Tyler- 21 Months

Tyler spent his first "weekend with Grandma & Grandpa Hockemeyer" this past Saturday & Sunday...originally supposed to be Friday- Sunday but some travel plan snafus turned it into 1 night instead of 2. I think everyone involved had fun =) He stayed with them when we were in the Dominican Republic in November but this most recent "weekend away" made me realize he is getting older and older by the minute! Now so much more capable of having his own schedule and so much less reliant on Kevin and I as his caretakers. After spending so much of his first year focused on our time together vs our time apart- and specifically me, as I nursed for that whole year- this is turning out to be more of a mental adjustment for me than anyone else I think. It's been many months since I last had to worry about nursing/pumping but I think it became so ingrained that first year that it's almost default.

Other notable achievements over the last few months (since the last "monthly" update I did for Tyler was 2 months ago now...)

Words! All kinds of words! Every day he says and learns so many new words, love hearing him repeat new ones and watching him process our response. He is usually quite proud of himself! One of the best is that we THINK he's starting to say his own name. Kevin has a photo on his nightstand of Tyler when he was around 9 months old. Tyler will look at it, point and say "tire" or some variation there of...not very often but we've heard it once or twice. I also THINK I've heard him say "no, ti-rer" talking about himself in the third person while simultaneously scolding himself?!

His favorite food has to be toast. If he could eat toast for every meal, he'd be one happy camper. Some days, he does. (Some battles just aren't worth it these days!)

He loves his "blankie" more and more every day. We started letting him sleep with the blankets we used to swaddle him in when he was just a little guy about 1 year ago. We have always kept it in his crib so after nap time or in the morning, it stays there when we leave his room. More recently, he's wizened up...he now knows, if he can't reach the one in his bed through the slats of his crib, he can get a spare out of the bottom drawer or if he can't find one there, he knows they must be temporarily "stored" in the laundry basket in his closet. It is clearly his comfort item as sometimes during the day- generally late afternoon when the day has taken it's toll- he'll go upstairs, find said blankie in any of the hiding spots and stand in his room holding it. We've still been trying to keep the rule that it stays upstairs in his bedroom...but this is definitely not as easy now as it has been.

He also now smiles on command, so when trying to take pictures we can just ask him to smile instead of having to clown around behind the camera hoping we catch it! I took this one last night so I could send it to Kevin who is out of town on a business trip this week. (In hindsight, maybe I should've waited until he had finished swallowing the food he had in his mouth.......)