Winter at the Beach

Pretoria is cool and dry and sunny, almost every day, all winter long. Some days are warmer than others, but nearly every day is hoodie weather inside the house. This is the second year that we've escaped to the warmer, damper coast to break up the chilly days and refresh our dry skin.

Durban was great. You could feel the moisture in the air and after only about two hours in this muggy environment, Ty's red, blotchy cheeks were beautiful! As far as we're concerned, Durban works complexion miracles in the winter. And it isn't unpleasantly muggy there this time of year; just enough mug to feel good :) We're told it's quite intense in the summer months.

We split a condo on the beach with some friends of ours, and while we just managed to squeeze the seven of us in (and two of our number were pregnant), it worked out great! Splitting accommodation is fun (I grew up doing it) and is one of the best ways I know to make vacation affordable. We could not have afforded to stay in such a nice place on the beach by ourselves, and there's a lot to be said for good company :) I think Ty enjoyed being around other kids, and I enjoyed being around other adults. Win-win.

I was looking forward to this hiatus for weeks and was sorry it ended so quickly (we were there only three nights, so it was really just a mini vacation). And now for the pictures...

The Indian ocean...it's so so beautiful!! 

The beach had some fun rock formations to climb through and around.

You could not have paid me to believe it, but Ty actually loved playing in the ocean! He was intimated by the huge waves on our first day, but the second day we went to another part of the beach that was shielded by some rocks. The waves were much smaller and he really enjoyed splashing around! 

'Till next time, Durbs :)

Maternity Pictures

Unlike my first go at pregnancy, I've kept baby #2 pretty well off social media and have not done the first blog post dedicated to him. Until now. Since he is getting so little attention (largely due to being a second child), it's only fair that I should do some considerable photo documentation of his time pre-birth.

What you are about to see are all compliments of Todd, my own very talented photographer :)

Tales of *tiny* Ty

Vocabulary expands, dirt and other outdoor delicacies abound, and fingernails endeavor to grow at an alarming speed. Add to this an insatiable curiosity for, oh, everything, and a smidgen of I-have-an-opinion-too-now and it's toddler time.

Ty's mimicking has really taken off lately. He started saying "mah!" after hearing me declare "aw, man!" when I spilled some of his food. He got a big kick out of it (as did I) and will often repeat me when I say it for real. It's uncanny how he seems able to distinguish when we're saying something so he'll repeat it and when we're genuinely saying it.

He thoroughly enjoys placing items in—and removing them from—the dirty laundry basket. Today I asked him to put a couple of items there and he had so much fun doing that, he decided to pick up a few other things from the floor and deposit them there as well. My house shoes are still hanging out on top of the pile of dirty/not actually dirty clothes :)

While I dreaded the transition, the past month marked the end of the two-nap-a-day era in Ty's life. He's missed his morning nap plenty of times before now if we were away from home and handled it fine, but I just...I needed him to take a nap in the morning if we were hanging out at home. That was the only way I could get anything done! Plus, have you tried to fill an entire day's worth of time for a young toddler? It's hard. He's too young to really do much of anything organized (but thanks anyway, Pinterest), and one can only walk about the house and back yard so many times. We both get frustrated. We need an intermission.

I had always planned to initiate quiet time when nap time was no longer necessary, but I had no idea how to communicate the concept to a baby. So, I just told him like it was. "Ok buddy, it's quiet time. You have to sit in your bed with books and toys, but you don't have to go to sleep. It's just quiet time." On day one he cried for 15 minutes and then fell asleep. Lame. On day two, he cried the entire time. But I think (it's hard to remember exactly...) by the third try, he was ok with it. He whimpered a bit when the time came, but otherwise handled it fine. And now he's a pro. He seems eager to have quiet time and is actually "quiet" for much of it, which isn't a requirement. And I have the time to do a chore or two, read the bible, or...lie on the couch (it happens.)

His funniest new thing this week is, hands down, singing "hoorah, hoorah!" from the the song, The Ants Go Marching. The first time he did it was in the bathtub. He looked at me and started repeating a very specific sound, so I knew he thought he was saying something but couldn't tell what it was (welcome to my life). Then it hit me. Todd had been singing "the Todds go marching two by two, hoorah, hoorah!" as they walked up the stairs before bath time (side note, Ty's name is actually Todd, so the lyrics make sense). Ty was singing the "hoorah, hoorah!" part of the song! To be sure, I started singing it and yep. That was it :) It's become my new favorite song, just to hear Ty chime in before, during, or after the hoorahs :)

(NOTE: This isn't Ty's first attempt at singing. In the evenings we watch the Dick Van Dyke show and Ty has long been mimicking the last two notes of the wordless theme song. It's very distinct :) )

And now for some pictures from this morning. I had a boy, a moose, and a bear in my bedroom :)

Tales of *tiny* Ty

As of Thursday Ty is fifteen months old, and what an eventful two days it's been since that threshold was crossed :) For real, it's like stuff happened overnight. Over two nights, I guess. Or maybe I'll give him the entire week for good measure since I can't swear to remembering exactly.

I'm talking about talking, mostly. A couple of days ago, he started repeating the word "up" and would even say it upon request occasionally. I decided that he did it too consistently and too clearly for it to be a fluke (you know babies do that, "say" something that sounds like something else to which others are quick to assign actual meaning). For instance, he's been babbling "mama" and "dada" for months, but most of it doesn't count. But yesterday, while putting dry pasta into the muffin tin and listing to nursery rhyme songs, he said "UP!" after hearing the line, "Jack and Jill went up the hill." Twice.

His B words are also coming along nicely. Granted, they all sound mostly the same, but as his mother, naturally I can discern what he means (false...I can pretend). He does say "baby" pretty well, though. It sounds more like "bay" in a high pitched voice, but he can identify babies on things like diaper packaging so I think it's legit. Some of his other B words that we think he's trying to get out are: bike, ball, book, bear, and bus. I don't know why so many of the words we say to him start with B. Is that just us?

Another really adorable new thing is his gorilla imitation. There's a picture of a gorilla in his animal book and the other day I showed him what gorillas do. So now when we ask him what the gorilla says or show him the picture (which he now goes flipping through the book to find), he beats his chest and says "AAAHHHH!" It's too much. It's actually the same sound he makes when he runs (I use the term loosely). Even if I'm not the one outside with him, I can tell when he's running because he does his own war cry. It's hilarious.

Another fun new favorite is the way he responds when he hears "Ring Around the Rosie." He picks that rhyme out of his book and I sing it to him, smacking the floor on "all fall DOWN!" and he loves it to the point of beating on the ground himself. He heard the song come on yesterday (also during pasta-in-the-muffin-tin time) for the first time and as soon as the lyrics started he whirled around to identify the source. Then he danced a little. So, so cute :)

He will very consistently sign the words for please and thank you—sometimes unprompted—, he loves throwing dirty tissues in the trash can (I know that's gross, but he really enjoys it...I can't resist how happy it makes him :) ), he  is fond of taking me by the finger and leading me to wherever or whatever he wants and he absolutely hates being left in nursery at church. That's pretty much him in a nutshell. He has had me laughing and smiling an awful lot this week, and all his attempts at new words are exciting and long-anticipated :)

Did he really used to look like this? And be like this? So still and...still.

Now he prefers doing things like "going round and round," as pictured below (I know it's impossible to tell, but he is in fact spinning in a circle, with a rock in each hand).

And this I just think is really cute of him. It's not recent. Our Easter picture, actually.

Tales of *tiny* Ty: Ty {almost} Unscripted

Let's be real. This site is more of my journal and life documentation than an actual, beneficial-to-the-general-public blog. For example, I could not for the life of me remember when I had to ditch my weddings rings when I was pregnant with Ty, so I just went back and read some old Wednesday Storks, the series where I documented his pregnancy. I'm guessing no one else has needed to reference those posts since the time they were written, but they have helped me remember what happened when.

I also shamelessly admit that I will frequently look at the pictures from the early days of Tales of *tiny* Ty. I'm always struck by just how cute he was (I know). It's like I forgot what he looked like. Probably because I did. I want to be able to look back a year from now and say, "oh, right. He used to do that," or "that's what he looked like! I remember now..."

It is in that spirit (and the fact that I needed a photography project :) ) that I am leaving myself this documentary of a small piece of one of his days. I know they won't look like this forever. On the contrary, they might not even look like this in a month! Not all of these require captions, but I have added them where further explanation is helpful :)

The dry winter air of Pretoria has been wreaking havoc on Ty's skin. Here I'm applying some coconut oil to his sad, sad scalp. It makes for an oily head but I don't think he's trying to win any fashion shows.

And this is his morning lotion treatment :) 

Often his first choice out of the toy basket, his "Scooby" truck. One day he'll see a cartoon with a dog named Scooby Doo and think they based a television series on his favorite truck toy :) 

This was a first...

Reading The Little Blue Truck

And that's a nap ;)