Tyler's birthday

I think Tyler had a nice day today. It was rather low-key, mostly because he has no idea what a birthday is anyway. But he got to open presents from his grandparents this morning. (I'll admit it- we were going to hold back a present from Christmas to be for his birthday, and I forgot, and then figured that he had so many new toys from Christmas it was silly to buy him more so . . . yeah, we didn't get him anything. Sad, I know, but true.) He liked this puzzle a lot.

And then, this afternoon, we went to Kangaroo Zoo to play with some of his cousins. Last time we went there, he liked it, even if he was a bit tentative on some things. We saw a big improvement this time! He did a great job, just carefully pulling himself up some rather big "ladders" all by himself, time and time again. That kid will do anything for a slide.

One of the coolest moments of the day was a very random one. Some background first: a few months ago, when Kids on the Move was testing Tyler to see his progress, they asked me if he did any problem solving. You know, using an object to get to something he wanted, etc. And I couldn't think of anything. He just doesn't get driven about things that often, so if things aren't easily done, he just finds something else to do. And then today, we were hanging out in a seating area when Tyler picked up a chair and marched off with it. We all stood there, watching him leave, with our heads tilted. "Where is he going with that?" And then, about 30-40 feet later, he sets it down in front of a favorite obstacle and uses it to climb up onto it easier. TA DA! Problem solving! I was so proud.

Also, last time, I had my other camera, and went bonkers trying to get good pictures. I was excited to try my new awesome camera out here and see how much better things are. I learned a few things.

1. I have a LOT to learn about my new camera still. I have read a few books, but I still need a lot more practice. The good news about times like this is that you have problems, and go home and look up how to solve that problem. Like, why things are still blurry in sports mode, and what settings to use in Tv to fix it.

2. It turns out that no matter what camera you have, the lighting in this place stinks. It is very bright, very harsh overhead lighting, and the inflatables make very harsh shadows over the slides. So your camera is fooled into thinking it is very bright out, and won't turn on the flash, even though you need it to fill in your faces. Grr.

3. My auto-focus likes to focus on things other than my kids. Like dinosaurs in the foreground. I figured out how to correct that once I got home and read my book.

In the meantime, it was great to see how much fun Tyler had with his cousins!

I think the funniest part is trying to convince him that he is three. We taught him a few months ago that when someone asks "how old are you?" he says "two". And now we are telling him that is wrong, and trying to get him to say "three". Can you blame the kid for looking at us like we are crazy? I actually started working on that a month ago, since I knew it would be hard, but he still says "two", and then he will say "three" when we start to correct him, and sometimes even get to "four". He does love to count!