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Indiana- October 2009

Yiaya and Bryce and I flew up to Indiana at the end of October. Adam and Faith were having their annual Halloween party so we decided to partake in the festivities (told you it was addicting...)

Flight to Indiana- not too bad.

Flight back to Florida- I will never fly again with Bryce until he is at least 18.

It was chilly. The leaves were beautiful. Bryce loved playing outside and had a blast on the trampoline. Loved the hay ride.

He does not distinguish between Danica and Kara. They are one: Danica-Kara. If I point to Danica, he calls her "Danica-Kara." If I ask what Kara's name is, he says "Danica-Kara."

Max was his hero because he would run full steam and jump on the giant bean bag.

Bryce was a Harley motorcycle guy for the Halloween party and I was a Harley chick. I bought a pleather jacket for him at a consignment shop and Adam printed out the Harley logo and I pinned it to the back of the jacket. He wore a bandanna and jeans. Adorable.

He was obsessed with Cathy the bad witch from The Wizard of Oz and Jeff the Big Bad Wolf.

He ate too much candy, of course, chips, cupcakes, cookies.

He liked playing with Danica-Kara's toys and had fun playing on the swing set and in the mud.

We went in the hot tub...freezing outside. He kept messing with the "water fall" and eventually had to get out.

We flew back on Halloween morning....very early and will never make that mistake again.

Had fun and can't wait to see Faith and Adam or "Amad" as Bryce called him, and Danica-Kara on New Year's Eve.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Trying to get caught up....

Bryce is almost two and I cannot believe it. His party is this weekend (Dec. 12th) and will be at the house. Thomas the Train is the theme and we are going to have a Thomas the Train bounce house set up in the backyard. We are ordering pizza and will play games and I have gingerbread cookies for the kids to decorate and take home. Noni and Big Yiayia and Big Papou will be able to come this year which will make it very special (his first birthday party was at a park and would have been uncomfortable/difficult for them.)

Let's review here:

-He can say more words than I can count and can group up to 5 words together. "Mommy, Bryce do dat (that) pwease." "No way Jose." "Hey guys."

-Some of his more commonly used words include "No way," "don't," & "thanks."

-His imagination is developing and usually has a food or eating theme or involves sharks getting ready to bite our toes. At night when I am rocking him, he will make a pb&j sandwich for me by rubbing his hands together and then feeds it to me. Of course I have to take a bite and then act like it is really chewy and then make a throwing up gesture and he laughs. He also likes to feed me his apples that have worms in them which I have to pull out of my mouth and put in his (boys are so gross...)

-He knows what he wants, when he wants it and will fight tooth and nail until he gets it. That is why time outs are numerous and take up most of our days (okay, not most of the day but a good 20-30 minutes at 2 minutes per time out.) He is finally "getting it" though. Some days he is just better at "getting it" than others.

-When we go out and people find out that he isn't even two yet, they are shocked. Not only because he looks older (he's tall) but also because of his mannerisms and the way he speaks and interacts with us. He has always been bright and I think because we talk to him like a human and not a "baby," that helped develop his verbal skills.

We were at the park with Grandma this week and a little girl that was eight years old sort of adopted him (translation: Bryce started following her and her sister around so they had no choice...she was nice to him though and took him under her wing) asked how old he was. I told her he was going to be two in a couple weeks. She said she thought he was four.

I always like to ask parents' how old their kids are if we are at the park or the store or wherever just so I can compare. Bryce just isn't "babyish" and hasn't been for awhile. He is such a little boy.

-Thomas the Train and pals are on his fave list. The train that runs by our house is always "Thomas da Train" and he can name most of them. They all look the same to me.....they are either blue, red or green but he knows who is who.

-I have been trying to explain Christmas to him. I told him that it was Jesus' birthday. He knows who Santa is and loves the lights and decorations. He asks me to sing 'Jingles Bells' and likes to yell "Hey" when appropriate. I tried to name all eight of the reindeer tonight but could only come up with six and I think I made up two of them...When asked where Santa lives he will first say "Florida" and then when asked again, will say "Nort Pole." He will tell you that we will leave cookies and milk for Santa and raisins for the reindeer (I don't know where Mike got raisins from...when I was little, we always left carrots.)

-Eating is a battle, some days worse than others. He's not starving and, I hate to admit it, but he does better with the tv on. I let him eat at his table and rarely make him sit in his high chair unless he is eating blueberry muffins (completely destroys them and gets muffin everywhere.) He really does well with breakfast food, won't let me cut up his pancake ("BIG") and absolutely LOVES popcorn. Sweet potatoes and corn on the cob are the only veggies he'll eat without coersion and carrots in soup and apple fries (apples cut in strips) are his favorite snack. CANDY- UGH. Halloween has ruined our very-rarely-eating-candy/sugar child and turned him into a maniac who must have candy when he sees it. Or else. Maybe that's when the time outs increased...

-He was sick for almost a month. Basically most of November. All of us were actually, but little man had it the worst. He had a stuffy/runny nose, sneezing, cranky, no fever. I have never seen so much snot in my life and was lucky enough to have most of it eventually end up on my sleeve, pants, fingers...joys of mother-dom. The pharmacist at CVS said to disregard the age recommendation for the cold medicines so we gave him Sudafed and something else (can't remember). I called the doctor's office and the nurse said not to worry and that it was probably just a virus. She said to stop the over-the-counter meds because he was under the age of four (thanks damn CVS pharmacist) and since he wasn't pulling on his ears or bleeding and did not have a fever, she said there wasn't anything we could do. So, we bought Kleenex and tried to control his nose and keep him eating and hydrated. Aunt Tonya said to buy a Vicks Vaporless machine/do-hicky and that seemed to help at night. We gave him Motrin and discovered Vicks tissues. By the third week, the coughing and drainage was ridiculous and it was so hard to listen to him cough his little guts out, that I called the nurse back. She said "it" was lasting at least three weeks and there was nothing really to do for "it." I told Mike that if he wasn't better by the next morning that I was going to take him to the doctor. Not better, went to the doctor, screamed most of the visit. Diagnosis: DOUBLE EAR INFECTION. AGAIN.

Next time I will not listen to the nurse or the pharmacist or anyone else but my motherly instincts and take him to the doctor as soon as he is behaving differently or if he is obviously sick. He didn't show any signs of his ears bothering him the first time he had a double ear infection (before Halloween) except for a fever. No fever this time.

So, we got Amoxycilin, in orange flavor this time, and he's feeling much better. Giving him his medicine is not fun but the orange flavor vs. the bubble gum flavor is much better.

-He gets shy when asked to dance or repeat something cute he did. He knows he's shy too. Very cute. He'll dance for me but not for an audience.

-Likes to play the drums in Rockband and decided to jam a drumstick down his throat the other night. Visit #1 million to the doctor this month. Throat was fine.

-He can spell his name (we practice typing it on the laptop) and can count consistently to 3 and with minimal prompting to 10. Says "18, 19, 20" when jumping off of the couch or off of the changing table into my arms.

-We still read books before he goes to bed. He will pick out three books and sit in my lap and we will rock and read. One of his favorites is a simple book about trucks and diggers and bulldozers. I will read it in an English accent, high pitched, which makes him giggle. The funniest part is that he will repeat what I say, the same way i say it!! "Digger" becomes "Digga" and "Bulldozer" becomes "Bulldoza"...high, church lady voice with accent and very exaggerated. It's so funny that he "gets it" and mimics me. :)

-Potty training: We don't practice all day everyday. BUT, he will let us know if he is peeing and prefers to be without a diaper. He has pooped on the potty three times and would not let us flush the first little one until after Yiayia and Grandma were called and told about his amazing new talent. We do make him potty before he takes a bath and then if he is "naked boy," we ask him every five or ten minutes if he needs to go.

-The boy will sleep FOREVER if we let him. No, this is not a complaint, just rare/strange for a toddler. He has a late bedtime, 10:00 p.m. or later, and doesn't wake up until 10:30 a.m. or 11ish and usually has to be woken up. He still takes 2 hour naps and will sometimes sleep longer if we don't wake him up.

-We discovered that the wagon can double as a roller coaster. Bryce and I "rode" it down the hill into the empty retention pond across the street. I hope Mike can straighten out the front wheels again.....oops.

-He wipes away kisses. He will also give kisses if he gives you a "boo boo."

-Loves to color and draw. None of his crayons have paper on them because one of his hobbies is peeling the paper off of them.

-Will test you and can frustrate me more than most adults with his determination/stubbornness.

-Loves to give "big hugs."

-He is sweet, smart, creative, energetic, inquisitive, ticklish, determined, loving, sneaky, goofy and is going to be two!!!!!!! Ugh.

Blog-a-thon 2009!

I have a ton of posts to write and just can't seem to get to it. I feel like I always have homework to do. Strange.

And since I will be digging deep in my memory bank to capture all of the happenings of the past 2 months, some details may be a little off. If you happen to have been with me for one of the events I blog about and my account of what happened, time frames, etc. are inaccurate, let's just keep it hush-hush and chalk it up to me being a tired, worn out mother of a very energetic, time-out hating, terrible-two-ing toddler. Silence is golden.

So I will first blog about our ride on the Pumpkin Patch Express on October 26, 2009.

Bryce is in to trains and my mom had mentioned that Brett (who was obsessed with trains when he was little) went on a train when he was younger and loved it.

Katie, Mike, Bryce, and I went on the train ride down in Parrish. Bryce was excited when he saw the engine and cars but I don't think he understood that we were actually going to ride on it.

We got there about 30 minutes before we were scheduled to depart, which I thought would give us plenty of time to find seats together, but our car was packed already. We had to sit in separate rows with a mom and her 2.5 year old daughter sitting in our row. Mike and Grandma's window didn't open, our window did.
Just shortly after we started chugging away, I realized we were on a moving daycare and that the 45 minute ride to the pumpkin patch would seem much, much longer. Bryce enjoyed sitting next to the little girl (cannot for the life of me remember her name) and would sit in the sit next to me and then get down and stare at the girl and then jump back up on the seat.

Then he wanted to walk around so we went to the back car (Mike and Grandma took him on walks too,) which was an open car (like a tram almost) and then walked back through our car in to the cars ahead of us. It was a little scary crossing between cars, being able to see the ground or track below and with the cars swaying back and forth, it made it a little difficult to walk. I held Bryce just in case...

The ride itself wasn't very eventful- the scenery was of fields, pastures, lots of Florida vegetation. Not exactly the Orient Express that travels through the Rockies or Alaska. Bryce obviously didn't care though. He was a little antsy but manageable between the 3 of us.

We made it to the pumpkin patch and had an hour to pick out a pumpkin, grab a bite to eat from the boy scouts that had a tent set up, selling hot dogs, pizza, nachos, pumpkin pie, drinks, and pork sandwiches.

We spent our first part of the hour trying to find a pumpkin (and taking a ton of pictures of course.) They were small for the kids and Bryce would pick one up and say "Mine" and walk around with it for a minute and then drop it and find another one that was his.

Mike grabbed one just in case Bryce couldn't make up his mind.

They had a hay pile and the kids loved jumping in it and throwing it. Bryce wasn't too sure at first about the hay but then I think once he saw how much fun some of the other kids were having he realized he needed to join in on the fun.

There was a corn maze, hay ride, coloring area, sack races, and even a table with train merchandise for sale on it. Grandma bought Bryce a Thomas the Train coloring book and crayon set and a t-shirt.

We ate some lunch and then took Bryce over to the coloring table.

There was a lady making tootsie pop ghosts out of tootsie pops, kleenex and yarn. Bryce could care less about the ghost part and went straight for the tootsie pop. This boy can smell a lollipop a mile away. Loves them.
The hour we had at the pumpkin patch seemed much longer than an hour and I didn't feel rushed like I thought I would. We eventually had to re-board and were told to sit in the same seats. Bryce and the little girl sharing our row, both were deep into their lollipops when the train started rolling. Bryce was better behaved on the ride back due to the lollipop or being too tired to be cranky. Lollipop.He sat next to the little girl and her mom for most of the ride, sucking on his lollipop.
The total train adventure was about 3 hours and definitely worth doing again. They have different themed trips depending on the month or holiday. There is a Polar Express this month (which was already sold out when I booked the Pumpkin Patch Express seats) and it was only $15 per ticket (or $12...can't remember.)

Bryce had fun. Grandma and I had fun. Daddy Byrd LOVED it and did not mind at all that he was on a train full of screaming kids and that the Bucs were playing and he wasn't watching.

Festivalopoly: (n) When a family spends all weekends in October partaking in fall festival festivities. Can lead to becoming a "Festivalholic."

Fall festival #2: Tika's church on Parsons.

Bryce and I met the Diaz clan on October 25th (is that a Saturday???) and fall festivaled (is that a word???) 'til we had candy, prizes, and cheesy kiddie games pouring out of ears.

The church had little games like fishing and ring toss. Bryce was particularly good at throwing the bean bags in the giant pumpkins mouth. The prizes were candy or little whistles or other toys.

Mikey showing Bryce how to play the kazoo...

He wanted to do the putt putt which would have been fine but he didn't understand that you were supposed to hit the ball softly and instead, swung the club like he was trying to hit it 300 yards. I yelled "Fore!" and luckily the giant industrial fan took the beating and not an innocent spectator. He got his 14th lollipop and was ready for the next game.

A sugary smoothie...just what he needed.

We bounced around in the jumpy castle and slid down the giant slide.
Bryce and Marissa in jail....hey, it was only 2 tickets...

The fall weather was such a nice change. KIDDING. It felt like a day in mid-June. Blazing hot sun, no breeze, why-in-the-hell-did-I-wear-jean-shorts hot. Tika wore jeans! Wooh!

Bryce going to see the farm animals with Titi Tika and Risa

Bryce got to pet more farm animals including a donkey and a pig this time. His fave was the turtle and the goat....thought he could pull the goat's tail. I QUICKLY told him (after a quick photo op of course) that it would not be a good idea and that a trip to the ER was not on the agenda.

Then the horse ride, which meant waiting in line. Still not a mastered skill or one that should be taught whilst 100 degrees outside nor when your child is hopped up on 3 or 4 lollipops.

He rode "Pocket" the horse and then we took pictures (a tradition we started last year) and then said our good-byes.

Fall festival #2- conquered.