Teefs!

We begin, as is traditional, with a list of all the new things Tyler has going on for him. And because it's been two weeks since I've written anything, it's a pretty long list.

For starters, he's quite recently started babbling. Babbling is one of those critical development stages they tell us parents to be vigilant for. It's when they start making consonant-vowel combinations over and over. To the layman, this means Tyler can say Mama! Well, technically he can say mamamamamamama, but the thrill is still the same. He's become a regular chatterbox, mama-ing and raspberry-ing like it's going out of style. It's super cute.

He's also started getting a tooth, we think. He's got a little rough spot on his bottom jaw, on his right, I think. He's definitely a little bit more fussy than he has been in the past, but he's still sleeping most of the night, with the exception of strange times when he actually manages to roll himself onto his stomach while trying to sleep.

A detour: let me tell you about Tyler going to sleep. Have you ever been so tired you've tried to eat your own foot? Tyler has. Does it all the time. We'll put him down for his sleep and he'll roll left and right and munch on his hand for a while, but when that's not quite enough, he'll kick up his legs, grab a foot, and stuff the whole thing into his mouth while rolling around and making cute sounds. It's all Jess and I can do to keep from breaking out laughing while he is trying to rest. And then sometimes he'll roll on his side and then straighten his body out and roll to his stomach. And Tyler knows that stomachs are for exercise time, not sleep time, though, he's past the real danger zone for SIDS. He's really good at getting from his back to his stomach at this point, but he hasn't quite figured out the other way around yet, so we'll have to wake up and flip him over sometimes. Other than that, though, he still sleeps through the night.

Anyway, yeah, a tooth. We'll put up some pictures when we can see it.

Tyler has also learned how to get revenge for all the nomming we've been doing to him. He's started to chew on Jessie at bedtime. She'll go in for some cheek bites and he'll get all excited and start chewing on her chin or cheek or whatever other part of her face is close enough to get in his mouth, all while making serious grunting-effort noises. It's a riot. Yes, we got some video, it'll probably be up on facebook soon.

He's also starting to get more mobile, though he's still not a threat to disappear on you if you turn your back. He's getting better at turning and scooching himself backwards via a combination of pushups and superman poses. I don't think he's figured out how to use all of it for navigation, yet, but the exercise is really good for him.

Kelsey has been a fantastic babysitter this past week. Even with some early teething he's always been happy and well fed and well rested when we get home. Tyler likes her, too. He smiles when she comes over to see him and doesn't even fuss a little when she is in charge. Evidently babies don't get afraid of strangers until 8 to 10 months. We were going to maybe try and babysit Grant while his parents went out this weekend, but Grant is firmly in the 'don't like strangers' zone, and he wasn't having any of our playtime when we tried an experiment yesterday. So it looks like we may have picked the perfect time to start sending Tyler off to Day care, before he can get too anxious about something new.

That's right, just a few more weeks and Tyler starts day care. Empty house! That will be really weird! Kelsey is going to help us pick out some more cute outfits for him. We got the advice that the cuter he is, the more attention he'll get from his teacher, so we'll get the fashion-conscious sister to help us dress him up all adorable.

Also on the horizon, solid food! We're thinking about giving it a try tomorrow when we have both Kelsey and Grandma to play witness to the mess. I'll do my best to keep the mess to a minimum, though we'll almost certainly have to give him a bath afterwords.

Non-baby Micro-News! We went out on Kayaks on town lake with some friends from work. Nice cool water, and we got to hang out under the bridges downtown. A blast, I liked it more than tubing, actually. There are no video games coming out. I'm playing some older ones to relax, but it's as dry as a Texas summer, I tell you what. Jess got me an ice-cream maker. I've used it to make Orange Sherbet already, and there's some vanilla bean ice cream in the fridge ready to get turned tonight. I completed another song! I'll post it up here a bit later, but we're going to take Kelsey out to the Farmer's market and then get some hamburgers in a bit, and then go pick up grandma from the airport.

-N