Siblings

I think my favorite thing about having a second child is watching the two of them interact. The first week we brought her home, Tyler paid no attention to Kaitlyn. Then he started doing little toddler dances in front of her, and usually gave up after a minute or so when she didn't respond. But slowly she has grown more and more entertained by his antics, so he is more and more interested in her. She loves smiling at him when he dances for her. And the other day, I saw him trying to get her to play his favorite "circle game" with her. Tyler and I often chase each other around the circle in our house from kitchen to front room and dining room, changing directions constantly to try and scare each other. And so when Kaitlyn was in her bouncer in that path, he kept running the circle to her, laughing hysterically, and then running around the other way to pop up on the other side of her and laugh. So fun! And since Tyler can't talk yet either, they have fun conversations together.

I have the cutest kids ever!

It's official

I remember when Tyler was born 5 weeks early, and Christopher and I downplayed it by saying that we guessed his due date wrong. But he had a tough time nursing in the beginning, and didn't focus on faces or toys for a long time. And then he was a month or two late on crawling. He was a few more months late on walking. And now, he still isn't talking very well at 27 months old. I guess he was a true preemie after all.

It is rather hard for us to humble ourselves on this one. A big part of me set out to be an amazing parent whose brilliant child would make everyone just jealous. I started with great dreams of sign language and other aspirations. But we finally had an early intervention specialist come out today and evaluate Tyler, and he tested at about the 5% mark for his age. Mentally, he is more like a 19 month old. It isn't autism, because he is very social. It isn't ADHD, because he can focus on a task for quite a long time. He is just . . . not concerned with communicating with us. The amazing part is that he is such a wonderful kid! We have absolutely no behavioral problems with him, because the only time he "acts out" is when he is frustrated that things aren't going his way and he doesn't know what to do about it.

The positive side to today was that it was nice to see that I am not the only one concerned about things. Or amazed at things. For example, the guy was giving Tyler pegs to put in a board one at a time, and trying to prompt Tyler to ask for the next one by signing and saying "more". I have tried that before too. And he did the same thing today he did with me. He just sat there very patiently and looked between him and the pegs, calmly waiting for when he would give him the next one. Eventually he noticed that we kept repeating "more", and he repeated after us, but he didn't seem to see a reason why or be too concerned about it. He just has perfect faith that at some point you will give him what he wants, and he is happy to wait until you do. There aren't many toddlers out there who will do that!

So we will see where we go from here. There is no magic cure, and it is going to take a lot more work with different methods, but hopefully we can figure out ways to communicate to him. One thing is for sure, though; we love our happy Tyler to death, even if he isn't the genius we hoped for. In fact, maybe someday he still will be. In the meantime, he is my sweet little man! I will just make everyone jealous when their toddler is throwing tantrums, and mine is sitting peacefully instead.

Tyler doesn't like this holiday.

Poor guy. First he freezes looking for eggs, as posted below. Then on Easter at Grandma's house he gets hit in the head with an egg. And then, when we finally got a chance to have him look for eggs at home this morning (yesterday was really busy), he has no idea what we are talking about. As Tyler repeats at the end of the last video, "awwww."

Kaitlyn had a good day though. Or rather, Mommy had a good day admiring Kaitlyn in her cute Easter dress.

Bathtime adventures

Maybe this will be a boring post, but this is one of my favorite parts to my day, so I thought I would share. Kaitlyn has been loving bathtime lately! No matter how tired she is, as soon as she lays down on the counter to get undressed she settles down because she knows what is coming. For example, today she had been awake too long and was screaming - but enjoyed kicking and splashing her little heart out! Notice the very intense look here. This is important stuff.

But she was so tired that as soon as she got dressed and got her pacifier in, she was out cold on her towel. Poor thing!

In the meantime, Tyler was downstairs taking advantage of Mommy and Daddy helping with bathtime. I don't know if you can see them in the picture, but there are little cereal crumbs all over him and the floor. I am always amazed at the things that my toddler finds to get into.

Easter egg hunt

Our neighborhood has a little Easter egg hunt that they do every year. This was our first year going, since Tyler is just now old enough to understand the concept. I even practiced with him the other day to make sure! The only sad part was that it was absolutly freezing outside. I knew it would be cold, but it was even worse than I thought it would be. Tyler figured it out, but between being woken up early to go, and his hands shaking and red with the cold (he never keeps gloves on, just yanks them off), he wasn't thrilled with the activity.

I put the video on youtube, if you want to see just how cold and miserable he was.




Kaitlyn was bundled in many layers of clothes and blankets - and I love her hat!



Tyler is sorting his loot - he wasn't sure what most of it was, but he does know and love jelly beans.

Much better

She finally decided to smile for the camera. I love little baby smiles!

First Smile!

Ever since Kaitlyn was born, Tyler has been trying to get her attention. He likes to sporadically come over to where she is and do little toddler dances in front of her with his babbling, and then when she doesn't respond he gives up and wanders off after a while. But this morning, she gave him a big huge grin! She has had little half smiles at me before, which were mostly just an open mouth and happy eyes, like you see in the picture below. But this was an actual, true smile. And my camera was upstairs, of course. When I got the camera down, Tyler stopped paying any attention to Kaitlyn and only wanted to come and grab the camera. Sigh. My only consolation is that it will hopefully happen again, but it sure was cute this morning! In the meantime, this picture is the best smile we have on record so far.