Staycation it is

I have been blessed/cursed with the love of travel. I have always felt I was only as good as the next trip I was planning. It has been nine months since Craig’s and my last big trip – our “babymoon” to Spain. Recently, I’ve been dying for a vacation. Not just a three day weekend, but a journey that requires lots of flight time and a passport. But since our blessed addition of Tyler, I doubt this is going to happen. We get nervous taking him to a restaurant, let alone a 12 hour flight. Additionally, although I have no problem making Craig spend the night in a roach infested, $3 a night hotel (thank you Honduras), I would definitely not subject Ty to those conditions. So I guess until Tyler is old enough to pedal a bike through Tuscany, or at least old enough to stay with either of his wonderful grandmothers, I will have to be content with intercontinental road trips.
In the meantime, allow me to humor myself with some photos of travels past.

Call me biased

As Tyler gets older he gets cuter and cuter. He smiles and laughs more each day and always looks like he has something important to tell us. He loves to sit in his swing which has two toys on the tray in front of it. One of them is a zebra, and everytime he is in the swing we joke that he is yelling at it. He stares intently at it and talks to it like he is mad. I don't know what the zebra did to him, but it must have been something serious.

The Adventure Continues...

I got a lot of advice and information about children when I was pregnant - which, I appreciated. In all these words of wisdom, however, no one ever told me about "the blow out." I'll spare you the graphic details, but we've had some really memorable experiences in this arena. With Tyler, motion seems to bring on these events. His car seat, the swing, his bouncy seat - these are where the explosions have occured. (I won't even get into what happened while stuck in the drive through line at McDonalds.)

This week, the greatest of "blow outs" occured as we were hurrying to get ready and out the door on Monday morning. Tyler was fed and dressed, sitting in his bouncy chair as I finished getting ready for work. When I moved his blanket to pick him up, I found him sitting in a puddle of his own pooh. I screamed, and the chaotic activity began as Craig and I rushed around stripping off Ty's clothes, rinsing things out, and bathing the boy. Once he was clean, Craig handed him to me. I wrapped him in a towel and was headed to his room to put a diaper on him when I felt a really warm, wet sensation. Ty had peed all over the front of me. Needless to say, we were all a little late getting to work that day!

Derelicht my... blog?

OK, it's safe to say I'm the biggest slacker in the blogosphere. Oddly enough, I had four people in one day chide me about how out of date this blog is. I have no excuse - it's sad we haven't posted in a month and a half. So here's a rundown since my "birthday" post:

• Our Romanian friends, the Alecus, came to visit, which was great. Chowed on sarmale, salam, mamaliga, telemea, and a bunch of other good stuff. Gigi knows what she's doing in the kitchen.








• Did we mention our trip to Zions already? Went for work and took Sum and Ty along. We tried to hike with the Bjorn, spent some time poolside and just chilled.









• Summer went back to work. I think we were both a bit worried about this, not so much for Tyler's sake, but for Summer's emotional state. In spite of our concerns, she's loved being back at work, and values her time with Tyler all the more. It's made a lot easier by the nanny situation - Jess Duncan and Menissa Parker have been incredible. There's no one we'd trust more to watch the kid. Summer's mom has also come up to help out. It's funny when Leigh Ann gets in the Tyler zone, because it's like nothing else exists. She gets sucked into the baby vortex or something. Must be a grandma thing, cause my mom does the same thing.









• We think we finally have the acid reflux thing figured out (cross your fingers, knock on wood, or do any other superstitious thing you can think of now). Heretofore, just to control the pained screaming, we've been having Ty guzzle Mylanta syringe by syringe. We finally talked the doc into prescribing Prevacid. At first we didn't see any difference - except that his drool turned powder red from the "dissolvable" pills. But then, three days ago, he became a completely different kid. He hardly ever cries any more, you can lay him down without him shrieking and clenching his fists in pain, and he actually sleeps now and again. Seriously, give the inventor of Prevacid the Nobel prize. Unless it stops working all of a sudden - then you can send him to my house to hold Tyler while he screams at 3 a.m.









• Ty had his second doc's appointment Wednesday. He's 11.5 pounds now, 24 inches. That puts him in the 90th percentile for height, and something like the 60th for weight. They also shot him up with four different vaccines. Ty didn't cry much though, just scowled at the doc and nurse after looking shocked - "Why would you do that to me?" Glad he's healthy.









• Our best friends, Chad and Jordan, suffered a tragedy. Jordan's dad died suddenly of a stroke. We feel so bad for them and hope they find peace. They did a great job at his funeral. We're thinking about you, Chad and Jordan.

I think that about covers a month of our lives. Getting pretty boring, right? Gotta do something about that...

Craig Turns Thirty

I'm usurping the blog to wish Craig a happy thirtieth birthday. Craig's birthday was on April 29, and we've been celebrating all weekend.

It isn't hard to gather people together to honor Craig. He is such a fun, outgoing and wonderul person - once you meet Craig, you never forget him.

Thanks to everyone who came to our house, took us out to dinner and helped us celebrate the milestone of turning thrity!

I'm so lucky to have such a wonderful husband, and Tyler is lucky to have such a great dad. Happy Birthday Craigs!

Peeing and bath time

You know what shouldn't be funny but is? Here it is: 

Your kid is sitting there on the changing table, you dutifully put something like a wipe over his junk, because you know he likes to pee in the fresh air. You try to time the pulling off of the wipe and the frantic placement of the diaper so the risk of open air peeing is minimized.  Despite all your precautions, he seizes the brief opportunity to pee in his own face and in yours.  

Why is it funny? Your guess is as good as mine, but maybe it's because your kid is just as surprised as you.  He doesn't seem to grasp the connection between the sudden liquid on his face and the relief he's feeling down there.  

A less disgusting kind of funny is when you bathe your kid after the pee incident.  Tyler always freaks out when he's cold and naked.  He starts out with a discontented grunt, followed by a whine and a whimper.  Soon, he's full on wailing.  But the minute the warm bath water hits him, he's catatonic, even euphoric.  I love watching his lip start to quiver when I take him out of the water, then placing him back under the stream to see him almost smile. The most difficult part is getting just modest enough to take pictures...

Tyler's many faces

It seems the only muscles Tyler has control over are his face muscles.  He can't even hold his head up, his arms flail around pretty much on their own, but he could teach acting classes at the community college with his facial contortions. Watching him reminds me of those fridge magnets of the emotion faces - y'know, the "Today I'm... [fill in the emotion]." 

Check out these photos... You can cut along the lines and stick these on magnets for your own "Fridge emotion" display if you want.