a daredevil Westin is.  He seems to have no fear.  Last Friday he discovered his love of Tyson’s big car.  He literally lived in that car all day.  He can open the door, climb inside, and climb outside of it.  But he is not happy with just that.  He has to stand up inside it.  Yes, he has biffed it and fallen, but he hardly ever cries.  He whines for me to help him out and then he goes right back to it.  He likes to stand on the ATV too, but the car is his #1 love, that is for sure.  On the Tyson front, I know I have mentioned that as soon as he turned 3, he has been much more argumentative and disrespectful etc…  Well, one of his new phrases that he says all the time now is… “Ty don’t want to.”  He pretty much says it to anything that I say we need to do.  It’s just a great time.  Pretty much my response is, “Well, we have to.  Sorry, Mama’s the boss.”  One of the things Ty & Wes did a lot on Friday was that Tyson played with his doctor kit with Westin.  Shannon had given him the kit for his birthday and he loves it.  I have a few videos to show of this because it was so funny.   I did not tell him to do any of these things - he did everything by himself.  One thing you will see on one of the videos is that Tyson has started stuttering a bit.  I hope this is just a phase and not a real problem – I guess we will have to see.  I feel like he gets so excited about something that he is trying to say…that his mind is working faster than he can actually say it.  I hope that is what is happening.

Wes is upset because Ty came in the car with him

He dragged the ATV over to the chair

Then he pulled himself onto the chair to get the lamp

Dr. Tyson is in the house

Checking his ears

On Sabbath we headed to Plainfield to church and met the Frosts and Kelly & Steve there.  It was Steve’s parent’s annual cider party and we wouldn’t miss it!  I think we have gone 3 years now – I think.  The weird thing was that on the 1 hour and 15 minute drive there…Westin did not fall asleep.  Not good.  Most of the church, we had all the kids in the mother’s room, since Westin was making a lot of noise and Tyson just wanted to come with us.  Unfortunately, I found out at the END of the service that the mother’s room is not sound proof.  At all.  That is the entire point of a mother’s room.  So when your child is misbehaving and crying, you take them out of the sanctuary – so everyone can hear.  So much for that.  I understand that they bought this church recently and, it was not a church, so that room was not a mother’s room, but c’mon.  They need to fix this.  We went to the Conrads for a potluck lunch and then hung out in the afternoon.  After Caleb’s nap, Kelly offered Caleb’s pack ‘n’ play to Westin, which I jumped at.  He would not go down immediately because of his “terrified of new things/places phase.”  I rocked him to sleep and then he slept about 1 ½ hours.  After sundown and worship, the cider party began!  I hung with Wes, Kelly & Caleb (until Caleb’s bedtime), and Shannon & Griffin in the family room most of the time talking.  Nothing better than that.  But the real action was outside.  Heath & Ty were right in the thick of it.  Ty had a blast.  He was in the back of the truck, throwing apples into a huge wash bin of water, and then Heath would hold him up and Ty would throw the apples into the crusher machine.  He had so much fun!  Ty has continued to talk about “throwing apples from the truck” all week long!  He also talked about the cider donuts that we had!  Because he is so cute, he kept getting donuts from the older ladies that were making them!  At about 8 PM or so, we headed out, since we wanted to get the kids to bed.  We did stop at Taco Bell on the way home and I sat in the back seat to feed Westin.  It was a great day. 

Playing on the playground after church

Griffin & Kelly

Caleb & Steve

Throwing apples from the truck

Throwing apples into the masher

Can you see all the apple pieces all over Heath?

On Sunday Heath was gone all day to help his cousin, Joel, build a shed at Joel’s house.  I felt bad for Ty, since he lives for the weekends with his Daddy.  But we had a fun day at home.  I told the boys that we would be having a “Football Day.”  I never, ever get to watch a Patriots game live.  Never.  So that was my goal for the day.  I figured we would make it a true Football Day by watching the 1:00 Jets/Saints game too.  The boys play so well – they just go nuts playing while the games are on and occasionally look up at the TV.  My other main goal of the day was to finish one of the 4 photo books that I need to have done.  Shutterfly was having a 50% off sale on photo books by midnight Sunday night.  I worked on a photo book of our Florida vacation last year and got it ordered by 11:55 PM that night!  Just made it.  There was one funny thing that Tyson said that day.  He had been sitting with me on the couch, when he noticed that his socks and my fleece were the same color (grey).  I think his colors have been getting slightly better lately – so that is a positive.  I was so excited that he had noticed that the colors were similar and I was trying to tell him something else that is grey (for reference).  Before I could tell him “elephant,” he figured something out.  “Mama, your hair grey!”  I don’t know how he came up with that one.  Maybe he isn’t as good with his colors as I thought!  Yes, I have some grey hairs, well, actually I really don’t.  The hairs that I have that are grey are actually WHITE.  Bright white.  It is kind of scary.  But it was still funny that he said it!

Monday’s highlight was going to the pharmacies.  It was uneventful and the boys did well.  In fact, Tyson was full of “Words of Affirmation” (my love language) that day.  “Mama, you’re a good driver.”  Then, after lunch and supper, “Mama, you’re a good cooker.”  I love that one!  I couldn’t wait to tell Heath that one specifically!  He has also started a new catch phrase, which is better than his negative “Ty don’t want to.”  He has said this one before, but now he is saying it all the time.  And it is “Wow!  Great!”  And he exaggerates each one of those words so long, so it’s like “Wowwwwwwww!  Greaaaaaaaaaaat!”  It is really cute. What isn’t great is that Westin has become very focused on our trashcan.  He has to be touching it all the time, he stands up holding onto it, sticks his hands inside it and pulls out trash onto the floor.  It gets to be so bad and he will not be denied, that I end up putting the trash up on the counter.  Yes, I’m desperate.

My sweet boy

Tuesday we didn’t do too much.  Hung out at home.  For some reason, Ty became completely obsessed with Christmas all of a sudden.  He must have seen a Christmas episode of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or Curious George during his iPad time.  I asked him if he had watched something on Christmas and he denied it, but something happened.  He started to tear all his books apart to find this specific Christmas book, which he did.  But he didn’t want to read it.  He stated that he was going to give the book to Amanda for Christmas.  And this was not just about Christmas, but specifically about AMANDA coming for Christmas.  Tuesday he started talking about it non-stop, it was so cute.  He said something else really cute too.  This was our exchange.

Ty:  “Mama, can you wash these in the washer?” (a bowl & spoon from his kitchen set)

Me:  “Sure.”  (and I put them in the dishwasher)

Me:  “Ty, your dishes are clean now!”

Ty:  “Wow!  Great!  Thanks Mama!  Can I kiss you?”

Wednesday was a packed day.  Shannon & the kids came over in the AM and they all played.  Then Poppy, Noni, Nanny & Papa came over in the afternoon to see the kids and watch them while Shannon, Griffin & I ran to a couple of kid thrift stores.  Yeah, you might have noticed that I didn’t work this week.  I had worked a random Sunday to make up for this week because my parents were supposed to be in Atlanta on vacation this week, but because of the Nanny & Papa situation…they didn’t go.  Shannon didn’t get a lot at the stores, but I did.  My big score of the day was Christmas pajamas for Ty.  You should have seen his face when he saw them!  He put them right on then and there!  My other big score was pretty cool.  I have been big into flannel shirts for the boys lately and I found this really cute one for Wes at the first store.  At the second store, what did I find?  The exact same flannel shirt but in Tyson’s size!!!!!  Yes!  I was pretty excited – since I love to have my boys match!  Bedtime for everyone that night was a fiasco.  Well, actually there was a fiasco before bedtime.  Heath was playing with the boys in the family room after supper, when Ty grabbed his drum (with the cover off) and his little chair and asked Heath to get on his hands and knees.  I didn’t know where he was going with this…until he sat down on the chair and put the drum underneath Heath’s chest.  Then I knew and Ty confirmed it when he said, “Ty’s milking you, Daddy!”  It was so funny.  Now where does he come up with this stuff?  Back to the bedtime fiascos.  Ty took another 1 ½ hour to go to sleep and had a screaming fest at one point that woke up Westin.  And Westin was right in his REM sleep and woke up hard.  He was terrified and would not go back to sleep.  He was freaking out for about 45 minutes or so.  It was ridiculous.  Maybe the bedtime drama was the reason that I was really tired and fell asleep sitting up on the couch with the laptop on my lap, working on my menu plans for the week…and Heath woke me up.  I looked at him and said, “Oh.  It must be 5 AM, huh?”  Thank goodness I had showered already and could climb into bed for a few hours.  I have to remember to set an alarm on my phone when I start getting sleepy!

Milking Daddy

Not much you can say about this

Playing guitar with Daddy

Kissing Daddy through the drum

Thursday I did a big clothes overhaul.  I took away all of Westin’s straight 6 month clothes and some of the straggler 3-6 month clothes and set them aside for Griffin.  Then I went through 2 ½ garbage bagfuls of 6-9, 9, and 6-12 month clothes for Wes.  It is so funny – it is like getting a whole new wardrobe every couple of months.  But it such a pain to do all of it.  The worst part is that I store the clothes in the basement and they get dusty.  My allergies were so awful that day, after going through all the clothes.  After all of that, we headed to the grocery store for our weekly trip.  The boys usually do well, but it was an especially bad trip.  First of all, Ty had been waving at everyone and telling whoever would listen that Manda was coming for Christmas!  Then he took a bag of toffee peanuts that we were getting and opened the bag all over the floor and peanuts went everywhere!  Then right after this incident, Westin started crying pretty hard.  That was when I found out, to my horror, that he had thrown his binky out of his car seat.  It was nowhere to be found.  He really started crying hard (I didn’t have a backup binky with me) and there was nothing I could do but apologize to everyone.  I even backtracked through the store but couldn’t find it.  I don’t know what he did with it.  Besides his newborn tiny binkies, that is the last binky we are down to.  Not a good scenario.  We went to the Mexican restaurant that night with Adam.  Ty pretty much ate 3 bites of his quesadilla but then Westin ate most of the quesadilla, after Westin decided he hated the beans and rice he has eaten for months there! 

Have a good week!

RANDOM PICS/VIDEOS

Westin thought he was so cool sitting in Ty's seat

  

Ty had licked all the cheese off the Ritz Bits crackers & this is his face after I told him that he had to finish all the crackers & not just eat the cheese!

This is him celebrating after finishing the crackers!