If this phrase doesn’t already exist, then I want the credit for it.  Definition is the sibling of a toddler who once obtaining slight mobility decides that he/she wants to be a toddler….tomorrow.  Quinn is trying to pull up like crazy.  Chris held her up at the train table while some of Tyler’s friends were over and he said she was standing there for 10 minutes.  She wants in on all the action!

She doesn’t like being left on the floor if we are all “up high” – she wants to see too!  We are already having toy sharing issues.  She wants what Tyler has and Tyler gets upset when she has his toys which is ALL the time.

The hasn’t gotten crawling-crazy yet.  I really wonder if walking is going to come soon. Tyler didn’t walk until 15 months, but Quinn has WAY more motivation to get her walk on!  We will see!

She is an assertive soul who goes after what she wants, she we just have to wait and see.  She is such a charmer too!  Doles out the smiles generously -she melted every Mom is music class today.  All the toddlers were roaming around so we were all just watching her!

Oh and NO teething yet.  I mean none.  No drooling at all.  She does gnaw on stuff, but I think a lot of it is exploration.  I haven’t checked her gums in a long while and I should for good measure.  Maybe she will be one of those kids who is not bothered at all by teeth??  Maybe?  Please?  :-p

Tyler is all about toy fixation these days.  He has figured out capitalism and is ready to be the good little capitalist that this country wants him to be.  He realizes that all the stuff in the stores isn’t other people’s but rather can be bought by Mommy.  How do I figure this?  We leave Target and on the way out catches a glimpse of a car and will spend the reset of the day obsessing over it.  He spend 5 weeks obsessing about Alfie the digger – everyday he wanted to go the train store and get “ralfie” as he called it.  We surprised him with Ralfie a few weeks ago…and then it was onto some other toy he lusted after.  It is really frustrating and really takes the fun out of buying him anything.  It makes me have a lot of trepedation over this upcoming half-birthday and all the new things he will be receiving.

This also bleeds over into friends’ toys.  He loosely understands things like my turn, borrow and trade as ways to get what he wants.  It is more like “bed, borrow and steal” in his head.  My child nearly pulled down the pants of a friend asking for her son’s toy.

What makes it more frustrating is that his frustration lingers.  I can be the most uber-cool Mom rolling around in the grass with him, singing him songs, tickling him all over.  But 10 minutes later he is back to that frustrated state.  Why can’t he just get over it?  Hmmmmm..I have heard this from my husband when I am upset.  Yup, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  Can I tell you that parenting is hard enough without having your own annoying behaviors shoved in your face by your two year-old.  How can I be mad?  He is me.  Today I think for the most part I managed to be that loving presence.  Being outside and having lots of room for his energy to disipate really helped. The environment seemed to soak up what he could dish out.

The thing is, I could just avoid stores and playing with friends, but that isn’t reasonable.  He is learning hard, painful lessons right now.  We don’t always get the object of our desire.  Sometimes we have to wait for it and sometimes we never get what we want and there is nothing we can do to change that.  And it sucks.  It really, really sucks.

My job is to keep my cool and commiserate with him and not give in.  It isn’t fun and some days I do a piss-poor job.  But as with every failure, there are successes.  And as someone pointed out, there are tons of opportunities for practice.  Granted somedays I think he just gets easier before I become a better parent.

Quinn continues to amaze me.  Let me see if I can catch you up to all the things that she is doing now. 

That toungue! She loves to play with her toungue.  We joke that it sometimes resembles Gene Simmons toungue!  She makes tons of cute noises with it and loves to get you to mimick her. 

Peek-a-boo!  She loves to play peek-a-boo.  If you put a playsilk over her head or she finds something that will work, she will lift it up over her face and play with you.  She has the sweetest, cutest smile!!  I love when she engages us in a game.

Talking.  She is starting to wave and said “bye-bye” the other day.  I am starting to discern her saying “Ty-Ty” and “dada”.  She talks all the time.  She has so much to say!

Music.  Quinn is loving music class!  I about died when we gave her some rythm sticks for one of the songs and she was using them properly!  She was mimicking the action we were all doing – 10 months people!!  She also loves the piano and will have a tantrum if I pull her away from it before she is done!  She love it when we sing songs and sometimes I think she is singing too.  She is the biggest fan of the egg shakers – she will shake those things with the biggest smile on her face!  She is beaming! It is very cool.  I am so happy that we decided to sign up for classes again.

Mulching sticks – it runs in the family.  Chase, Tyler and now Quinn.  Everyone enjoys mulching on a good stick.  I suppose I now need a picture of both kids sitting by the dog doing this :-p  She loves being outside and shoving dirt into her mouth among other things. 

Rolling with the punches.  SHe is one to recover from bonks quickly.  She will bonk, cry for a brief moment and then want back down or want to see where she fell to take in what happened.  She is over it so soon!  She bonked her head on concrete today and was over it so fast.  Now I will say, the bonks from Tyler I think upset her a lot more.  Today he fell from a stool and knocked her over as well.  They were both so upset and I had them both on my lap.  Neither of them wanted the other on there – it was quite clear.

Little Hands.  – I love watching her little hands as they consider reaching for an object.  Somtimes as with warm food they are tenative and other times they reach confidently for the object of her desire.  I love to watch her inspect an object and figure out how it works.  I love to watch her fingers move, her hands open and close, her gentle touch, her grasp.  Those two little hands are amazing to me as are Tyler’s.  You can read so much my those tiny, sweet hands. 

In the Middle of the Action.  She gets to mad if we are all up and she is on the floor.  I think she resents being left out of the action sometimes.  I will put her in the sling so she can try and observe over my back. 

Still Loves her Brother.  He is still the apple of her eye.  She watches him constantly.  In the car I can see her head turned in his direction quite often.  Sometimes I think she is trying to engage him in some play with her.  She got so excited the other day as I put her in the toddler swing next to his.  Mealtimes are a favorite since she sits across from him and they are at the same eye level for the most part.

She Knows Her Daddy!  She has such big smiles for her Daddy!  If he wasn’t smitted before, well, he is now!  She gets to excited and loves to play with him.   At night, if he goes to bed before me, I will find her snuggled right up next to her Daddy.  Those hands go waving and the squeals start when he gets home.  It is so cute to watch!

Starting to get attached to other people.  There are definitely still times when only Mommy will do, but she now is getting much more comfortable with other people.  She will go to Daddy easily and even the other night let our friends Wes and erin hold her.  They have an 18 month old daughter.  I think Quinn sensed another Daddy because she even laid her head down on his chest.  At the end of the night they were ready to take her home!  :-p   She is getting really social and loves to elicit a smile.

Tyler’s Toys. Forget baby toys – the only toys she is interested in are Tyler’s.  We can sit her next to a basket of trains and she is happy for 20 minutes.  Now Tyler is starting to realize what is going on here, so there has been more instances of “she is playing with MY x”.   She is in that age where Tyler was – there is really no “perfect” toy.  It is all about exploration at least for the next 8 months or so. 

Still not eating much.  She will gum on bread and apples.  I have to watch apples – she got a piece off the other day and gagged and threw it up.  Still working on cheerios.  She is like her Daddy – she wants to run before she can walk.  You can tell she wants what we are eating – but she has to practice gumming on things and eating them without any teeth!  But no – just give her the steak now please!   She seriously puts her hands on the table and pushes herself up to see what we are eating.  I think she is starting to get mad too if we are eating and I give her nothing.  I always at least try to give her some bread.  Silly girl!

Sleeps Great!  She wakes up earlier in the night now, so me leaving at night is hit or miss.  But overall she still sleeps great.  Of course, teething hasn’t commenced, so I am sure things will change.  She is still easy to put to sleep.  It is really awesome to be well-rested.  I always tell folks that Tyler is my waker and she is my sleeper.

Is so sweet.  She really is an angel.  She melts us.  Her smile is infectous as is her laugh.  She is so good-natured.  Chris proudle claims all these qualities as coming from him.  I would love to rebuke him, but I can’t.  I see so much of myself in Tyler it isn’t funny.  The kid is his mama through and through.  She brings the balance to the two of us. 

As tough as it can be and as challenged as I often feel, I also know that I am blessed beyond my wildest dreams in so many ways.  I am so thankful for this little angel and the sunshine she brings us everyday.

Well, Chris wanted to take some more wildflower shots, so I got on the Internet and found a great route through country roads off 290 after Johnson City.  Now, why on earth I thought this would be a fun adventure is beyond me.  I say that because when he takes pictures, we are inching along a country road while I entertain kids in the car.  Very tiring.  For one hour, we drove 8 miles.

But the kids pulled through.  We left before 8am and stopped at the LBJ National Park in Johnson City so the kids could stretch their legs before we went wildflower hunting.  The highlight of this stop was patting a horse.  He walked right up to us.  Can you see Quinn in this picture – she is sooooo excited!  Tyler was mezmerized and so excited!  It was pretty cool.  Oh and in the picture, I am holding my sling because the horse actually got a hold of it and was trying to munch on it!

After pictures, we headed into Fredericksburg to eat, have some ice cream, walk around a bit and got home around 6:30pm.  I was exhausted in all honesty and grumpy.  After a long week, it was a pretty tiring excursion.  Nevertheless, I am glad we can get wild hairs and act on them.  I did enjoy seeing all the wildflowers – I think this is the best year I had ever seen!

• Upon being asked if he is tired, Tyler responds, “I’m not tired, because, because I’m awake”
• This morning upon awaking (at 6:45am), he said “I’m awake because I had enough sleep”
• I told Tyler to head upstairs one day and that I would be there in just a moment.  I joined him on the stairs to see him with a toy in each hand.  I asked him how he was doing and he said, “trying so hard.  carrying heavy stuff like Daddy”
• Tyler was searching for a particular forklift one day and looking through the drawes under his train table.  After a minute or so I hear, “I found him.  I’m so happy!”
• I was holding Tyler in the kitchen one day and he is pointing to something on the counter saying, “pumpers, pumpers, mommy!”  I had no idea what he was talking about.  Then he says, “pumpers, put boobs in them”.  He was talking about the pump parts (that were lying on the counter) that go to my breast pump.
• The other day he was talking to me in the car and I guess I was half listening because all the sudden he says, “hear me, mommy?  you hear me?”
• He was adjusting the supports that hold up his elevated track and says, “blocks, blocks hold up track”.
• There is a blue, stuffed bunny that Tyler has had for quite some time.  Well, the bunny took on greater importance since Easter.  He likes to carry it around and hug it and tell me how the bunny is “hopping, mama!  He’s hopping!”  What struck me as funny was that he begun telling me, “this my daughter”.  When I asked him what her name was he said, “her name is Rabbit”.

Oh and I love how Tyler answers questions using the questio in the response.  So if you ask him “why are you a frustrated?”  He will say, “I’m a little frustrated because”.  He is so funny and profound!

On her 10 month birthday – she crawled!!  She has been so close for so long, I knew it would be anyday now.  We were at my parents new house.  The object that lured her to crawl over?  Dog toys!  She has no idea of the power that she has now, but soon enough she will discover the joys of mobility.  I am hoping that walking will take awhile although she has recently started pulling up on things in the last few days.  I am not wanting to hurry up to that place where I have two running in different directions!!

Today was the first good day we have had in a long time.  I could try and attribute it to a number of improvements I have made in our day, but really, it was simply a good day.  Things worked out.  Quinn fell asleep on the way home from our hike and slept almost 3 hours.  Tyler and I made bread and then we all weeded the front garden for an hour.  It was fun, it was low-key, it was nice.  Since I realize that not all days go this great, I have to revel in the ones that do.

Tyler kills me.  Just when I am about to run back to work, he does all these things that melt me.  Yesterday when I was hugging him good night, he says “thank you for cookng with me, mama”.   Yesterday when we were driving in the car, he is looking out the window and says “blue, bluebonnets!”  I was really surprised he picked up on the wildflower craze, but he did.  Today as we were leaving our hike, he said, “thank you mama, for my snack, I loved my snack.”   He cracks me up.  He is the sweetest, most amazing child who drives me completely insane some days.

At any rate, I am calmer right now..and he is calming down too.  So maybe soon enough, we will be back in a happy rythm with each other.  We are getting there.

Quinn wants to eat our food so badly so I will often give her a piece of bread.  I need to dust off my baby food books and see what things are good for her to gum on at this stage.  She wants what we are eating, but with no teeth, she really can’t do much with it right now.  It is so sad though as we all sit down to our meal, she looks around at our plates and is reaching out trying to get some.  I always share somethiing – broccoli, bread, etc and we just keep an eye on her so if she does get a chunk off we can finger-sweep.

Another cool thing about 2nd children – the older children’s toys.  Whenever Little Missy is not wanting to be near her toys, I set her on the ground next to the drawer that contains a basket of Tyler’s trains and she is content for quite sometime.  Thankfully, Tyler doesn’t mind this….yet.

And I am so much looser – she was eating dirt and mulching sticks while we gardened today and as long as she didn’t have a huge mouthful of dirt – I didn’t really mind all that much.  I would discourage her and replace bark mulch with a toy I had out there when I was near.  She was enjoying the texture of the dirt doing a lot of grabbing and picking up and dropping of it.  She really enjoyed being out there watching me work and Tyler and Chase mull around the yard.

She does a little “dah!” scream just like Tyler – I wonder where she picked that up?

I am so busy right now that I really don’t have the time to write a good entry as I would like, but I still want to capture some of what has been going on.  I must get to bed soon though.  More to come…