Funny Little Guy...at 15 1/2 months

Tanner Update:

Still 22 pounds and change (has been since he was 9 months old!)

approx. 32 inches long

Has had 3 colds in the last 2 months

Can now eat almost everything without consequence (yay!)

Still on Neocate (amino-acid based formula) per order of Gastroenterologist - 3-4 bottles a day

In the past couple of weeks Rob and I have seen a social and intellectual growth spurt in Tanner. He has always been very social - even as a baby - smiling at everyone he saw, reaching out for strangers in Walmart to pick him up, at ease in large crowds...loves carnivals, fairs, restaurants...

These days, he's a pure riot. We have so much fun every day. He runs around laughing at everything ALL the time...loudly. He runs (literally RUNS) from room to room all day long dancing, spinning, falling down, climbing, talking non-stop to himself, and LAUGHING (loudly) at everything. He readily gives high fives, claps feverishly when you count to three slowly (only after you get to 3), If you ask him where something is he puts his hands out palms up and shrugs his shoulders up to his ears as if to say "I don't Knooowww?!" He gives us big loud kisses and says"MWAH!"...He even does it to Theo if Theo will let him. He plays "pretend" eating...he'll pick up "food" (nothing) with his fingers and put nothing in his mouth and then proceed to chew nothing. Its hilarious. He'll do this over and over if we play along...and the dancing...he is a dancing fool! We had Christmas music on tonight and we found him in the living room doing the "chicken dance" all by himself. A pur riot...I wish I could have a video camera on him all the time...

He can point to all his body parts (nose, eyes, ears, mouth, tongue, hair, head, toes, belly, and of course pee pee!). This child understands everything I say to him. It baffles me sometimes. If you ask him a question like "do you want a baba?" he'll shake his head yes or no in a very exaggerated fashion and you can't help but laugh. Sometimes he'll stop in his tracks, look at me and blurt out a very clear, unintelligible sentence. "Glick Stim Jish Dot!" all I can say is, "yes, Tanner, that's wonderful!" I wish I knew what he was saying.

Diaper changes are still a battle 90 percent of the time. They always have been. He simply doesn't want to stop long enough to lay down and get a diaper change. (yeah, that's fun, when he's got a load in his pants and he's fighting me tooth and nail.)

This child is 90 miles an hour...sun up to sundown. and IN TO EVERYTHING. There is not one nook, cranny or crack in the floor this kid hasn't investigated, touched, messed with. I'm going to attempt to document it someday...Its wild. I try to make it a "yes" environment for him around here. But there are a few things like a couple of plants and the computer that are still within his reach and guess what 2 things he's into the most? The plant and the computer. We even installed plexiglass gaurds on the computer desk in an attempt to ward him off. He just yanks and yanks them and tries to reach over the top. Rooms full of toys and he has to mess with the two things that aren't for play...that's my little guy. I have a friend who recently took her 9 month old to a MOVIE along with her 4 year old. What the?! At no point in Tanner's life could I ever think about taking him to a movie...I had to time it just right to get him to sit in a stroller for a 30 minute walk....as long as we went after he had been playing hard for a couple of hours and if I brought snacks and entertainment, we'd make it through, with a little fussing for maybe the last 1/2 mile...I have many friends who's babies/kids hang out wonderfully in their strollers, car seats or high chairs...that was never us. 90 miles an hour...

I 'm exhausted at the end of every day and I think "I do have just one, child, right? Right." Hm. He is active enough for two, it seems. And I love it. These days he seems happier than ever, the more independent he gets, the more satisfied and content he seems...He's starting to sit in his high chair for 15-20 minutes at a time without a fit...he's actually riding in the car now for short to medium trips without crying...and best of all he's sleeping so much better. 7:30 or 8:00 pm to 6:00 or 6:30 - up just once most nights. Rob and I looked at each other the other day and said "life is good."

One....twoooo....THREEEEEE!!!!!

Tanner, where's the ball?

The "wresting" stance...thanks to daddy, if you say "Tanner, wanna wrestle???" this is what you get...

We had a great Thanksgiving in Schoharie, by the way. We had a big dinner at Nana and PopPop's (as Tanner has taken to calling Grampa Lockwood).

Tanner's first Thanksgiving meal! The child who usually insists on feeding himself, ate a wonderful pile of mashed squashes, potatoes, and turkey with gravy fed by PopPop! He loved it.

Playing out on the porch!

Get your jacket on!!!

The Last of Fall!

Today is snowing - the drive to work was harrowing - I saw one vehicle off the road crashed into a tree. Another one skidded toward us, crossed the yellow line but didn't hit us. Very scary. I was able to deliver Tanner to daycare and I made it to work safely but it was a nail biter. Just two days ago we were outside playing in the fall leaves! And oh boy do we have leaves on our property...we are late getting them raked up this year, though we put a small dent in it on Sunday. Tanner is a little apprehensive of the leaf pile but doesn't DISlike it. Here are a few pics...

No wonder he's apprehensive, look at the size of it!

This is pretty fun, I guess...

The little helper...

I love Saturdays!!!!

Saturday was crisp and cool here in Western Mass and we decided to stay inside most of the day and bumm around the house together. Tanner walked in with daddy's hat on at one point - so we snapped some pictures. Like most babies, as soon as he could coordinate his arms enough to yank a hat off, he did. Even still, he barely tolerates anything on his head, even in cold weather. I had all these cute hats I thought I'd wear on him and they are all in a nice pile, brand new, some with tags still on. Two things I would never recommend - hats for a child under the age of 18 months (except maybe newborn). Also, Size 1, 2, 3 or even size 4 shoes. I had all these adorable little shoes I thought I'd be putting on my baby. All but Robeez went untouched. I couldn't get regular shoes on his feet and even if I could, they were stiff and uncomfortable. It wasn't worth the effort of trying to cram them on.

Tanner is saying "hello" an "bye bye" fairly often now, although not on command. He is battling another cold - #2 in the last month. We had been on a good roll with sleeping - pretty much every night all night. Then he got the cold last week and BAM! he was up all night long. Once an hour from 1am to 5am. He did that for 4 nights then last night he slept all night again. Still gets up rather early for my liking - this morning was 5:40. Well, can't have it all at once, eh? I'm sure our next baby (if there is one) will be a better sleeper!

This was just a random picture of my little man I snapped the other day. Tanner is doing so well right now. Rob and I were just talking tonight over a glass of Lockwood wine (a delicious wine, for those of you who remember from our wedding, btw). And when was the last time we sat at the kitchen table over a glass of wine together? Oh, a couple of years ago now...pre-pregnancy, I guess. Well things seem to have made a turn recently. We are giving Tanner more foods to eat (and he's been fine with them!), he's sleeping better than ever, and his meltdowns have decreased dramatically. I'm crossing my fingers and toes as I type this - but last night he slept 7:40pm until 7:10am!!! First time ever!!! yay yay yay. We actually got up before him, one of two times in the last 15 months. I had my makeup on and was dressed already by the time he got up. He wakes up happy now and babbles around in his crib, turns on his Ocean Wonders Aquarium, plays binky swap...and calls out for us after about 5-10 minutes. Evenings are happier and lighter since his fussiness has diminished. Its just so wonderful. I can't say that I loved him any less before, but life sure feels better right now. It appears he's finally outgrowing the GI issues/allergies! Here's to restful nights!

Tanner's Halloween!

We debated whether to take Tanner out for Halloween this year. At his age, we didn't know if he would enjoy it much. But a group of our friends with their (older) kids were going to a popular subdivision where we heard trick or treating on Halloween is like Times Square on New Years Eve. So we decided to give it a go. We were so glad we went. There were hundreds of little kids with parents and the houses were done up with Halloween decor like it was Christmas. We met up with our friends - 4 couples, 2 kiddos each, just as dusk was falling and we geared up. We had the stroller, snacks, camera, everything we needed. Off we went. Much to our surpirse, our little guy wanted to truck around everywhere himself, so the stroller went entirely unused! Tanner loved it - he got right into the groove and followed the gaggles of kids from door to door. At times, we had to hurry to keep up with him! Once in a while he would take a candy from one of the hander-outers...and carry it around crinkling the wrapper in his little hands (no we didn't give him any candy)...but most of the time he just walked up to doors, looked at people and went on his way. It was hilarious. We had to steer him in the right direction many times - I'm sure he'd still be wandering in someone's backyard right now if we let him. We were there a little over an hour and he enjoyed every minute of it. He was so cute - he even got a "look at that little guy! that's the cutest costume I've seen tonight" from a passerby. Of course, we thought it was too...

Roarrrrr!

Trick or Treat...
Truckin'

Just meet me back at the car mama...

Oooooooo...they're handing out crinkly things...what fun

Family Photo...

At the Playground

We had so much fun at the playground a few days ago. Daddy took pictures instead of playing because he was sitting nearby with his sprained ankle...(which is much better now by the way)...Tanner is very verbal these days...chattering all day long and has several recognizable words...which he never will say on command, but will come out with when he feels like it. So far he has at least 10 or 12 words besides mama and dada...lets see...Car ("ga"), truck ("chuck"), hi, bye bye ("buh buh"), cat ("got"), duck ("dut"), stick ("gick"), dog ("daw"), Theo ("Gleo"), boo!, and today's word of the day hello ("hey oh"). he seems to get attached to one and say it a lot for a period of time then we wont hear it again for a while.

We have our follow up appt with the Pediatric Gastroenterologist tomorrow morning. I'm looking forward to hearing his take on all the tests Tanner had done in the last month. We've been giving him a lot more foods and it seems to be going pretty well! He's sleeping a lot better. Still waking up a couple of times a night but going back to sleep a lot easier most of the time. He's an early riser, rarely sleeping past 6:00 and often tries to get us up at 5:00 or 5:30. ugh.

I'll post tomorrow after we get back from the doc!

Its all fun and games until someone sprains an ankle

Mark and Andrea had Hunter's 5th birthday party at the All American Gymnastics Club today. It was quite an experience. Tanner's first real birthday party. It was a blast. And we had to leave before cake was served. First, I'll tell you the fun part. There were about a dozen kids ranging from 9 weeks old to 6 years old. It was quite the scene as the staff lead the kiddos through the different activities in the padded gymnastic room. There were all different kinds of surfaces for the kids to play on...springy flooring, foamy flooring, trampoline flooring, the foam cube pit, a rope swing, and even a Halloween fun house. While the littlest babies sat sleeping in their carseat carriers and the older kids followed the organized instruction of the Staff, our time was spent chasing Tanner around as he ran helter skelter across the different surfaces, laughing and tumbling in random chaos. He was having the time of his life...

Tanner LOVED little 9-month old Nolan. They were almost the same size. You can just see the look on Tanner's face in this picture. Well he proceeded to hug and maul poor Nolan until he had had enough and I had to pull Tanner off of him. It was so cute.

Tanner LOVED the foam cube pit!!!

You can't catch me!!!

Aaaand then it happened. Amidst all the action, I see Rob lumbering toward me with a strange hunchback-like limp, Tanner dangling from his side. He dumps Tanner at my feet and flops down on the mat, thrashing from side to side like a fish on dry land. I knew he had to be really hurt. Rob, like most guys, will act like nothing is wrong unless its level 10 pain. The Staff got him an ice pack and one of the other moms said "RICE. RICE". "Rest, ice, compress, and elevate"...So we bolstered his leg up while I gathered our things and brought the car around and headed to the hospital. After 2 1/2 hours in the emergency room, we left with an Air Cast and an Rx for 800 mg motrin. Apparently, Rob misjudged one of the surfaces in the gymnastics room - he thought it was a solid surface and it was actually a trampoline surface. So when he stepped down onto it, his ankle rolled inward and took the fall. Looks like we'll be nursing a sprain for a while!