Tyler knows most of the face, head, hair, belly, feet and toes. Actually, he will smell his feet and tell me if they are “stinky”. It cracks me u. I guess it is time to move onto other parts. Yesterday in the bath, he pointed to his “boy stuff” and said “boop” (his word for “boob”), I corrected him and said “penis”. And so it begins! :-p

Since instituting Tyler’s new bedtime routine, he has been asleep at the following times: 2 days ago - 9:15pm, last night - 9:40pm, tonight - 9:50pm. HHmmmmm…. The reality is that the new routine hasn’t really been tested. Chris has been getting home late which throws things off. Even if I have started the routine, the sight of Daddy gets Tyler reved up. Tonight I returned from a What’s For Dinner cooking pary to find Chris and Tyler coming home from Chris’ parents at the same time. It was 7:45pm - again the routine collapses. Interestingly enough - tonight Chris and I decided to eat our dinner around 8:50pm - Tyler saw us and wanted to eat too. He CHOWED!! I think he had like 2 or 3 helpings and he had already had dinner. We may need to incorporate a nightly snack into the mix.

His sleep window is still such a mystery to me. It is so hard because we had this pretty figured out and I am back to square one trying to figure out the right ingredients to get my child to bed. I know I simply need to get back to fundamentals - an hour or more of outside play in the afternoons, appropriate mellowing, etc. All in due time, but hopefully before Quinn gets here.

Tyler also got his first haircut today. He looks so different and so cute!! I have pics to post, but they are on Chris’ camera and I will have to wait until he downloads them. He did great - no tears, no fussing. It was quick and painless, thankfully!

A few days ago Tyler’s interest in climbing went into overdrive!! Many of his friends are big climbers and I wondered if he would ever take such an interest. His new favorite thing to do is to push a chair up to the counter and climb up onto it. (He still needs a little help from mamma.)

He calls it a “high chair” too… Last night he decided it was a good place for dinner . When I asked him if he was ready to eat dinner, he moved the dining table chair instead of going to his high chair like he usually does!

At many of our playgroups, mommas will bring a toy of thier child’s to share. Lately, Tyler has been enamored with ride-on/push toys and would literally get on someone else’s toy and “squat” there for like 30 minutes refusing to give it up. After a while, it was apparent that I had to get him one.

This was the only one I could find at Target and luckily - Tyler LOVES it!! He rides it everywhere, pushes it everywhere, loads up the seat trunk and presses all the buttons. It was a good purchase. In fact, (sniff..) he likes it more than the wooden train I bought him a few weeks ago. Oh well, maybe as he gets older he will like that too.

Today I cleaned the biggest pain - our Master Bedroom shower. I love having a huge shower, but it is a bear to clean. I used my soft scrubber on the floor and used the Tub and Tile cleaner for the tile walls. I was very impressed. It was an “average” dirty job - probably had been about 5 weeks or so - not much build-up. Before that I had a really, yucky mess on my hands and used industrial-strength stuff. I would have like to have seen how my non-toxic cleaners would have held up, but oh well. I hope my shower never gets that dirty again - it was pretty gross.

Anyway, another thought on the cool thing about these cleaners. I can get my kids to help me clean at a younger age because I don’t have to worry so much about the content of the cleaners. Some things I will still want them to be careful with - but baking soda things, etc would be fine. Heck, today I did some cleaning sans gloves and wasn’t freaking out about chemicals soaking into my skin.

Here is the recipe I used to the Tub and Tile cleaner. Oh, and tools I used were a grout scrubber to clean the grout if needed, but otherwise wiped with a damp cloth and then went over with a dry towel.

Walter’s Tub and Tile Cleaner

1/2 tsp washing soda, 1 tsp borax, 1/4 to 1/2 tsp vegetable-oil-based liquid soap, 3 tablespoons vinegar, 2 cups very hot tap water, spray bottle

Place all the ingredients in a spray bottle and shake well. Spray cleaner onto the tuub or tile and rinse or wipe off with a damp sponge. If your spray bottle clogs, next time use less washing soda and borax.

Ya know, I love supporting my local coffee shops, but when you live next to a 24-hour drive through Starbucks - it is hard. That and they have all these drinks that are so darned good!! I hadn’t been in forever and yesterday thought I needed a little boost. My favorite drink, a cinnamon dolce latte, was seasonal so it is gone (sniff!), so I had an iced decaf caramel latte instead. Oh my god - it was so good!!! I think in 50 years there will be some lawsuit about the addictiveness of their products. I don’t want to develop any kind of habit - it is an expensive one. But, man they make such good drinks! Oh, and Tyler already kmows what coffee is eventhough he has never had it - what does that tell you about our family?

But for an occasional treat - it is heaven!!! Yum!!!!

Additional Note: A friend reminded me of a locally owned coffee place across the street from my Starbucks. I have been there before and even have a frequent user card. A caramel latte is pretty standard, so I will give them another try. I will say that Starbucks hot chocolate is better. However, it do prefer local places….

Well got some great advice on the routine (thanks, Susan) because I can’t think these days. Anyway, we are moving book reading all the way before the walk so Tyler and Daddy can have as much fun reading as they want to. After the walk comes the bath and then bedtime. This evening it worked…er.. pretty well. There was no fussing anyway. I must mention that Tyler took a nap from like 1:45 to 4:45 with a 20 minute nursing wake-up in between which I knew would throw bedtime out of whack. Therefore, we did things a little later, but it still took Chris about 45 minutes of ball bouncing to get him to sleep. I think he was out by 9:15pm. Hopefully tomorrow will be a more “normal” day and we can test this out again.

Chris said he prefers the fussing because at least he knows when he is asleep. Tonight Tyler would be quiet for like 15 minutes leading Chris to believe he was making progress only to have Tyler comment or say something indicating he was wide awake.

I felt so bad for Chris; he is upstairs working now. I even offered to put Tyler to bed tomorrow. Of course, I later remind myself that for over a year, I was in his shoes and had nights where I had to boob him for that long if not longer to get him to sleep. I guess although I feel bad - it is just the job and some nights it is going to go smoothly and some nights it won’t. I can’t feel guilty about him doing it. He said he doesn’t mind and I don’t think he does sans the crappy nights. I am really thankful because I know many Moms are still on the clock and few Dads are able to take over that job.

Anyway, so we have a new routine and I have a new attitude hoping this leads to more peaceful nights and an earlier bedtime. Please cross your fingers for us!