Tyler's new tricks

Our little guy is getting so big. He figured out how to sit up in the last couple of days. He has been pulling himself up for a while, but now he's very efficient at it. Every time I look around, I see him standing and holding onto something new.

Tyler loves to crawl after me as I moves around the house. As he follows me he always repeats "ma-ma-ma-ma-ma". What can I say, Tyler is definitely a mamma's boy and I love it. Today he had so much fun watching what Lydia was doing. His sister climbed under the table and was singing songs. Tyler found her highly amusing--he squealed and laughed as he watched her. Partially, I think he just discovered that he can follow her and be entertained. I am all for that. Have fun, kids! Lydia was not exactly thrilled about him grabbing unto her to pull himself up. But she does pay more attention to her brother now, even if it's pulling him backwards by his legs so he can't get to her favorite toy.

I found Tyler on the stairs today, on the third step. The first attempt to master the staircase was a couple of days ago. Then he only made it up one step. Apparently, he's feeling more confident about his abilities now, and I need to pull out our gate from the storage unit.

Surprisingly, both of our kids have similar temperaments. Tyler very much resembles active and curious little miss Lydia when she was his age. He also loves attention just as much. He will pretty much smile and try to communicate with anyone who's interested. But he's a bit shy, too. Sometimes he wants to go to someone he sees, but then when he turns around and sees me, he decides to come back to me. Then, when someone captures his attention once more, he will dive to get to them, only to discover that now he left his mommy's arms and then, once again, he wants to come back. What a funny kid! He also does not like to be left alone, of course, therefore he does not go down to sleep as easily as Lydia did. Unless he has been knocked out by nursing, he will keep complaining until we do it right (with a bit of holding and singing) and then he's good to go.

It so fun to see kids want to do things their own way. They are so alike (physically as well as in character) and yet, there are totally unique and completely themselves. Watching them express themselves makes me smile. And how I love having a squeezable munchable baby in the house, even if he keep me up at night.

Lydia's update

I have to write down a few things that sounded particularly cute or clever. Lydia's vocabulary grows every day (as it should) and she is not shy to use new words and expressions.
One of the phrases Lydia uses often is "think so". A few examples would be "Tyler woke me up think so" or "It's my turn think so". Also she is in love with hot "chloklot" these days or any kind of "chlokolat" for that matter. Lydia forms her questions like "Are you want to take a nap?" She also likes to give us options "What do you want? Or this or this?" A couple of weeks ago, when she did not get what she wanted she said "Mommy, you make me sad."

She can unlock doors

Yesterday I was doing some things and let Lydia wander around the house doing whatever she wanted. She came back to me holding my wedding ring (I had taken it off to play sports in the morning). I was surprised because I had put the ring in my room, and we put a lock (hook) on the door for the specific purpose of keeping Lydia out. When I went upstairs later that day, I found her port-a-potty next to our bedroom door. The extra eight inches gave her the height she needed to reach the hook and unlock the door.

We've moved

Oh, goodness, do I really want to write about this? I am having second thoughts now. Well, I guess all has to be documented good and bad.

Not to mislead anyone, I am really happy about our move. I have been counting days until we would have an extra room. Setting up a playpen downstairs and transferring Tyler into it after his last night feeding every night got old in a hurry. We did that because that was the only way any of us got any sleep in the mornings. It also was hard to get up at Tyler's every whimper at night, because if I did not, before we knew it Lydia would yell to us from her bed that the baby was crying (in case we missed it). So to repeat myself, we were only too happy to move into a 3 bedroom apartment. The problem was-the actual move process. But we will get to that later.

The official reason for our move was that Stanford was renovating Escondido Village one building at a time and we just happened to be in line for February 2008 renovation. But instead of just moving to another 2 bedroom apartment, we wanted to go to 3 bedroom for the reasons above stated. We worked long and hard with the Stanford Housing office to make this move possible, and in the end we got exactly what we wanted. We moved into another already renovated apartment in our same courtyard. And Stanford even provided movers for us since they wanted us to move out in order to continue their renovation project.

The sad and hard part about this whole situation started forming on Sunday evening, when Lydia spiked a fever of 103. something. She could not sleep that night and we had a hard time brining her fever down for the next couple of days. Well, those where the days we should have been actively packing. So when Tuesday morning rolled around, we were excited to start our moving process, but were a bit behind in our prep work. So with our sick girl moping around and Tyler getting frustrated for not getting enough attentions, we were attempting to pack and move our possessions. We did not realize how much stuff we really did have until we had to pack it. It motivated me to want to go through and chuck a good portion of it ( especially the portion that has been in boxes in our closet for the last 2 years. I honestly don't even know what' s in there.)
To add to this whole mayhem, it rained the entire time we were moving. So to put it in a few words- the move was lovely! Right! It really made me rethink the option of moving to Seattle this summer.

But the worst came when we finally transfered all of our belongings to our new place and did not have time to unpack fast enough to live a normal life. All of our floors were pilled with boxes and our stuff. There was no place to eat, or even sit. I don't even remember how we survived those few days when there was no place for the kids to spread out. And Lydia, of course, loved going through all of our boxes, finding things her parents have been hiding from her for years.

Well, the worst is past and we are somewhat settled, though our closets are still bursting at the seams with the stuff we need to throw away or give away. But that's an ongoing job for the next few weeks. We are just happy to have extra room. We finally and officially moved!

The scary story

Paul, in his previous entry, mentioned that I have a scary story to tell. That is true. The reason there are scary stories to tell is because Lydia tries to be independent and we are continuously explaining to her that some things are too dangerous to do on her own. She gets it, but still tries to find a way to do what she wants anyway. Here's the example:

On Valentine's day we were baking a heart-shaped cake. Lydia was so excited. She helped mix some of the ingredients and could not wait until the cake was done. When the buzzer sounded, she rushed to the kitchen, ready to partake. I told her that the cake is hot and that when we pull it out from the oven, we have to let it cool. She brought her stepping stool to look at the cake sitting on the counter. I specifically instructed her not to touch it because she would get an ouwie. Lydia understands ouwies. As the matter of fact, she is obsessed with them. So after I decided that I drove the point home to her, I ran into the living room for just a second to do something. A few seconds later when I turned around and faced our dining table, there was Lydia and what a sight she was. On both of her hands she was wearing oven mittens as she was carrying the hot cake pan to the table. I almost had a heart attach half from fright and half from amazement. I wore those gloves as I took the cake out of the oven and must have just left them right there. I could not believe the thought process of this 2 year old! I had to suppress my first desire to lash out and seriously scold her; after all she did do it the right way. And I know this is not the first or the last time she will do things her way, the "I be careful" way. I am just not sure I can take that kind of stress on daily basis. But then again, most parents do survive their kids. So, there is hope!