Happy 10th Month Birthday Tucker!

Happy 10th month birthday, Tucker!

This past month has been a big one for you, Tucker! Your first two teeth came in last week, just a couple of days apart. You have started to eat more and more finger foods and so far you really like bread, eggs, and sausage. You often make loud sounds when you want cheerios, puffs, or teething biscuits and you have started to sign for "more". You have become a cruising fool and love, love, love to stand up on your own. You walk around with whatever push toy you can find and often crawl to areas you really don't need to be in, like the bathroom. Two of your new favorite games are crawling upstairs and sitting in big boy chairs. Every time music is on, you start to dance and bounce, you are so cute!! We love to watch you play peek a boo - where you hide behind the blanket and then move it quickly and laugh when you see our faces. And our neighbors and your teachers really get a kick out of your newly developed waving skill. You are growing so fast, Tucker! We love watching you become a little boy.

Halloween - Adult Party time!

This year, we were invited to a fantastic Halloween party. It's an annual event, infamous among our friends' crowd. Now we understand why! The costumes were amazing. The reigning champs came as the Jamaican Bobsled Team - and if you can believe it, they came with a home made, working bobsled that also had a built-in bar! Incredible. Everybody in attendance brought their "A" game. One couple decorated their car and dressed up in Dukes of Hazzard get-up, one guy was a decked out Predator, Mary Poppins and Bert-the Chimney sweep joined the fun, and Lady Gaga appeared with 3 costume changes, just to name a few.

We joined in with our friends to be the Peanuts Gang!

The party was lots of fun. The Peanuts Gang even took a ride in the bobsled!! To quote the fun hosts, "it was an epic night".

Happy Halloween 2010

We busted out our super hero costumes for a quick trick or treating trip around the neighborhood tonight. We visited with a few neighbors and passed out a bunch of candy. Our stroll through the neighborhood was short, but it was fun to see the spooky decorations and the kids in their costumes.

A police officer stopped by to meet the kids and pass out candy. Owen loved her visit.

Trunk or Treat 2010

Last night was our annual Trunk or Treat event at Owen and Tucker's school. As usual, the event was great fun. We were dressed as super-heros this year. We built our theme around Owen's Halloween costume choice, Spiderman. Tucker was Super-man, Kris was Batman, and I was Mrs. Incredible. Our trunk theme was Gotham City. Fun! A bunch of our friends attended and they all had great themed costumes and trunks. It was a pretty impressive showing! Owen spent most of the night running around and dancing with his pals. It's so cute to see them all dressed up, playing and dancing. Tucker slept most of the time in the stroller, but he woke up towards the later part of the evening, in time to join the big kids in the dance area. He loved it!

Owen with his 3 best buds: Colton, Morgan, & Ricky

Owen with some of his good pals

dance party

Happy 9th Month Birthday Tucker!

Happy 9th Month Birthday Tucker!

Today we had Tucker's 9 month appointment and Owen's 3 year well visit and we received healthy reports for both boys. They each had their blood drawn for blood counts and anemia and they both received a flu vaccine. Owen had the nose mist and Tucker had the shot.

Owen also tested his eye sight and hearing. He passed the hearing test with flying colors but froze on the 2nd half of the eye test, so he'll be tested again at year 4. The doc says that's very normal. He weighs in at 27 lbs 7 oz and is 35 3/4 inches tall.

Tucker has had a big month. He's officially crawling all over the place now on his hands and knees. He has started eating puffs and cherrios and will soon be practicing with more finger foods. He can sit up from any position and pulls himself up and continues to cruise all over; he's even taken a couple of steps as he is pushing the high chair. According to his doctor, Tucker has healthy stranger anxiety and is on track with his sounds. He's now regularly saying "ma ma" "da da" and "na na". Kris is convinced is second word is daddy! He still doesn't have any teeth, but two are bothering him and we expect they'll come in soon. He is still a big boy at 20 lbs 2 oz, but at this age, that's is just 50th percentile! We've had a few rough nights this month with some teething pain, but he is usually very happy. Like his big brother, his happiness is definitely correlated with food and good naps. Just the other day, his morning nap was 2 1/2 hours. I had to wake him up for his lunch time breastfeeding session!

Tucker's stats:

Height: 27 3/4 inches (Owen 26 3/4 inches)

Weight: 20 lbs 2 oz (Owen 18lbs 12 oz)

Head: 18 inches (Owen 17.7 inches)

We love you so much Owen and Tucker!!! You make us so happy.

so precious

A big day for Owen

We took Owen for his first dentist appointment today. He was a champ- he wasn't scared at all and didn't complain or fret as the hygienist worked on his mouth. The office is perfectly suited for young children, equipped with child friendly staff, a toy room, animal murals, large stuffed animals coming out of the wall, and two - yes -two screens playing a kid friendly movie viewable from the big chair. He went in smiling and walked out smiling and holding two new prizes. We couldn't have asked for a better first time experience.

We also found out that Owen earned the Student of the Month award today!! He is enrolled in the phonics program at daycare where he works along side two other children and his teacher three times a week for twenty minutes. He learned the alphabet and the corresponding sounds right around his second birthday and these sessions build on that foundation. They practice writing letters and he also will be learning how to identify the first letter of a word by its sound. Although it is far from perfect, he has already started to learn how to write "e", "g", "r", "w", and "b" - and he loves to play his "phonics" games with us. For example, we'll ask him what does "mommy" start with and he will enthusiastically respond back with "m". It's so cute and so much fun. His teacher is full of praise and of course that makes us happy.

Some days are just crappy

Let me just start off by saying that some days are crappier than others and we experiened this truth over the last two days.

After daycare yesterday, I lifted Tucker out of his seat and placed him on my hip and started to go about unloading the car when I noticed that he was not only damp in his shorts, but that an unbelievable amount of poo was oozing out of his short legs and spread all over his legs and clothes. Instantly, I realized I was also covered in poop. I've encountered my share of blowouts but this was far beyond any of my past experiences. I had poo all over my sweater and pants and arms. I rushed Owen inside and made our way to the diaper changing area. It got worse. Tucker started to roll over, cry, touch the poop with his hands, grab the wall and the changer, kick his dirty diaper and spread the gunk everywhere. It took me over twenty minutes to get him and the changing table clean. I left the pile of soiled linens in the bathroom and headed straight for the shower and tried to put the incident out of my head until Kris arrived home. Lucky for me, he was sweet and took care of cleaning the car for me.

After this chaotic diaper change, we had a nice evening, but both boys had a very rough night. Tucker ended up having a choking/coughing attack in the middle of the night that required a steam shower and Owen woke up crying terrible from what must have been night tremors. It took us awhile to soothe both kids back to sleep, not to mention, Tucker still doesn't sleep through the night and I was extra tired after a late night of work.

In the morning, despite the rough night and tired feeling, we felt like we had a nice handle on things. I started the laundry to take care of the soiled linens from yesterday's incident. I started one load for my clothes and decided to soak Tucker's clothes with the hope that we might be able to salvage them. I went on to enjoy a nice, hot breakfast made by Kris and Owen actually told us he had to go poo-poo. Kris rushed him to the potty, and I sat there feeling pretty good about everything watching Tucker play.

As soon as Owen got in to the potty, he said he didn't have to go. This was suspect, but they returned to the table. Kris decided to prompt Owen by pulling out marshmellows to entice Owen to try again (we're bribing). It worked and they headed to the bathroom again. A few minutes later, I walked down the hall, towards them and noticed that the laundry room was flooding. After another second, I realized the faucet was still on and the sink was overflowing. What a mess! The water was under the laundry machines and already making its way into the hall and towards the garage. As if water overflowing isn't already a big problem, it was made so much worse by the fact that the water was poopy! I had been soaking the soiled linens so it was essentially "dirty water" flooding our house. As soon as Kris realized what was happening, he walked across the hall to help me throw towels down to soak up the water and sure enough, Owen took this to mean he could stop trying. We weren't paying close enough attention, and a few minutes went by before Kris checked on Owen. To our dismay, Owen had pooped on the living room floor. Really! We just shook our heads.

It wasn't quite 8AM and we had poopy water flooding throughout the house, a naked 3 year old with poo on him and all over the floor, and a crying baby in seek of some attention, no doubt picking up on the stress of the moment. All I can really say is that it was an utterly crappy moment.

Actually for as insane and difficult as the situation was, we were both grateful we didn't have any pressing needs at work and managed to laugh and make a couple of jokes while we cleaned up.