Nobody (and nothing) is exempt from timeout

I should start out by telling you that we are not the meanest parents in the whole world who give our child timeouts all day long. However, he has had his share of timeouts. There are days that I can’t remember the last time he had a timeout. There are other days that we struggle to get through 15 minutes without at least the threat of a timeout.

One day, I heard Tyler playing and saying over and over, “Timeout! Timeout!” So I looked over to see what he was doing. He has a TMX Elmo who was being carried to the timeout stair (the same spot Tyler gets) while he was saying this. I thought it was funny so I kept watching. I don’t know what Elmo did, but he did have to sit there in timeout while Tyler glared at him. After a few seconds Tyler said, “I sorry” to Elmo and gave him a big hug and a kiss. Apparently, the timeout worked for Elmo because they went back to playing nicely together and Elmo did not need another timeout that day.

Okay, so that was the beginning. Now, the following pictures tell a story...Tyler and I had just returned from the store where we picked up a few things, including the toilet paper that you see him carrying. First he picked it up and headed toward the stairs. I thought that was awesome, because it would have gone there anyway so I could take it up at some point. He got a few feet, then turned around and headed around our island where I heard him saying, “Timeout, timeout.” He came back around to where I was so I asked where the toiled paper was and he shrugged one shoulder and said, “Timeout”. I thought it was cute so I grabbed the camera in hopes that I could get him to say it without prompting again. I couldn’t but it was still cute.

So...timeout may not be a daily occurrence for Tyler, but it is for his toys and any random objects that decides need one.

A visit to "the office"

Tyler has been around his cousin Jeremiah a lot lately while he has been potty training. This is not a terrible thing since Tyler has taken an interest in trying this for himself. He had mentioned it and even gone in the potty a few months before being exposed to another toddler in training, but nothing major. When I realized this was a real thing for him, I bought him a little seat so he can sit on the big potty. We are not forcing the issue by any means, but when he asks to go, we take him. Even if it means him sitting on the seat for 20 minutes trying to have a conversation with you, asking tons of questions, but never doing his business.

Hopefully, nobody will be offended by the following picture. I had to do it, I just had to. I don’t know why, but for some reason, the idea that a male should sit in his “office” and read must be ingrained at birth. This is not something Tyler has ever witnessed; though this particular day he decided that he should look at one of the magazines he saw in there and it was just too cute to resist. He was serious, this is not posed. And by the way, there is a fairly sizable stack of magazines and I went through three before he decided this was the one he should look at.

A visit from Great-grandma Helms

At the end of August, John’s grandma came out for a visit. It was really fun to see her. We haven’t seen her since the June before Tyler was born when we went to Idaho for his family reunion. She had never met Tyler so that was extra special. We are big believers that our son should get to know his grandparents and have good memories of them. I think it’s because we have both been so close to our grandparents and have loved them so much that we want him to grow up with similar memories.

We tried to spend some time with her so she could get to know Tyler and he could get to know her. He took right to her. He really wasn’t that shy to begin with around her. Probably because he knows grandma so well and that was her mom, kids just know those things I think. He is still asking me about Great-grandma and where she went.

Daddy's little buddy

We don’t go terribly often to the fire station to visit John. He tends to stay busy, and as you can see from the following pictures when we do go Tyler wants to explore and Daddy has to be the tour guide. We have been enough though that Tyler knows that there are fire trucks to be played on. John showed him just once where the button was to turn on the lights and that’s all it took. He’ll never forget, and that is the first thing he does when John puts him in the driver’s seat. I guess he wants to be just like his dad. I can’t complain if that does happen!

Tyler's Jamz

Some of you may know that Tyler has been dancing since he was just tiny. He used to make my nieces giggle uncontrollably when he was about 7-8 months old and they would ride in the car with us. If he heard a song he thought was something he should dance to he would bounce up and down. He has always been so in his carseat that all you could see was his head bobbing up and down like a turtle in it’s shell. It was quite funny.

Well, he is still quite the dancer. I would always say, “Let’s jam , Tyler.” Now he’ll say to me, “I jam.” And it’s really cute. Here are a few cute pictures of our little jam boy. Oh, I should also tell you that his Nanny (my grandma) who watches him for us every other day recently bought the soundtrack to “Mama Mia” and that is now his favorite. There is a song on there called “Honey, Honey” and he goes crazy with the dancing on that while he says “honey, honey” over and over. It is hilarious. I tried to get a video of him the other day, but he wouldn’t cooperate. One day when I sneak up on him I’ll share the video with all of you.

Catching up...

So I’m going to be catching up on my blogging. You might notice that following several blogs were posted on the same day. That is because I am a huge slacker and have not downloaded pictures in awhile and just haven’t found the time to sit down and blog about our lives. Now I have catching up to do. I guess we are busier than I gave us credit for.