Ty & Wes Time: Campmeeting 2013, "Ty Pretty", Fussy Behavior, Eating Jealousy, 2nd Tooth, "Go See Friends" & Restaurant Highchairs

Wes: 7 Months Old & 1 Week Old

Ty: 2 Years, 8 Months & 1 Week Old

It’s probably a blessing in disguise that I accidentally deleted my notes from Campmeeting from my phone, so this won’t be as long as an entry as it could have been!

3 Weeks ago on Friday, I spent the whole day finishing packing for Campmeeting. One funny (or disturbing) story happened while I was packing my shoes. Ty pulled out an old pair of sparkly pink high heels of mine and went walking around the room in them. That was not the disturbing part. The bad part was when Ty proclaimed, “Ty pretty” over and over again! Oh my. Should I be worried? We kept going back and forth whether we were going to go on Friday night or Sabbath morning, but we decided it would be Friday night because I really wanted the boys to get to Sabbath School. We had to drop the dogs off at the Edwards (Adam was going to watch them) on the way – so there would be no way we could do that all on Sabbath morning and make it on time! So as soon as Heath got home, we booked it to Effingham and Adam made supper for us! So nice of him! We ended up getting to Campmeeting just before 10 PM, after a lot of drama on the way with Westin. For some reason, he screamed for about an hour between Effingham and Freeport. Not really sure what was up with that, but it was just the start of his fussy behavior at Campmeeting.

Fussy time

On the first Sabbath, the boys loved Cradle Roll Sabbath School. The theme was “The Ocean” and Janel Tyson was the teacher again. She does a fantastic job and the boys just loved it. I figured out early on that the row boat they had set up in the room was Ty’s new “tractor” from last year. The first class, he kept running up and sitting in the boat. He also would not leave Janel alone and was her co-host for most of the class. It was cute, but I clamped down and made Ty sit in his seat during class to try to get him to work on staying still! Westin loved the class, too. If you ever wonder if your 7 month old would get anything out of it…they do! He loved to touch all the items passed out for the songs and loved the singing! He was so excited! Saturday night was a night of bad news. Adam had called to say that Reeses was having diarrhea non-stop. That was so frustrating! She had had diarrhea on Wednesday, a small amount on Thursday, but then had NOTHING on Friday – and actually had solid poop on Friday. If she had diarrhea still on Friday, then I was going to take her to the vet, but I figured she was over it. WRONG. Long story short, Sonia ended up taking her to the vet on Monday (since she was going home to her house for the day anyway) and they don’t know what it was. She didn’t have a parasite, so they thought she must have gotten into something bad. After 1 dose of her antibiotic, she was cured. How terrible for Adam & Sonia to have to deal with that, though! We owe them BIG time!

Mr. Co-host

So I’ll try to just give you the generic overview of Campmeeting. We stayed in Sonia’s tent with Amanda. On the weekends when Heath was there, it was a bit crowded (having 6 people in a tent) but we managed! We got a screen house and put all of our cooking supplies in it, so that helped. The boys slept well at night in their pack ‘n’ plays, but they were up at 6:00 or 6:30 every day because it would get so bright in our tent. That is so unusual, since they usually sleep to 8:00 or 9:00 normally. Wes would take a morning nap in the tent, but it was never as long as his normal 2 ½ hour nap at home. I would take the boys driving in the afternoon and got them to take a nap in the car, but again…it would only be just over an hour and not their normal 2 hour afternoon nap. After 9 days of this, I was ready for them to get back to their regular sleeping patterns! As I alluded to before, Westin was not himself and was SO whiney the whole week. I was chalking it up to being sleep deprived and then I thought I had figured out that he was jealous of us eating supper. When we would eat supper, if he wasn’t having his solids at the same time – he would cry non-stop. Very unlike him. But on the last Sabbath, it all became clear when his second tooth broke through! He had been working on his left lower tooth all week! Poor buddy! Ty was very cute with his cousins. He called them his “friends.” Ty talks about himself in the 3^rd person all the time, so it would be “Ty go see friends.” He loved to play with the kids in the field, running around, kicking a ball around. Sometimes they would be some big, older kids (about 9 years old) and Ty would just put himself right in the mix! He also seemed to be sweet on this one girl, who was probably 10 years old. He would ride his trike near her and then say, “Ty ride fast.” He was totally trying to impress her – it was so cute! Ty really does have a very high opinion of himself, where he would think that everyone would be waiting for him. One time, he was going potty and then ran back to the field screaming, “Ty coming! Ty coming!” – like everyone had just stopped playing while he took his potty break! Speaking of the potty, he had NO accidents for the first 3 days and then he started peeing non-stop, having accidents galore. I was running out of clothes, so in desperation…he wore pull-ups most of the time towards the end of the week. So frustrating. On a more positive note, Ty absolutely loves his Aunt Amanda. He always wants to be with her and she would have to take him practically everywhere she went! She always worries how he will act around her, since we only get to see her once or twice a year…but Tyson just goes to her like no time has passes at all! She took him to the playground a lot, which he absolutely loved, of course. Our weather was typical for Campmeeting. Either horrendous heat in the 90’s or freezing, cold, downpours in the 60’s. I knew, KNEW that Tyson was going to get sick from the major temperature changes and, lo and behold, the last Saturday night he was sick. The poor guy was grabbing his throat saying, “Ty sick. Throat hurt.” We went to the night meeting with the kids most nights, but I caused a major scene on two of the nights. I would get the kids in their jammies and we would head off for the meeting. The first time I had Westin in the stroller and Ty was sitting with…who else but Auntie Amanda! I was feeding Wes his solid foods when someone got up to sing special music. It just happened to be at that moment that I finished his peaches and he had an absolute meltdown because he wanted more peaches! Have I said how much he loves his solid food now? It is unreal. The unfortunate part was that I could NOT find his binky anywhere. I knew that he had it in the stroller but I could not find it. He was screaming so badly that I had to grab Tyson and bail out of there as fast as I could. How embarrassing. The mystery was solved when I found Westin was sitting directly on his binky. Another night…round 2. Ty was sitting with Grammy and I was giving Westin a bottle, holding him in my arms. I completely expected him to fall asleep while taking the bottle, but he didn’t. Half-way through the bottle, I lost the binky again. I had had it in my other hand, but must have set it down somewhere when I had burped Westy halfway through. I knew that I was going to have a screaming kid on my hands if #1) he didn’t fall asleep while taking the bottle or #2) if I still couldn’t find the binky. As he was finishing the bottle, I was searching like a crazed woman. I stood up multiple times, looked all through my bag, on the floor and I could not find it. There is nothing more frustrating! My scenario came true when the bottle finished and he was not asleep, and he started screaming so loudly. I just ran out of there again. Where was the binky this time? It had fallen down my shirt. How I couldn’t feel that, I just don’t know.

Painting with Amanda

Cousin time

OK..this doesn't look fussy...a little crazy perhaps!

Here are some other highlights that we did…..

Monday:

Ty & Wes played in Caleb’s kiddie pool with Caleb and had a blast. Then we went to Goodwill with my mom & Kelly & company. On Monday night, my mom stayed with the boys (while they were sleeping) and I went to the Pelton’s house to watch the Bruins lose the Stanley Cup with Shawn, Camille, and Duncan. Wish the outcome would have been better!

Tuesday:

The cutest thing happened with Ty. We had been eating lunch at the snack bar/cafeteria with Amanda, Ryan, Greg, and Sandi when Ty announced that he needed to go potty. Not just #1 either. The unfortunate thing about the cafeteria is that there is NO bathroom anywhere!!!! You have to either hoof it to the school or the bath house. So I chose the bath house. We were high-tailing it over there when we passed Calleigh & Aubree. Ty had to announce to them, “Ty potty. Ty poop potty.” After we finally made it to the bath house, Ty said, “No poop potty. No potty.” I just about died. We had walked a half a mile in the 90 degree heat…he was not leaving there until he went potty!!!! Mama won out on that one. When we were walking back to the cafe, Ty said, “Ty go see friends.” I told him that they might be gone since I knew they had plans…and when he saw that they weren’t there, he got all quiet and sad. “Friends gone.” Tuesday afternoon we had more kiddie pool time with Caleb. The heat was unreal.

I never got a good shot of the three of them in the pool!

Wednesday:

I got a haircut. I had told Shannon that I needed a new look. I was so sick and tired of looking the same for 20+ years. I told her to find me a new haircut and I would go get it. She came up with me getting bangs. I haven’t had bangs since 5^th grade, but I decided to take the plunge. The hairdresser started me with side bangs to see if I would really like them. Well, I did and I decided that I wanted to do the full bangs, since it was the drastic change that I needed. So that meant that I was in the bathroom at midnight, cutting my own hair to give myself full bangs. So it is done! I actually really like it, despite Heath telling me that I should wear a paper bag over my head!!!!

Close up of the hair

Thursday:

Leigh, Mia, Bode & my father visited and we hit up Chipotle for lunch. After lunch, my parents went car shopping at the VW dealer and bought a new Jetta for my mom! The funniest thing happened. My mom had called me to tell me they were buying the car, while Dad was doing paper work. She told me that she had gotten another silver car with black interior…which was the EXACT same as the old Passat she was trading in. Sonia was there with me and we both told her that that was boring and she needed to get a new color! After giving us the options, she decided she would go look at the brown one…and she changed her mind! She ended up getting the brown Jetta with beige interior!!!! The unfortunate part was that they didn’t have one on the lot, so Mom had to go back to Maine on Monday to pick it up! My Dad just about killed me for that one! I can’t believe I have that much influence over my mother!

Using the crazy sunglasses during class

Can we say Elton John?

He really wanted the soda at Chipotle

Friday:

The rain was horrible and unrelenting. We escaped to Friendly’s and Goodwill in Windham with Kelly, my mom, Sonia & Amanda. Both Westin & Caleb sat in highchairs at Friendly’s for the first time and did well! Friday night Heath came back to join us! We had missed him!

Friendly's - I love how Caleb is lounging in his highchair

Wes in his highchair

Sabbath:

I sang in the Campmeeting choir with Amanda this year and it was a blast. I have missed singing in choirs and it was so much fun. I definitely want to do that again! Ty was so cute! He would watch me singing up front and wave and wave at me. Then when I was done, he would say, “Mama singing!” We had a nice lunch with our big extended family, as many had come up just for Sabbath. Most notably, Rick & Ana were there - we haven't seen them since their wedding last summer!

Caleb & Wes at Sabbath lunch in the field

Sunday:

We packed up as quickly as possible and met Keith at IHOP in Portland and then went to Mardens for about 2 ½ hours. Can’t get enough of that store. Then I went home with the kids, while Heath went to Effingham to pick up the dogs. We had a great time at Campmeeting, but I was definitely ready to go home. I was ready for my own bed and my own shower. There is nothing like it! The boys slept almost the whole trip, so that was good. As we were pulling into our driveway, Ty woke up. I totally expected him to say, “Oh!!! Ty home!” with excitement. To my surprise I got, “Oh no. Home. Nooooooo….. Camping!”

Despite his sickness, Ty still plays hard!

He took it well when his tower of jellies fell over

On the way home

After seeing his toys, he decided he was happy to be home after all!

Alright, this long blog is over. I am still behind 2 more weeks (almost 3). I am trying to get caught up, but the summer is so busy! Have a good week!

RANDOM PICS

They looked so cute in their glasses!

Brady & Acadia

Wes can hit those sticks together so well! Why do I feel like that is advanced?

Dads bonding over Cradle Roll

Those two couldn't get enough of the bells!

I really should have had a "before" picture - but this was Ty picking up the huge mess of his toys/shoes etc. He was told he could go to the playground once it was picked up!