Ty & Wes Time: "Crazy Ty-Ty," A Very Active Westin, "Calls" to Manda, Family Get-Together & Dog-Throwing

Wes: 7 Months & 3 Weeks Old

Ty: 2 Years, 8 Months & 3 Weeks Old

On Monday, July 8, I spent the whole day unpacking from our 4 day camping extravaganza to Bar Harbor. I deemed it "pajama day" (we hadn't had one in awhile), so we could focus on our work and not our outfits! (= Westin slept nearly 3 hours for his AM nap and I woke him up to keep him on some type of schedule. I know you are never supposed to do it, but I did. And it was fine. Ty said one of the sweetest things he has ever said to me on Monday. He looked at me, grinned, and out of the blue, said, "Mama pretty." That made my day, my month, my year! To be told that by your son was so heartwarming! What made me chuckle was that he just happened to say that to me on "pajama day" - which also is "no make-up day!" I guess I need to go au naturel more! (=

Tuesday morning, Ty was an animal. I don't know why, but he was hyper. The funny thing was that I didn't even need to tell him that! He knew it himself! He had done some type of antic and then he would say,"crazy Ty-Ty!" (= So cute. Later on in the morning, my parents came by with Nanny & Papa for a quick visit. Nanny & Papa were visiting for a week and it was great to see them. Ty was not happy when they had to leave and he had run to the window upstairs to bang on the window to wave, as they were leaving and getting into their car. I opened the window and Ty said, "Thursday. See you." My mom and Nanny & Papa were going to baby-sit on Thursday for a few hours, while I did a mandatory training session at work. Tuesday afternoon, Sonia and Amanda got there and I headed to work. Later that night, there was a little false alarm reported to me from Heath that Westin was crawling. Yes, he was scooting all over the room, but no crawling motion with the arms and legs yet. But he is SO close. I feel like he has been this close for months now!

Doing some other type of antic

Wednesday, the day after my late shift, we didn't do much again. We put on clothes (we didn't have two pajama days in 1 week) but otherwise just puttered around the house. Ty did some cute things that day. Well, he started off the day not so cute when he cried, "No Mama. No Mama. Grammy. Manda" when I went to get him out of his crib when he woke up. Even though I know he loves me. It still hurts. What happened to "Mama pretty?" (= He must of woke up on the wrong side of the bed, because he said, "Ty sick. Ty sick" again when he woke up and wanted medicine. Randomly he does this. I told him "no" because he was not sick and he went balistic. I mean, a straight-up temper tantrum with feet stomping and everything. Well, Mama held her ground and he got over it. What is up with this? In the AM, all must have been forgiven because he couldn't wait to show off to me his new puzzle skills! My mom had brought by this puzzle that Jane (Leigh's mother) had gotten for Ty. It is really cool. It is a nice wooden puzzle that has objects like cows, trees, trains etc. and the word is written beside it and each letter is a puzzle piece. He can totally put the letter puzzles in the right spots! Not that he knows what the letters are....well, except for "o." As he grabbed the "o" in cow, he said, "o". I thought that was awesome! What was a bit questionable later, was when I caught him dumping out salt on our kitchen table and eating it! Is he related to Noni or something? Later afternoon, I had killed a bug, dropped it into the toilet, and flushed it. Ty was with me and said, "Oh! Bug swimming!" Well, kind-of Ty! (= That night when Heath got home, it is always all about Daddy. Ty was sitting with Heath at the table and Heath was on the laptop. Out of nowhere, Ty kissed Heath on the neck!

Heath: "Did you just kiss me?"

Ty: "Yes!"

Heath: "Why?"

Ty: "Love you!"

Then, when that did not get enough attention from Heath. Ty upped the ante and said, "Daddy! Off 'puter please!" (aka computer) That worked! Heath had Ty's undivided attention after that!

Lounging around the house

On Thursday, I had to go to a mandatory 2 hour class at work. We are changing our lab system over, so we had to be updated on that. Ty knew that I was going to that and Noni was coming to watch them. He is doing this every time now. When I went to get him up first thing in the AM, he took one look at me and said, “Mama, go work. Noni come.” Isn’t that just great????? Just like a dagger through the heart. Seriously. Now, I know, I know…he sees me day in and day out, and Noni and Grammy are the fun ones, but it still cuts! (= Nanny & Papa were supposed to come and baby-sit, but Mom had been in Conway with them and it was just going to be too much driving for them. My grandfather’s back is really bad, so he would have been too uncomfortable. After the class, I booked it home to relieve my mother and got the boys ready to go out. Sonia had taken Amanda to the airport and was going to meet us at Goodwill in Laconia. I have to say that I was very sad to see Amanda go. She had been here a month and I know she was really ready to go home, but still…the boys (especially Ty) LOVE her so much, it’s tough to know we won’t see her for months. Ty has already felt her absence. He keeps grabbing their toy phones and pretending he is on the phone and it is ALWAYS to Amanda! He says, “Hi Manda. What you doing?” and he will go on and on like he is really on the phone with her! So cute! So we met Sonia at Goodwill, shopped, and then met Heath & Adam at the Mexican restaurant. I’d like to say we had a nice time, but that would be stretching it! Someone at the restaurant had made a mistake and had accepted a reservation for 60 PEOPLE!!!! It is normally pretty full on a Thursday anyway, but this was ridiculous. It looked like it was a couple of baseball teams or something, but we were there forever and our service was lacking, as you could imagine. But what can you do?

On Friday I spent the day packing to go to Conway for the weekend. We were going to see Papa & Nanny and Jonathan & Marcela were visiting too. Next thing you know, Kevin & Sherrie, David & Julie, and Shawn & Camille were coming too! It was a great family get-together! Too bad the Cases were too stuck up to visit! (= Just kidding! They had company of their own (Uncle Charlie’s family) visiting the Cape and couldn’t make it. In the AM, before we ran to the grocery store, I was running around and I can’t remember what happened but I said, “freakin’ heck” in frustration. Well, just like my little parrot, Ty mimicks, “freakin’ heck.” I tell him that Mama said a bad word and I have to be better about the bad words that I say etc. etc, when Ty starts giggling and saying something under his breath. I ask him what he is saying and I think I hear the s-word coming out of him. I just about die where I am standing and I ask him to repeat it. Thank goodness, he slowed it down and it clearly became “shut up.” I was so relieved! Still a bad word and I talked to him about that, but I was very thankful that was the s-word he was saying! I’m sure I said the actual s-word in my head as the scene at the grocery store unfolded a couple of hours later. I have to paint this picture for you and I hope I do it justice because it was so frustrating for me! It is such a pain to get out of the house with kids. You try to think of everything and something or someone always delays you. I had just changed Wes, took Ty to the potty and gotten both kids in the car. I get down to the grocery store and I find a parking spot right next to a cart corral thing. As I go to get Wes out of the car, I smell it. He has pooped again. I had just changed a poop right before we left, but, alas, he was not done. Great. So, I change him in the back of the Outback, talking to Ty and opening Ty’s door so he doesn’t overheat (since it is like 90 something degrees). I buckle Wes back in his car seat carrier, put the dirty diaper in the cart (since it will stick my car up so bad while we are in the store), and pull the cart around to get Ty. That is when I see it. The safety strap is completely broken off. Ty can get an attitude and rambunctious in the store, so there is no way that I’m not buckling him in. So, I go back and grab the ONLY OTHER cart a mile near me and switch Wes into the new cart (and, yes, move the diaper too). I get Ty and put him in the front seat of the cart, and this buckle is not broken, but it is badly stuck. And I start struggling with it, fighting with all I’m worth in the stifling heat and I can’t get it out. I’m saying every bad word in the book (in my head) and then I realize that I have an audience. A couple cars down, there is a man, sitting in his van, watching the whole scene. I think he realizes that I have seen him and he says, “Do you need help?” I tell him I’m all set, because at that moment it finally becomes free! I buckle Ty in and I’m ready to fly into the store, when Ty says, “Mama. Potty.” ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME????? He had just gone before we left the house and after all of this, I am still not in the grocery store. So onto the froggy potty he goes and, what do you know….he DOESN’T EVEN GO!!!! You can’t make this stuff up. You just can’t! The joys of parenthood. Anyways, we should have gotten to Conway at a decent time, but we were delayed because Heath was delayed with the police. No, he was not in trouble, but Heath’s mountain bike was stolen from the back of our house and he was doing a police report. The police believe they know who did it, because someone stole a bike from our neighbors on the same night and our neighbor saw him do it and chased him. He eventually ditched the bike and our neighbor got their bike back. The police seemed hopeful that they would track Heath’s bike down, but it has almost been 2 weeks and the “trail has gone cold!” I’m glad they know who it is (a kid) because I would be more freaked out than I already am. We live 3 houses down from the police station. Heath & I both thought that maybe that would deter some people, but I guess not. So we got to Conway late and the boys didn’t get to bed until 10:30

PM.

Ty helping Heath check the tire pressure before we left

"Ty drive. Ty drive." How many times a day do I hear this?

On Sabbath, we made it to Sabbath School, but we were late. The boys were complete animals during church. I mean, seriously, there has been a major change from the last time we had gone. Well, between camping and Campmeeting…it had been weeks, but still. Westin is super duper active now and gets into everything. It has been like flipping a switch with him. He is kind of a problem right now. A super cute problem, but still a problem. We had a nice lunch at home, Wes took a 3+ hour nap in the afternoon, and then we went swimming at Echo Lake at dusk. Oh yeah, and Ty abused David & Julie’s dog, Toby. It was actually funny, but I couldn’t show my amusement at all. Ty was running around with Toby, playing/fighting over this ball…well, they both kind of reached the ball at the same time, and next thing we knew, Tyson had grabbed Toby’s leg and Ty threw him. Like a sack of potatoes. He went directly to time-out and got the riot act read to him by me, but it was all I could do to keep a straight face. Thank goodness Toby was OK. We got the boys to bed at a decent hour and they went right to sleep.

We made crowns in Sabbath School

Trying to keep Wes entertained in church

Kids table at lunch

Ty & Nanny messing around

Afternoon chill time on the porch

Picking grass = having a blast

The moment just before the toss

After...the time-out

I, unfortunately, did not get as much sleep. At 3 AM, I woke up in agony. My ears were completely blocked. I plugged my nose, and blew and my right ear popped but my left ear would not. It was terrible. I had so much pressure in my head/ear – it was awful. I have always had trouble with wax build-up and I knew that it was built up again. In fact, I had an ear wax removal kit in my toiletries and I just hadn’t gotten around to doing it. So, there I was…in the middle of the night doing it. I put the medicine in but nothing happened. I came to the conclusion that I would need to go to a walk-in clinic the next morning to get my ears flushed out. I tried to go back to sleep but I couldn’t. I slept just a couple of hours. Thank goodness I didn’t have to go to the clinic. My sister, the wonder nurse, took a pediatric syringe (we both have them to give children’s Tylenol & Ibuprofen) and flushed out my ears. It worked and I felt the most incredible relief, I can’t even tell you. It had been so incredibly uncomfortable and it had been completely blocked (I couldn’t hear anything out of it) for 6+ hours…a wax plug about the size of a marble came out! It was disgusting but very impressive too. I didn’t even have any discomfort in my right ear, but I could tell the difference between the two ears since she had flushed it, so she flushed the other one and I got another plug out (not as big, though). I’ve got to stay on top of this. This can’t happen again! That afternoon we went swimming at the Saco River and we had a blast. The kids had so much fun swimming and playing. It was cold, so Wes & I just waded and sat in the sand, but it was so fun. I had only brought 2 swim diapers each, but Wes pooped immediately after arriving at the river, so I had nothing for him. I put him in a regular diaper and it swelled up to the biggest thing you have ever seen! Poor guy! It didn’t seem to dampen his spirits, though! We had a BBQ when we got back home and then (most people) got ready to leave. We left at around 7:30 PM and since both boys hadn’t had afternoon naps, they went right out as soon as we left. They stayed asleep when we got home and transferred to their cribs without any problem. Another fun, but tiring weekend done. We had been gone the last 4 weekends straight. I was looking forward to “staying” home, even if it meant that I had to work!

Heath brought the ATV to help my dad pull out some things in his yard to bring to the dump (our old snowmobile included)...the kids loved to ride it...Finley & Ty